Overview of tips, tools and speaker presentations from my attendance at 2011 Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Anaheim CA

1. Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011
Briefing to SPUG by State Attendees
Gary Vaughan
Senior SharePoint Advisor, IRM
Worldwide Information Network Services, Inc. (WINS)
10/19/11
vaughangl@state.gov

2. SPC11 Overview
• Annual, premier Microsoft SP Conference
– 7500 attendees from around the world
– 250 sessions (live and recorded)
– 125 vendor exhibitors
– Microsoft keynote
– Next conference, Las Vegas, November 2012
• SP 2010 focus, but SP 2007 relevance for State (at
site, post, Bureau and/or enterprise level)
• Practical strategy and tool take-ways
• Highlight a few SP 2010 issues for future

3. Planning and Governance
• Align SP to business (Ray)*
• Balance user freedom/planning (Roth)*
• SP as “Service Offering”…“Killer App”
• Learning from iterative deployments
• Migration Strategy best practices
• Boiling down governance for users (Hanley)*
• Opportunity to “catch up” governing SP2010

4. Architecture and Metrics
• “Building a Platform Users Can Trust”
• User metrics power (Best Buy)*
– Also metrics Tools at Expo: Axceler
Controlpoint, Avepoint, Cardiolog, Webtrends, nat
ive SP
• Info Architecture Tools for Business Analysis
– Per SPSTCDC: Balsamiq, Mindjet, Visio
• SP as part of broader enterprise IT architecture

5. IA Tool: Mindjet

6. IA Tool: Balsamiq

7. Training and Support
• Mini training a la Microsoft Express demos
• Focus on applied SP business use (Holme)*
• Value of “cheat sheets”, top tips
• Just-in-time videos per user site actions
• “Center of Excellence”, Users Group
• Enhancing usability: custom, add-ons (EA)*
• “Get help desk more on board”

8. User engagement and incentives
• “Gamification”: ‘SPgiving’, treasure hunts,
• Empower, user champions (Del Monte)*
• Other promotion: posters, launch party
• “It takes a village”…not just site owner
• Power of search, FAST (IMF)*
• Progress in shaping SP to meet user needs
(“solutions” vs. OOTB)…(Best Buy)*

9. SP2010 Findability Tips (Jamison)
• Fix Contribution – mix folders and lists
• Fix Browsing and Navigation
• Fix Search
• Align Taxonomy
• Integrate Social
• Only then, do Content Types, Document
Sets, Content Organizer make sense!

10. Social Media
• Power of MY Gateway Intranet (Microsoft)*
• Tight integration of data and people
• Reverse mentoring to bridge generations
• “Different tools for different groups”
• How capture “records” from social media?
• How relate EDIP tools to SP 2010?

11. Resources
• Online Resources and Links
– Microsoft SharePoint Adoption Kit
– Microsoft MOSS Productivity Hub
– http://envisionthepossible.com
– SP Maturity Model
– Asif Rehmani videos
– Office 365 (30 day free trial)

12. Books and Papers
• Books
– Essential SharePoint 2010, by Scott
Jamison, SusanHanley and Mauro Cardarelli
– SharePoint Shepherd’s Guide for End Users for
2010, by Robert Bogue
– Business Model Generation: A Handbook for
Visionaries, Game Changes and Challengers:
book, blog post, video.
– SP Planning and Adoption Framework White
Paper (Ray)

13. SPC11 Speaker Reference Descriptions*
(in order as presented in slides, with slide reference bolded, but
referenced presentation links not provided)
• Todd Ray, SharePoint Planning and Adoption Framework
• Greg Roth, The City of SharePoint What SharePoint Planners Can Learn
From City Planning
• Best Buy, True Business and IT Partnership Best Buy Governance and
SharePoint 2010
• Susan Hanley, Practical Approach to SharePoint Governance The Key to
Successful SharePoint 2010 Solutions
• Dan Holme, Change Management Preparing End Users for SharePoint
2010
• EA, How Gaming Giant EA Drove Culture Change with SharePoint 2010
• Del Monte, Del Monte Lessons Learned after 10 Years and 4 Product
Versions
• IMF, Implementing FAST Search for SharePoint 2010 at the IMF
• Microsoft, More Than My How Microsoft is driving social adoption and
intranet change through shared services