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12/31/2008Dec 31, 2008. A frantic email... Hey my Zune 30 stopped working and is hung on the startup screen at 100% any one elses hung or stopped working? Thanks SlickRickOG :) You're always on top of stuff. 
A huge flurry on the zune.net forums with over 2000 posts with people complaining and giving scary recommendations involving pulling off screws and manually rebooting. [DON'T DO THIS IT WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY and actually the issue comes back as soon as you go to sync it up again.] Best case scenario is to NOT CONNECT YOUR DEVICE. Other blogs and responses in the forums suggest you should hold the up and play button to force a reboot. This doesn't work on most devices. Answers???? YES Finally! These Answers Couldn't come fast enough. I'm republishing the most important ones from the FAQ. If you can don't sync your Zune for 24 hours. on http://support.zune.net we now have official answers My Zune 30 is frozen. What should I do? Follow these steps: - Disconnect your Zune from USB and AC power sources.
- Because the player is frozen, its battery will drain—this is good. Wait until the battery is empty and the screen goes black. If the battery was fully charged, this might take a couple of hours.
- Wait until after noon GMT on January 1, 2009 (that's 7 a.m. Eastern or 4 a.m. Pacific time).
- Connect your Zune to either a USB port on the back or your computer or to AC power using the Zune AC Adapter and let it charge.
Once the battery has sufficient power, the player should start normally. No other action is required—you can go back to using your Zune! What if I took advice from the forums and reset my Zune by disconnecting the battery? This is a bad idea and we do not recommend opening your Zune by yourself (for one thing, doing so will void your warranty). However, if you've already opened it, do one of the following: - Wait 24 hours from the time that you reset the Zune and then sync with your computer to refresh the usage rights; or
- Delete the player's content using the Zune software (go to Settings, Device, Sync Options, Erase All Content), then re-sync it from your collection.
Heads up East Coast and West Coast USA. I'm going to be in the D.C. / Baltimore area on January 8th for a special evening at the Baltimore SharePoint Users Group. If you're anywhere even remotely close I'd encourage you to come. Even if you are in D.C. and Baltimore isn't your scene I recommend you come for this one. I will be in Virginia Beach at the FREE SharePoint Saturday event as well. They have a great lineup and I expect some people will even be flying in for this one. The Baltimore (Broader Baltimore D.C. and Northern Virginia Area) event - Jan 8 Quote from the BSUG site: It's been a great year here at BSPUG. We've turn 1 this year, had some Great
sessions and Great Speakers come through and our code camp was a huge hit. ...We will be meeting at UMBC Tech Center, 1450 Rolling
Road, Halethorpe, MD. Doors open at 6pm for food and refreshments. Joel will be giving a presentation on 10 Steps to Success, Avoiding Failed
SharePoint Deployments. Please go to http://www.baltimoresug.org/events and respond to the RSVP
survey to RSVP as this is sure to fill up quickly. (Site may be experiencing tech difficulties and addressed shortly.) SharePoint Saturday Virginia Beach - January 10 (all day!) 
Saturday, January 10th, 2009 at the ATC this is a free event you can't afford to miss. Tons of Great Sessions Southern California (San Diego) SharePoint Users Group - Jan 21 @ 6:30pm Avoiding Failed Deployments: SharePoint Governance http://www.socalsharepoint.com/Pages/Default.aspx 12/23/2008
Dear Family and Friends, and friends that are simply readers of my blog whom I haven't met yet… Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays…
(See more pictures on Joel's Fickr Photostream)
It’s been quite the year… Lots of surprises.
The first surprise was when Joel decided that he was ready to move on. He decided that he was ready for bigger and better things, greater challenges, and more of what he loved. While it was sad for the kids to give up their weekly weekend trips to Microsoft, the big summer picnic, Halloween, and Christmas parties. Even Virginia was sad to give up the doctor visits with no co-pay. It was like loosing a kidney leaving Microsoft. It was painful. After 7+ years, it was tough. No hard feelings, Joel obviously learned a ton, and continues to have a special place in his heart for Microsoft, and his romance with SharePoint continues.
