Collaborpedia

Written by: Shadeed Eleazer

As our nation stood in solemn remembrance of 9/11, an event that altered this country’s moral fabric, a new community event was stirring within the Microsoft SharePoint community during the weekend. SharePoint Saturday, an event started by Michael Lotter and Josh Carlisle in Virginia Beach in the late fall of 2008, has grown into an international phenomenon, with hosts organizing in Capetown, Toronto, and Copenhagen and various host cities throughout the continental USA.

The stage was set for the 2nd SharePoint Saturday event to be held in New York City at the Learning Tree Facility in Manhattan’s Financial District.
Despite rainy conditions which plagued the weekend, there was a great turnout of developers, admins, managers, and end users to the totally clueless to interact with speakers and vendors who traveled far and wide to interact, connect, and grow from the experience.

The event, organized by Dux Raymond Sy and Michael Lotter was a success by all accounts as a gathering of close to 40 speakers were lined up to deliver their viewpoints and perspective on the rapidly changing landscape of SharePoint from a technical point of view.

The huge anticipation for the release of Office SharePoint 2010 influenced the course content for speakers as well as there was the highest collective focus on areas such as social computing than any other SharePoint Saturday event I’ve witnessed or spoken at to date.

I delivered two sessions entitled Redefining SharePoint Administration: The 2010 Mindset and Transitioning Into SharePoint Careers. The 2nd session was recorded and is available online
I had a great time with both with tons of follow-ups to do. One idea I’ve developed is to do follow-up conference calls with my session attendees to handle all Q&A for the subject matter.
I had an awesome time and met great speakers, sponsors, and attendees within the SharePoint community.

The speaker’s social and SharePint gatherings were held at Ulysses, located within walking distance on 95 Pearl Street. What makes SharePoint Saturday special is the interaction that attendees are afforded to internationally known speakers and community leaders free of charge. In an economy where training budgets are down, SharePoint Saturday fills a much needed void for quality content.

For more information on SharePoint Saturday and to view the upcoming schedule of SharePoint Saturday events being hosted in your area, visit: