Hi Folks, to answer the question in the title of this post...nowhere really…still hammering away at SharePoint and continuing to drive community efforts.

Back in November I did make a job change and left my buddies at B&R Business Solutions for a new position at CDW ( A Leading Microsoft Reseller with a strong Services offering) as a Senior Microsoft Consultant in their Microsoft Information Workers Practice. It was a great move for me and exposed me to new types of work such as doing a lot of Pre-Sales demos for SharePoint 2010 which as I predicted would start to wake companies up once the public beta was released. I also still do a lot of MOSS 2007 work but you know how it is… new product comes out and one becomes enamored with it making it hard to go back to working with the previous versions. I wince when asked to help with a SharePoint 2003 environment and am finding the same reaction when looking at 2007.

Speaking

At present I am doing some talks on the right way to set up a virtual lab (VMware or HyperV) so that those that are interested in testing the product can get a nice foothold on how this is accomplished. This talk is a lead up to SharePoint Evolutions, which will be held in London, UK in April 2010. Virtual environments are becoming the norm for many companies that wish to consolidate and make better use of their hardware. Though a bit slow to catch on with SharePoint I now find myself discussing this with customers quite often.

To ramp up for the Evolutions Conference I am doing some talks so that those who won't be flying over to London can get some of this information. I will be presenting on this in NYC at the upcoming SharePoint Saturday NYC and I am also hoping to present at SharePoint Saturday Boston in February. If you run a User Group in my vicinity and would like to have me speak feel free to ping me.

Other Community Efforts and News

So most of you who know me understand that I am one of the original founders of the ISPA (International SharePoint Professionals Association). Some may be thinking….where did you guys go? I will openly admit that the actual portal site got stagnant and it takes a lot of effort to keep something like this afloat. For me it has always been about more than the site. What is not visible is the behind the scenes work that goes on with this organization. User Groups have always been an effort that I have had interest in forming and growing. The Board members of the ISPA have always supported this and continue to do so today so even if you're not seeing any activity on the actual site...it doesn't mean that were not still 100% in tune with the community and helping it to grow.

We recently had a organization change and thought we did not change up any of the Board members we did elect two new folks to the Org. Eric Shupps (MVP) is now the President of the ISPA, Spence Harbar (MVP, MCM) is now the VP (or Deputy Prime Minister depending on what side of the Pond you are on) and Dave Mann (MVP) is now our Secretary. This change was made to bring some additional leadership to the group and I will be able to focus on some other efforts. Our members have also been busy with some additional offerings such as Natalya Voskresenskaya kicking off a new User Group that focuses on Enterprise Search and her passion FAST Search.

As far as the actual ISPA Portal is concerned we are going to try and be a bit more community friendly and give people the opportunity to work with us and different projects. We are also looking to launch this new portal on SharePoint 2010 J I have enlisted the help of Susan Henry to help with the rebranding of this so we will be on a new platform with a new look. But there has to be more. We will be seeking folks to work with us to keep the sites alive. We found out that 4 or 5 people simply can't do this and make people want to come back.

In closing I wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year and I look forward to seeing everyone in the months to come. If you're ever in Jersey….. J Send out a YO!

Cheers

Oh and there are some bugs with my blog seeing it is on 2010… most notably J If you choose to leave a comment it has an issue with approval so just drop me a email J bfox11b@verizon.net