 In a trip to investigate Nintex and the opportunity to live in Australia, the family took a trip to Sydney and Melbourne Australia. The family favorite was our venture to Philip Island, a small island off the coast of the south eastern corner of Australia. The fairy penguins were truly amazing. It was a wonderful family bonding experience. As a family we decided it was a great opportunity and one that we decided to do. The interactive zoo and seeing native kangaroos in the blue mountains was incredible. We really enjoyed our time with the Australians and both the boys and parents alike had strong impressions that this was somewhere we would like to live.
 So Joel announced he was leaving, and opened himself up to options. Shane Young, Andrew Connell, Bob Fox, Dustin Miller and many others had lots of advice for him on his big move. Ultimately he decided the best way was to go independent over the summer for the maximum flexibility and join Quest at the end of the summer in a bit of an acquisition if he played his cards right. Joining up with Nintex as a product evangelist as his first real gig outside of Microsoft, next advisory and professional blogging with Bamboo Solutions, and even fitting in training with Ted Pattison group doing a 5 day intense Admin training course co-taught with Shane Young, including co-authoring a Governance course with Nicola Young and John Ross. You might think that would be enough to fill a summer. Not even close.
 On the day he left Microsoft, Joel left for the airport for the Middle East. With a SharePoint Conference in Dubai and Istanbul, he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to visit a new region. Through his blog he conversed with Mo and Avi (Moss is my middle name), both relationships grew and blossomed. Mo would surpass expectations and give him the trip of his life visiting Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and Petra with an incredible life experience in the desert changing a flat tire, and riding on a donkey up steps leading to more mystery.
 Avi risked more than his name to come pick up Joel at the border of Jordan and Israel in the West Bank. Joel and Avi would create an incredible bond through sharing Shabat with his family and what an amazing family. As Avi put it, Moses only made it to Jordan, and Joel needed to come to the promised land. Incredible. So Joel visited the land of milk and honey including Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, the wailing wall, Joppa (Jonah and the whale), amazing markets, and other historical religious sights including the Jordan river from the Israel side.
 After a bit of a challenge in the Israel airport over his lack of papers (Why  didn't you print your itinerary) and numerous or odd stamps (Why were you in Indonesia?) in his passport, Joel did make it out of Israel and on his scheduled plane. The SharePoint conference in Dubai and tubing with Todd Klindt, and craming into the tiny car with Mo and his pals… (Don’t forget the Iranian hospital) it was a blast. Hanging out with real Palestinians and hearing the story from their lips was incredibly enlightening. Talk about a rich experience of a lifetime all wrapped into a single trip.
 That wasn’t enough. It was then onto Istanbul where after seeing the whirling dervishes, Joel would find some trouble on Taxim. A great learning experience. More on the blog on that one. Word to the wise; don’t ever buy drinks for someone without knowing the price. The drink might be champaign, and it just might be $200 a glass and you find yourself in the middle of a $1000 scam.
After the Middle East there were some small gigs with SharePoint911.com,  our SharePoint Survival Camp, some of which included providing training and workshops in Las Vegas, Ohio, and Switzerland. While in Ohio he visited Kirkland, an early Church history location where he visited the Kirkland temple and Niagara Falls. Andre Heymann, a good SharePoint friend from a  past life in Microsoft IT, arranged for the Switzerland trip including swimming in the lake in Zurich, an invigorating experience. Then up to the “Top of Europe” in Jungfrau in the Swiss Alps. I forgot to mention Tech Ed. An annual highlight for Joel. This year he some how ended up in a fountain with Bob Fox. You'll have to ask him about that some time.
Check out our Middle East Videos:
      
 The whole family planned a trip with the Beaulieu’s to Hawaii  (Virginia’s sister Christine’s family). We covered the whole island of Oahu from tip to tip both ways including enjoying lazy days on the beach and snorkeling at Molokai some of the world’s best from Maui, the endangered HUGE sea turtles were awesome, everyone saw them. The kids loved it. That was the highlight of the trip for all of us. Even after Scott lost his breakfast on the road to Hanna, we finished the trip to the black sand beach and enjoyed the numerous waterfalls. It’s easy to see how that could happen with sooo many turns.
 Joel had this grand plan of putting the house up for rent, going to Asia for a month while we rented the house out, then moving to Australia. While disruptive and exciting at the same time, we packed up the entire house and moved our stuff into the basement.
