SPFoxhole Blog

Through the years of working in this industry I have had the good fortune to attend many conferences.  For the first couple years after becoming an MVP one of the biggest reasons for me to attend was to see all my old friends in person and sit down over a drink or 20 and discuss what we are seeing in the industry... new findings,  customer engagement stories,  things we would like to see changed and whats happening in our personal lives.  The SharePoint Community is a very tight group and I am not just referring to the MVP group.  I enjoy seeing folks that I have had the pleasure of becoming aquatinted to over the years so these conferences are like a reunion of sorts. 

After a while you start to evaluate things and the following thoughts start to form:

1. Ok I was at this conference last year and it was ok... not great as far as the presentations but it was ok.  Do i need to come back to this one
2. Not wanting to offend any of my fellow speakers but there are times in between a product cycle where the sessions tend to repeat which for me tends to drive me out of the conference sessions and into the hallways or nearby pub to have discussions.
3. Travel BurnOut ... i dont think i need to say more here.

So getting back to the topic I can say that this conference is one that I have added to my must attend list.  The concept was perfect, the sessions being presented here are no-nonsense, Notes from the Field, straight from the horses mouth, no product advertising.  This isnt a sales conference hawking SharePoint, this is a real view from field folks providing Best Practice Concepts.  Concepts that you can trust and bring back to your organizations.  

Are you worried about attending or sending your people to this conference due to the poor economy we are facing today?                                                                                                                                      How many of you were thinking of attending to obtain answers for a botched installation?                        How many of you have just finished a Proof of Concept and are now ready to roll SharePoint out into your corporate environment?   Hey if thats the case you can contact me directly :)

Simply stated this is the conference you dont want to miss.  In reality you will save money by attending so you can get face to face answers from individuals that have done this countless times successfully and can help you avoid the pitfalls that do happen.  Thats another good point I would like to make.   At the larger conferences such as TechEd or SPC or SPConnections the size of the rooms are so large that its almost impossible to walk up to one of the speakers afterwards to discuss what you heard and what you need answers for.  I can tell you that at least from the MVP side of the fence we are all very approachable.  With the exception of maybe Natalya or Heather or Agnes or Penny or Simser :)  I would say you could walk up to any of us and put us in a headlock until you get the answers you need (See I am a nice guy.... i left the female MVPs out of the loop for getting jumped on :) )

So what am i doing at this conf

Both Spence Harbar and I are tackling a subject most people avoid like the plague due to misunderstanding and fear of screwing up.  We are doing a double session on Best Practices for Kerberos Implementation and the reason for a double session is to first give out the basics and then jump into advanced topics.  This is not such a scary subject, both Spence and I have implemented this alot and Spence in my eyes is one of the authorities on this subject.  I guarantee that if you attend these sessions you will walk away with a solid understanding of Kerberos Implementation and you will lose the apprehension to apply it to your environments.  I am adding the session track here which i have stolen (copied on permission actually) from Spence's recent post

The Lineup of speakers

Me being the exception to this next statement.... have a look at the incredible list of speakers for this event.  We even pulled in some additional Brits for this :)   And if your looking for answers on Performance and Capacity Planning we again have Mike Watson (Formerly of MSFT now a start at Quest) and you can pounce on him with any questions you may have on this subject.   Heck i do the same :)   Oh and i cant forget to mention who the Keynote speaker is.... Joel Oleson.  One of the nicest guys I have ever met and will drink anyone under the table (with pineapple juice of course)

So in conclusion and to sum up this rather long post.  There are only a few conferences that I will attend from here forward during the year (not including UG Events and CodeCamps)  and this is one of them.  I want to commend my bud Ben Curry for doing such an outstanding job with this.