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Archive for the month “November, 2009”

26 Nov 2009

SUGUK November meeting review

Last night was the first SharePoint User Group UK (SUGUK) meeting that I have taken responsibility for organising since taking on the role of a regional organiser.  We had a great  turnout of over 100 members and I was very well supported by several SharePoint friends including former organiser and group co-founder Nick Swan, Paul Hunt, Simon Doy and Chris Forbes (Scotland organiser) to name but a few. 

If the standard of presenters and presentations remains as high as last night then my job is going to be a breeze!  First up we had Martin Hatch from Content and Code presenting on building an accessible SharePoint system.  Now I know Martin from a mutual client we had a few years ago so I know that technically the guy is pretty sharp.  What we saw last night is that Martin has a very confident and engaging manner with the audience because he knows his subject inside out and backwards.  What I liked most about the presentation was that although the subject matter was accessibility (I learned a lot about that I never new!) all the techniques were demonstrated to be applicable for more general application which I wasn’t expecting.  (The slides and demo files from Martin’s presentation are all downloadable from his blog post).

Our second speaker was Chris O’Brien, independent SharePoint consultant.  Chris is a very relaxed and accomplished speaker and he gave us an excellent tour of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) enhancements in SharePoint 2010 demonstrating some Visual Studio 2010 enhancements for good measure.  Special thanks should go to Chris as he is a father of 8 week old twin boys and is preparing for best man duties this coming Saturday all on top of his normal hectic schedule!

Chris was one of several SharePoint MVPs in attendance and clearly from the questions and discussions during the evening there was a lot of experience in the room.  In all a great evening and even a quick SharePint in the local pub afterwards!

Posted in Community, SharePoint and tagged , , ,
24 Nov 2009

PCG at the Houses of Parliament

Today was National Freelancers Day and I was fortunate enough to be invited to a reception held at the Houses of Parliament.  I have never been before and so arrived an hour early in order to have as much of a poke around as I could.  It truly is an incredible place steeped in history and I could have easily spent 2 hours or more perusing the paintings and architecture on display.

The reception itself was enlightening, interesting and enjoyable and I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with the Chairman of the Professional Contractors Group, Chris Bryce.  Chris is a contractor of some 17 years and is articulate, well reasoned and very passionate about getting a better deal from the UK Government for freelance and contract workers.

MPs from all three of the main political parties addressed the reception and I was genuinely impressed with all of them.  It’s reassuring to hear that there is an agenda within all the major parties and the shortcomings and inadequacies of the current legislation (such as IR35) are at least acknowledged.

So in all a useful and very memorable day indeed for me.

Posted in Community, Freelancing and tagged , , ,
12 Nov 2009

November SharePoint User Group meeting in London

As per my previous post I am now more involved with the SharePoint User Group UK (SUGUK) helping to organise meetings in London and the South East.  I am pleased to confirm that the first meeting under my watch is on Wednesday 25th November hosted by Microsoft at their offices in Cardinal Place, Victoria, London.

We have two great speakers, both of whom I know personally and the session details are as follows;

Session 1 – Developing an Accessible SharePoint System – Martin Hatch

  • What is accessibility?
  • Presenting “SAS”: our unique SharePoint Accessibility Solution presenting the functionality that is delivered by the platform.
  • Challenges and major hurdles
  • Technical approach
    • AAA XHTML rendering
    • Accessible Content Management
    • Web Part Editing
    • List views, toolbars and menus
    • Back-end administration Roadmap
  • Questions

Session 2 – ECM Enhancements in SharePoint 2010 – Chris O’Brien

Enterprise Content Management is SharePoint’s bedrock. The 2010 release adds significant new capabilities in all ECM pillars (Document Management, Web Content Management and Records Management), and Microsoft have addressed some of the top ECM pain points reported by clients in SharePoint 2007. This session looks at the improvements in user experience, scalability and taxonomy, with demos showing how to leverage new features such as Enterprise Content Types, the Managed Metadata field and Content Organizer to better manage your documents and/or pages. Specific enhancements in WCM and RM will also be discussed. This session is a great way to kick-start your awareness of SharePoint 2010, and questions on other aspects of the new version are welcome in the Q & A wrap-up at the end (or the pub!)

For more details and to sign up check out the post on the user group site.

Posted in Community, SharePoint and tagged , ,

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