When I mentioned to my boss that I was invited to be keynote at the Jordan SharePoint Saturday event, I don’t think he was too sure the value we’d get out of sending me. We do have these conversations on occasion. I was convinced by Muhanad (Mo), SharePoint MVP in Jordan, that even taking vacation time to come to Jordan before Teched Middle East would be worth my while. Mo definitely delivered on that promise. After the first 24 hours of registration there were 250 people registered and Mo had to cut off the registration at 500 after changing venues. In the background I had been working with the Quest partner in the middle east, QME. As the registration climbed I filled them in on what was happening. Jordan was quickly becoming the largest SharePoint Saturday event ever!
I arrived on the Friday before the SharePoint Saturday as is one of my traditions and visited the National Mosque, Royal Car museum with the Jordanian King’s collection of Ferraris and a lot more, and had an amazing Jordanian meal with Falafel with clearly the best Hummus outside of Jerusalem. It was actually cold the when I landed. I thought it was funny to see someone with ear muffs, until it started hailing.
Near sundown we ended up in a taxi headed out to a Unesco World Heritage site Quseir Amra located about an hour out of Amman. (I’ve started adding these locations to my itineraries as I visit countries.) It was a 8th century castle which felt more like a Roman or Greek chapel. The cool part was exploring this historical desert palace alone by flashlight.
Then we met up for dinner with Mohammed Zayed, the Microsoft SharePoint/IW technology specialist in Jordan, and a friend from my last trip to Jordan in 2008. Afterwards we went to the airport to pick up Michael Noel. Great times. We were definitely the three musketeers at this event kicking off the keynote and starting out with a panel addressing questions such as “Why as an IT guy should I invest in learning SharePoint,” and “What is causing this huge momentum around SharePoint around the globe?”
In a huge auditorium seating 300 the packed audience consisting of about half students and half corporations with significant Palestinian crowd. Prior I was hoping to launch the SharePoint community in Palestine, but logistically it was getting difficult with the limited time I had and the flights weren't cooperating. Huthaifa who runs a palestian user group in Ramallah, came to the event. I wore a Palestian hatta (Scarf) to show my support for this community who drove from the west bank to be at the event. It really hit me hard seeing these guys. They sacrificed a lot to be there, more than I can know. I definitely have a special place for Jordan and the Palestine in my heart. Tough to explain in my blog, but I know they know what I mean.
Left: SharePoint Saturday Jordan Right: SharePoint Saturday Speakers and Palestinian Crew
Half of the sessions were in English, half were in Arabic. I really didn’t have difficulties at all communicating with any of the folks there. I hope if you have interest you can make it out to meet this very passionate group. Anyone who has spoken at the Jordan SharePoint User Group has been changed by the experience. Just ask Michael Noel.
Above: Mo, Michael Noel, and Me at Byblos in Lebanon
In fact Mo and I were comparing notes. We met first in Mar 2008 when I was planning out my trip to the middle east for SharePoint Conference in Dubai and Istanbul. Since that time we’ve met 8 different times! Unbelievable. First was in Jordan when we met up and went to Petra. Incredible journey with some amazing stories of driving across the desert near the dead sea, getting helped out by the military and ultimately gaining victory with some chicken farmers. The next met at Tech.Ed US in Orlando where some of us went a bit wild and ended up in a fountain, but that wasn’t the best part. Getting into Cinderella’s castle for dinner when there was a waiting list a year long. That was awesome. Then MVP Summit in Redmond where we met up for lunch and turned a few heads. SharePoint Conference in Vegas where we brought the house down with the SharePoint Fairy. Then Tech.Ed Europe where we met up for the best Thai food in Berlin and again rocked the house with Rock Band with Todd Klindt, Zlatan, and Tobias. Ironically the next time he was in Redmond I was in Sweden during the objective domain. Good times for sure. He definitely feels more family than a casual friend or acquaintance. The day trip to Lebanon where we visited Byblos, another great adventure into history and great culinary experience as well. (The squid in it’s own ink actually tasted really good.) Then most recently we met up at Teched Middle East and spoke together for the first time. I think we really rocked our chalk talk.
View or Download my session on Preparing to Upgrade to SharePoint 2010.