The trip to Asia was incredible. This was Joel’s third trip, but the first opportunity to bring the family to Asia. Essentially he had lined up Tech Ed South East Asia in Kuala Lumpur, Auckland, New Zealand, and Sydney,  Australia. While they weren’t exactly back to back, we’d spend the time in between (~1.5 weeks) across Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Bangkok, and Chiang Mai, Thailand. After the cyclone in Burma/Myanmar, you’d think it would be crazy to venture into a place where relief workers were denied access, but we were able to sneak an afternoon into Northern Myanmar to visit some temples and a market. We’ll all remember that experience for the rest of our lives.
Visiting the tribes in Northern Thailand with the ladies with the rings around their necks, the Elephant trekking, and bamboo rafting really stood out to us as once in a life time  opportunities. We had some special experiences there. The boys really enjoyed connecting with the little girls from one of the hill tribes. Cruising the canals in Bangkok, visiting the floating market, and spending time  together as a family in this friendly country was an incredible experience. While Joel was enjoying the local cuisine of crickets, Virginia was taking  in the art and culture. Everyone enjoyed the monkeys… one of Joel’s favorite things. Everywhere we went we had to find the monkey cave(s), monkey shows, and place where the monkeys hang out. We had multiple times to enjoy the elephants both at the Elephant reserve where the boys rode elephants into the river and were  dumped into the river, as well as the elephant trek outside of Chiang Mai where we all took the elephants trekking over an hour out into the jungle up steep hills and through the bush catching breath taking views. Even seeing elephants roaming the streets with their handlers in Bangkok was a bit wild. I bet we saw more than 30 Buddhist temples, 5 or so Hindu temples across Thailand and Malaysia with a few grand and National Mosques and Chinese temples mixed in, not counting the Royal Palaces in Seoul and Bangkok. After the trip Scott shared some deep thoughts on world religions… Buddha  vs. Christ vs. Mohammed. It was profound to see him at such a young age grasping the concepts of religion and really thinking about the origins of God and mankind’s relationship to God. I was hoping both boys would learn to appreciate what they have, and I think we succeeded in that plus a number of surprises we didn’t expect.
Check out our Asia Videos:
      
 After Asia we flew to Auckland, New Zealand and drove to Rotorua, a place not unlike Yellowstone with its geothermic activity. Spending the evening with the Maori peoples, rubbing noses and learning house to Hakka and dining like kings we topped off the evening with a visit to the sacred pools and glow worms. Another unreal experience, that I hope we can remember forever.
 Sydney was a special time where we were really able to relax. (Not that the 2 massages each we had in Thailand didn’t hit the spot) Coogee Castaway was a beautiful place on the beach where we didn’t have the hastles of a hotel and we were able to really integrate and see what it would really be like in a neighborhood in Sydney. Coogee beach was within  minutes and despite it being off season, we just had to jump in and hit the waves. Adam and Anastasia were very easy to work with. We even had breakfast with them and even walked with her and the girls to school one day. Cute outfits. Joel met up with some SharePoint MVPs at the conference and thanks to Steve Smith he saw Sydney Harbor from a jet boat doing some crazy 360 tricks. Taronga Zoo lived up to its worldwide fame. It was incredible. Best Zoo ever. Awesome layout, great design, wonderful animals. The only thing better than the Zoo is real world interactivity and man were we ever able to get that on this trip, from elephants, to tigers, snakes, monkeys, from least 5 different troops.
 Joel really tested our limits with a flight from Sydney to  Bangkok, with a one night stop over (where we crammed in even more J) and then an 8 hour layover in Korea (with a 6 hour city tour planned) before returning to Seattle. I think it was easily 44 hours with one night squished in their somewhere.
When we arrived back in Seattle we grabbed the closest hotel, and slept with no commitments. We then picked up our vehicle and headed to Saratoga Springs, UT to stay with Joel’s parents. It was expected that we’d wrap things up and head to Aus. Unfortunately the market took a dive and the number of showings went down to zero despite the numerous attempts to reduce the price. So that story ends with us deciding to put Australia on hold.
 The news doesn’t end there. Something good happened in Thailand, and something in the water in Utah along with some morning sickness, and WOW we’re having a baby! Now at 19 weeks, due on May 28, we are all excited to welcome a new one.
