איך אַטענדאַד מיין ערשטער אלץ שאַרעפּאָינט זיצונג this past weekend and it was a blast.

דאנערשטיק נאָכמיטאָג, איך פארטריבן אַראָפּ צו ווירזשיניע, גיידיד דורך מיין ניי געקויפט $50 GPS appliance plug-in thing to my phone. The device was flawless. After the five hour drive, איך האט די ענערגיע צו טאָן אַ פייַן לויפן אויף די טרעד מיל און דעמאָלט, אַפֿילו מער סאַפּרייזינגלי, had the energy to head to the lobby for an advertised speaker’s cocktail hour. Conference n00b that I am, it turned out that the cocktail hour was really a ruse to get speakers to show up and help stuff papers and swag into shoulder bags for conference attendees 🙂

Had a hard time sleeping because I was speaking first thing Friday AM. Nervousness, a nagging feeling that I needed to add a slide to my presentation and a very disturbing cat show on Animal Planet kept me up late. Since I went to sleep late, I naturally got up early. I did add a fairly detailed technical architecture slide. It was well worth the effort because the 25 מינוט פון ק&A would have been very awkward without it. I was lucky to get the first slot in the technical track. Sahil Malik was originally going to speak Friday AM and I was going to speak Saturday but he needed to swap times. This allowed me to do my presentation and then sit back and enjoy everything going forward Friday and Saturday.

The presentation went OK. I definitely have room to improve it. I spoke about how we can access and use web services from a SharePoint Designer workflow using a custom action. Over time, איך וועל בונד דעם אינפֿאָרמאַציע אין מיין סעריע איבער אין EUSP.com for End Users trying to get the most use out of that tool. I blew through my slides and demo in 35 מינוט, to my dismay at the time. Luckily, ק&א איז געווען לעבעדיק, no doubt helped by the fact that it was early morning before lunch. ק&A is my favorite part of any presentation.

עס זענען געווען פילע טשיקאַווע סאַבדזשעקס און איך האָפֿן צו בלאָג וועגן זיי אין גרעסער דעטאַל דעם וואָך (צייַט פּערמיטינג, ווי שטענדיק). A fellow from CMS Watch provided a highly critical yet very hopeful review of SharePoint’s position in the market. A different discussion focused on the paucity of SharePoint resources and the difficulty that recruiters have finding good talent that is also "affordable" in this very tight market. The CMS Watch guy referred to the SharePoint human resources pool as being like a "guild." I’m mainly familiar with that term in MMORPG terms and it gave me a little thrill, to be honest 🙂

The highlight of the conference was just meeting and catching up with people I’ve "known" online for a while. The best was sitting at the bar with בעקי יססערמאַן (מאָססלאָווער) פֿאַר 3 אָדער 4 שעה (און אַז, נאָך איך געהאט פאַרטיק געטרונקען פֿאַר די נאַכט). I don’t often get to talk about פאַרסקאַפּע אָדער בבל 5 מיט קאַנסאַס סיטי רעזידאַנץ.

באָב פאָקס איז געווען דאָרט און ווי געוויינטלעך, איז אַ כווערלווינד פון ינטראָוז, chats and just plain frenetic energy. He invited me to Saturday breakfast with Sahil Malik and that was great.

שבת (טאָג 2), מייק לאַטער דראַגד זיך צו די זיצונג צו רעדן וועגן ינפאָפּאַטה און דעריבער האט ער זיך איינגעשריבן בעקי אין די סוף פון די טאָג צו טאָן אַ סאָרט פון אַלגעמיינע ק&א סעסיע פֿאַר וועגן 30 צו 45 מינוט דער הויפּט פאָוקיסט אויף ינפאָפּאַטה (מייק) and AJAX (בעקי). I wish Becky had been able to go through her full/formal presentation but I’m sure I’ll get a chance to see that one of these days. I have a feeling she’ll be "hitting the circuit" געגאנגען פאָרויס.

I could go on and on. Two last points — the financial purpose of the conference was to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network and it raised $5,000. That was awesome. לעסאָף, איך ווילן צו עפנטלעך דאַנקען גערי בלאַט, Gary Vaughn and Bob Fox for alerting me to and allowing me to speak at the conference. אַוואַדע, the two Gary’s had a team of people supporting and organizing and all of you were awesome. I had high expectations before I went and it was better than I had hoped for.

Keep on the alert for the next conference scheduled for November 7th and 8th. Aside from some great content, עס ס גוואַלדיק פֿאַר באַגעגעניש אַרויף מיט אַלע יענע אָנליין פערזענלעכקייטן איר ווע באקאנט דורך בלאָגס, טוויטטער, גרופּעס, אאז"ו ו.

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אַבאָנירן צו מיין בלאָג.