SharePoint Conference 2009: Day 4

Today was the fourth and final day for the exceptional 2009 SharePoint Conference.  Today was a deviation from the norm, in that we did not spend the day in the typical SharePoint 2010 sessions.  We actually spent the day with the Microsoft Partner Team, attending back-to-back sessions learning how we, as partners, can leverage the SharePoint 2010 platform to create even more value for our clients. 

Anyone that knows me knows that our clients are more than just “customers.”  I firmly believe in aligning with our clients, understanding their business, understanding what pains they are feeling, and creating long-lasting, trust-based relationships with them – they are my friends.  So, when I have the opportunity to learn ways that we can add even more value than we already do, I am definitely on-board...

SharePoint Conference 2009: Day 3

Today started with a very good session on Governance.  This session was not only applicable to SharePoint 2010, but also to MOSS 2007. 

A few good takeaways from this session were:

• Users find workarounds to SharePoint, so it must be easy and your users must be trained
• Start with the intended business outcome and let that drive your governance plan
• The SharePoint culture needs to be evangelized ‘top-down’ in the organization
• One size does not fit all - governance plans should be tailored and can contain multiple levels

SharePoint Conference 2009: Day 2

 Day 2 started with a session on xRM and SharePoint.  It was somewhat ironic that this session was very similar, in terms of content, to the session we do at live events and in our webinars at Success Accelerators.  There were a few custom tools that I had not seen before, but overall this was a good session for anyone looking to determine if they can leverage CRM with SharePoint.  We work closely with Customer Connect in this area, and have done quite a few integration and xRM implementations, so this is all exciting stuff, and goes back to our motto of ‘SharePoint as a platform.’

Here are a few more highlights from Day 2:

• SharePoint Server 2010 is now better equipped to handle multi-tenancy
• Service Applications (formerly SSP) can now be grouped and multiple (many) can co-exist