Scott, now 11 was in the reflections  contest this fall for a video he put together which involved stop motion video and Legos along with some music by Moby. His video won both the school competition, and the district. We’re waiting to hear how he does at the state competition. We’re all very excited for him, and encourage family and friends to check it out.
Robot Rock Yall (Youtube video)
"These crazy lego storm troopers get down to Moby. One storm trooper takes it too far and gets ran over! There's no doubt ..."
He did all the editing while some sections of the stop motion were Jared, and some were Joel’s. (The parts with the Soup can and Cake mix – he was testing product placement.)
 Jared really enjoyed the travel. He turned 9 this year, and had a huge pool party. He and Scott had over 20 kids at the Lehi pool. They had a blast and got tons of Legos. Their favorites. Both Scott and Jared made friends in Utah and will be sad to have to leave. Jared earned his wolf badge in Cub Scouts and enjoyed his first year at Cub Day Camp. Jared’s looking forward to having a furry friend for Christmas. He really enjoyed his time in Korea and hopes to go back to live there some time.
Virginia is now busy with focus on the baby. She’s sewn a blanket already,  and has read a ton of books since our time in Utah. She stays busy with various projects and has made really good friends. Trying to keep the apartment clean and dealing with the pressures of the move, Joel in and out of work projects and frequent travel has been a challenge, but exciting at the same time. It seems something is always going on. She looks forward to the birth.
 Joel, the world traveler and (Microsoft) SharePoint guru is now enjoying his employment with Quest Software. He sees this opportunity as a way to do and see even more. He’s already planning two keynote speeches at prominent SharePoint Best Practices Conferences in both London, and La Jolla (near San Diego). His evangelism role promises to lead him to connect with more SharePoint User Groups and conferences around the globe, his blogging has provided him with global visibility with recent readership in more than 134 countries and a regular readership and subscriber base of over 4000.
Our little family is truly blessed. We thank God for our blessings. We pray that God will bless you and yours this holiday season. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanza, Al-Hijira and Ashura, Asala, Bodhi - Happy Holidays!!! If I’ve learned one thing well in my global travels it’s that God loves everyone, everywhere and every soul has worth.
The Oleson Family
(Polynesian Cultural Center, Hawaii)
Joel, Virginia, Scott, Jared and TBD
Joel’s 2008 Countries: (* 8 New 13 Total)
- Canada (Toronto, Halifax)
- Switzerland * (Zurich)
- Germany * Frieburg
- South Korea + (Seoul)
- Thailand + (Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai)
- Myanmar (Burma) *+ (border town)
- New Zealand *+ (Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua)
- Australia + (x2) (Sydney, Melbourne)
- Malaysia + (Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Sangalor, Kuala Gandah)
- Israel * (Tel Aviv, Jerusalem,
- Jordan * (Amman, Dead Sea, Petra)
- U.A.E * (Dubai)
- Turkey * (Istanbul)
*New for Joel
+Family destinations
Here's our Must See YouTube Video Clips from our Trips this Year
You can find them all by searching for "joeloleson" on youtube.
Beautiful White Temple Chiang Rai, Thailand
Joel Oleson family takes a crazy elephant ride in to the Thai forest outside of Ch...
Petra the Reveal (Indiana Jones ...
The most amazing adventure meeting the hill tribes of northern Thailand and Burma ...
We load up this elephant outside of Kuala Lumpur Malaysia (Kuala Gandah) and it dumps us...
Joel ventures into the middle east and lands in Jerusalem, source of the worlds religious beginnings...
Stay in Touch... Find me on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and Feedfriend 12/19/2008In the past month, I’ve had some great conversations and met up with some folks that I had only met virtually. At SharePoint Connections…  
Left: L-R: Asif Rehmani MVP, Kevin Laahs MVP, Dan Holme MVP, ME (Joel Oleson in my Eurocup Turkei!), Ben Curry MVP (see most of you again at Connections Spring or at Best Practices) Right: MVP Dinner with Polly, Michael Noel MVP, Nicola, Fitz, Paul Stork MVP, Shane MVP, Owen Allen MS ISV guy, Steve Fox MS TAP guy, Melissa MVP lead, Asif MVP, Joel (with cool Hat)  
Left: Fitz (Mike Fitzmaurice) in his Kilt and bright orange glowing Nintex Shirt (Nintex Hooraugh!) Right: The SharePoint Couple (Nicola and Shane Young) 
The SharePoint Crew at 3 degrees Ice Bar in Las Vegas Shane Young MVP, Fitz (in Kilt), Polly, me, Nicola Young, Steve Fox, Michael Noel MVP (Quite the Contrast from Dead Sea, huh.) (Not my first Ice Bar on a SharePoint Excursion… You’ll have to ask Todd about his friend Stefen in Barcelona.) 
