Australia Sharepoint Conference June 16/17 2010

Interesting. I mentioned on Twitter that I would like to go to Australia Sharepoint Conference but can’t justify the price of the ticket (not core business for me). So Kerriann contacted me on LinkedIn (not Twitter) and offered me a ticket. Cool. I’m going and so is my mate Jodie Miners aka JodieM. You can follow Sharepoint Conference on @AUSharepoint

What is Sharepoint and why do I want to go?

Many many students of mine over the years have mentioned Sharepoint as their internal, enterprise based intranet service with collaboration features. Not all comments have been good but I think a lot of issues have been around training and understanding of it’s core purpose, and overly rigid implementations by IT. One woman swears that you can’t collaboratively edit documents, and that that feature has been turned off. Which just sounds plain weird to me. But I’ve never used it and want to know more about it so off I go. This article on IDM – Image and Data Manager has a good wrap up:

While it is estimated that SharePoint is Microsoft’s fast growing product, the likely reality is that in many instances the product is not being fully utilised. According to Debbie Ireland, Conference Convenor, while thousands of Australian businesses, government departments and local offices of global organisations have implemented SharePoint, they are probably only utilising around twenty to thirty percent of its potential.

… which is pretty well what I meant above 😛

and I had a poke around on Wikipedia to read more about the actual software:

Microsoft SharePoint, also known as Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, is a content management system with integrated search functionality developed by Microsoft that allows users to work in a web-based collaborative environment. Microsoft provides certain built-in functionality, and third-party developers can also develop custom modifications to extend functionality.

In other words, SharePoint is a Microsoft product that manages the tasks and information of an organization with respect to their hierarchy levels.

SharePoint is a collection of products and software elements that includes, among a growing selection of components, web browser-based collaboration functions, process management modules, search modules, and a document-management platform. SharePoint can be used to host web sites that access shared workspaces, information stores and documents, as well as host-defined applications such as wikis and blogs. All users can manipulate proprietary controls called “web parts” or interact with pieces of content such as lists and document libraries.

Sort of like the old Enterprise software but all in a browser (not client/server solutions) and lots of social stuff wrapped around it. How much I don’t know. I’ll let you know after the conference.

What’s the conference about then, eh?

The guff on the front page says:

This will be THE Australian SharePoint Conference to learn about both SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010. Expert local and international speakers will present on topics that will help you understand and succeed with your SharePoint implementations, and add real world value to your organisation and businesses.

I had a look at the speakers and subjects – some people will be put off by the nature of the technical streams but the Business and Voice of the Customer Streams look intriguing:

Why you need to be more social! – 200 Level
“Social Computing” is popping up everywhere. It’s the latest buzzword to be used to describe a set of technologies and capabilities which, when combined, can help people work better together. This session is about exploring what Social Computing is, why it’s important and what it can do for you. It’s built on more than 2 years of experience applying social technologies in the Enterprise and covers what is possible now, and what will be possible with SharePoint 2010.

Daniel McPherson

Building an Analytics solution with SharePoint 2010, Microsoft CRM and BI – 200 Level
This session will demonstrate how to build an Analytics solution with SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft BI to offer a unique platform that delivers:
– Improved decision making with the enhanced insight from powerful analytic tools
– A 360° client view-with up-to-date, complete histories

Deon Taylor,Lionel Gomes Da Rosa

I’m fascinated by social CRM – I spoke at CeBIT on it last year and social media world the year before – and want to see where it’s evolved to and how much of Sharepoint addresses the issues. Here’s  an image of Salesforce + Facebook from a  presentation I gave years ago, no idea where it’s at now… but notice the CRM wraps around the social info…

Voice of the Customer stream is also interesting but I find those thwart with dangers… when is something a “case study” and when it is “advertising”? Maybe I’m just a bit sensitive to it at the moment – got back from a conference last week where the sponsors spoke for 35 minutes at the beginning of our panel and we got 10 minutes each. AND one of the panellists was pushed in last minute by the company. Makes me determined not to be involved … but I digress. I’m almost sure that this conference won’t be like that.

How do I book?

Head over to http://www.regonline.com/checkin.asp?eventid=804948 – tickets are $650 each.

Any social media stuff we should know about?

Australia Sharepoint Conferencer organisers have very wisely been on Twitter for some time and using social media to promote their conference.

The Australian SharePoint Conference Team
www.sharepointconference.com.au
http://twitter.com/AUSharePoint
http://events.linkedin.com/Australian-Community-SharePoint/pub/211181

Dunno if they have a Flickr etc account.

Will I see you there?  Anything here for you?