No SharePoint event is complete without at least one late night with Tony from AvePoint! And Toronto  
Joel Brings Christmas greetings to Toronto SharePoint User Group Left: Rob Winsor MVP, Reza Alirezaei MVP, Joel with Hat, Eli Robillard MVP on right (Wish we had more time… next time.) Who would have guessed so many SharePoint MVPs in Toronto :) Right: SharePoint Buzz’s Kanwal  
I need some facebook tagging capabilities. Joel and Ruven Gotz. Look forward to seeing Ruven at the upcoming Best Practices conference. Thanks live writer for letting the throw this together so fast! Send me comments to help me fill in the blanks! Where Next??? - DC and Baltimore on January 8 (Event Details TBD) mark you calendar for that evening
- Virginia Beach SharePoint Saturday Jan 10 – A can’t miss FREE event.
- San Diego User Group Jan 21
- La Jolla (near San Diego) Feb 2-4 (Don’t miss the can’t miss event)
More details of upcoming Shows and Conferences on my post Teched 2009, Best Practices Conference, SPTech, SharePoint Connections… Oh MY! Joel 12/18/2008The latest buzz is Plagiarism. It’s not cool. It hurts the community, it hurts yourself, and hey it’s actually illegal. Watch out ‘cause we in SharePoint Community… we watch each others backs! Those in the past who have made mistakes have fessed up, but their standing in the community will never be what it could. Sad, but true. The latest victim was our good buddy Andrew Connell. 
Here’s some of the conversation in the twitterverse: Gannotti: @muhanado @andrewconnell Did he just totally rip off your post Andrew? Not cool Kalsing: @andrewconnell That happended to me too: http://is.gd/cfLJ > http://is.gd/cfLy. After I wrote to them, they apologised and added source ref. bfox11b: @andrewconnell pretty F'n blatent there bud. Agree that flogging or stoning is in order here. or perhaps public humiliation :) imagingexpert: @andrewconnell - at the least they should have cited your post and paraphrased - not cool at all [Anonymous D] i did see that. also, given all the furor over AC getting his content copied was that [others are] guilty of the same. JDWade @joeloleson @bobfox11b You mean some of the recent copying of blog posts and tweets? Plagerism has always been an issue...just new arenas JDWade: @joeloleson I agree with you...it isn't the way to handle it. You need to protect your content but do so appropriately [guy who messed up] @joeloleson Nope, that was me and I apologize for trying to grow my blog to fast. I took those down and will continue original content. [guy who messed up] @joeloleson I did however mean to point to the original, either way, bad idea. [He’s got his flogging] seriously, I screwed up on that one. I agree with you and I should have went back and looked at mine first. | The Original James Waymire 
| AC’s Awesomeness
 | Eric Shupps (SharePoint Cowboy)
 | | Copy Removed | Copy Removed
| Copy Removed
| Restitution to AC: “December 18 Web Parts Or Field Controls , Honestly there shouldn't be this argument I published a blog post before, with the same title , (though I mention from where I took it , I forget to add the link to it, which was a mistake). Anyways the post link back to Microsoft ECM blog here” If you aren’t sure… then do the right thing. I did a post on Blogging Ethics a while back if you’re looking for what’s ok and what’s not ok. For one, never include the entire post… without permission period. Next sentence especially without reference, that’s where you’ll get strung up. The purpose of this blog is not to reveal those who messed up. It’s to say, hey DON’T think you can get away with this… ‘Cause you can’t. We are watching each others backs, we in the strong SharePoint community won’t put up for it. 12/16/2008
 <Updated 12/16 12:30PM Version 1.1> - I’ve been wanting to compile a list of 100 SharePoint People to follow on Twitter and was hoping to have a statistical way of providing you the best or most influential SharePoint twitter people. Instead, I’ll give you my list and tell you that I think this represents a good 80% of the core stuff, while there is likely a bunch I’m missing I hope to extend the list and even have a scientific method of compiling a list in the future. Note I did purposely leave off people who have left SharePoint (sorry LLiu), and those who haven’t tweeted in months or only tweeted a couple of times (with the exception of a couple of Asian SharePoint MVPs at the bottom of the list as Asia isn’t well represented). I also gave preferential treatment to those who actually had pictures. I think this list is a good mix of community, strong SharePoint Twitter people, and MVPs who have tried to contribute to SharePoint on Twitter.
Why Twitter? I answered this question in a previous blog in how I see business value in Twitter and another on 10 steps to successful microblogging (with twitter and friendfeed, etc…). You can even get a video view into what my tweetdeck looks like in a recent podcast having fun with SharePoint in Tweetdeck.
In my attempts at finding an easy solution to help us sort out the more influential tweeters, I found some interesting tools such as http://www.Tweetstats.com, Twitter Grader and Twinflluence (which has real promise with a rich API) TwitterCounter is a nice one for your blog, and TweetBurner tracks the links you share. I’m now using http://www.twitterless.com/joeloleson but my experience is early in this beta.
One I came past does show a simple counter for most followed like a virtual league TwitterLeague.com after I make sure I have those that care to be in this list, I can do a quick pass with that app to do more of a stack rank. Shown above on the left. Followers alone don’t show the power of influence like twinfluence shows, but # of followers does represent a significant following and in our field can show the relative influence of a microblogger.
<updated> If you are looking for a rank order of SharePoint Community People by Rank from Twitterleague.com (no big buckets or service).
In no particular order, here are some SharePoint People on Twitter that are great to follow. (Note this is based on my experience on Twitter.)
 gannotti – Mike Gannotti – King of Community, restless blogger and podcaster
 andrewconnell – Andrew Connell one of our beloved and Top SharePoint Bloggers. He Teaches, he speaks and he brings the community together.
 joeloleson – hey that’s Me! – Why #3? Just Because
  SPDevWiki / jthake – Jeremy Thake One of the SharePoint Twitter Leaders. I think I see Jeremy out there and responding more than anyone.
 lespaulrob – SharePoint MVP – also of SharePoint Pod Show!
 21apps – Andrew Woodward SharePoint MVP
 bfox11b – Bob Fox! Need I say more? NY, NJ User Groups, ISPA Man. Fountain of Knowledge…
 themit - Renaud Comte SharePoint MVP
 jmedero – SharePoint MVP
 chandimak – SharePoint MVP - One of the kings of SharePoint Community South of the Equator
 eshupps – Eric Shupps – SharePoint MVP – The SharePoint Cowboy
 harbars – Spence Harbar (Edinburg) is the true SharePoint Architect. The IT guy at heart that can make a Dev look like a beginner.
 toddkitta – Todd Kitta SharePoint Dev
 nickswan – SharePoint Nick – SharePoint MVP – SharePoint Pod Show!
 ToddKlindt – SharePoint IT MVP
 Chris_Hougardy
 woodywindy Woody Windischman
 pagalvin – Paul Galvin SharePoint MVP
 danmc Daniel McPherson – Awesome SharePoint Insights. Awesome Blogger.
 jdattis J. Dan Attis
 rickyspears – SharePoint Author and Solutions Architect
 bsimser – Bil Simser
 seanodmvp – Sean O’Driscoll
 JDWade – JD was really helpful when I first got on Twitter.
 amandamurphy – SharePoint Design Queen.
 mikefitz – Key SharePoint Evangelist (Looks great in a Kilt)
 sharepointdev Randall Isenhour– Our MSDN SDK SharePoint Dev Tech writing Lead
 emilysc – Emily Schroeder Our TechNet SharePoint Team Connection
 spdustin – Dustin Miller – SharePoint MVP – Owner, Instructor, Speaker SharePoint Experts
 amirmehrani – Amir Mehrani
 meetdux – Our new SharePoint Project Management Guru
 DavidWalker – David Walker
 pjcov – Penny Coventry – Great whitepapers and courseware
 robinmeure – Great insights. Great Consultant. Cool blog too. Amsterdam
 mysharepoint – Michael Greth – SharePoint MVP Germany
 owenallen – Microsoft SharePoint Team, ISV man. Great guy to follow.
 MossLover – SharePoint community advocate and blogger
  SharePointMag/ arnonel – Arno Nel SharePoint MVP
 jantielens – Jan Tielens – SharePoint MVP, Belgium
 brendonschwartz – SharePoint MVP
 natalyvo – Natalya – SharePoint Squirrel Blogger, SharePoint MVP
 ShanesCows – Shane Young - SharePoint IT MVP (let’s help him figure this out!)
  sharepointbuzz/kkhipple – Kanwal has been doing the SharePoint community a service, by retweeting our blogs, and subtling adding his own content. He also is actively answering people’s SharePoint questions.
 muhanado – Mo! SharePoint MVP, My favorite SharePoint Middle East Connection.
 EricaToelle – SharePoint Community Twitterer
 mattgroves
 Sharepointer – Asking some interesting community questions to drum up some #SharePoint activity
 hwaterman Heather Waterman – SharePoint Community Awesome Designer on Community EBE
 michaellotter – SharePoint Community guy and Speaker
 rprakashg – SharePoint Consultant and Community Advocate
 markarend – Microsoft SharePoint Consultant
 alpesh – Insightful SharePoint and Tech Blogger
 stacyDraper – SharePoint MVP
 danholme – SharePoint MVP – Great writer as well.
 jopxtwits – SharePoint MVP and blogger (Podcasting kit)
 brettlonsdale – Brett Lonsdale – BDC Guru
 laflour - Michael Nemtsev – MS MVP Web Developer / SharePoint Consultant
 helloitsliam
 usher
 AaronSaikovski2
 sharepointing Steve Walker (MCS)
 davidliv – SharePoint BI Guy
 themossman- Randy Drisgill (SharePoint Branding)
 kalsing – Solutions Architect in Brisbane
 SharePointSher Sherry Neal – SharePoint all day long (Germany)
 spietrek - Steve Pietrek – SharePoint Dev Ohio
 cglessner – IloveSharePoint Blog. Cool Powershell SharePoint integration stuff.
 asifrehmani – SharePoint MVP and Screencaster
 resing
 Xytrex – Jamie Sloan – SharePoint Community Microsoft
 SharePoint411
 scotts Scott Spradlin – SharePoint Custom Dev
 PirateEric – SharePoint guy
 ferringer – John Ferringer SharePoint Architect Indianapolis
 paulculmsee
 brandsharepoint
 John_LeBlanc
 d2design Edwin – Belgium (SharePoint Software Architect)
 jshuey – Jeff Shuey previous of K2 – Really Knows BPM
 CodeJedi – William Cornwill – SharePoint and .NET Dev
 GrumpyWookie Chris OConnor
 paulschaeflein – SharePoint Dev
 danlarson – SharePoint MVP Developer
 orijin Philippe Sentenac – SharePoint Blogger
 EROL_MVP – SharePoint MVP France
 tomconte – SharePoint Product Specialist (France/Some French Tweets)
 AliSanaei – SharePoint Consultant
 richfinn
 sezai
 AndreaKalli – SharePoint and Office Podcaster
 jefferydalton
 BrianFarnhill
 AaronCutlip
 jdeverter
 DougWare
 rbair
 ritmeijer
 gregkamer
 susanlennon – SharePoint Community Leader - SharePoint Saturday
 erickraus cjregan- bishopd
Auto SharePoint Twitterfeeds:
 SharePoint – Blogs from the SharePoint Team Blog
 SharePointMVPs – Partial list of SharePoint MVP blog post title tweets
 SPtweeters
 zevenseas – Collection of SharePoint Blog Feeds from zevenseas
Other SharePoint MVPs to watch/follow as they figure out the twitterverse...
garybushey
|
Stephen Cummins (secure) |
ssofian – Steve Sofian – SharePoint MVP (Singapore)
kitkai – Kit Kai – SharePoint MVP (Singapore)
 bobmixon
jholliday John Holliday (I think he likes to try things once :) Nice podcast.)
 toddbleeker – Come on you create a profile and not a single tweet?
 ldusolier
shaneperran
TonyBierman
Upcoming Conference Twitter accountst
 MIX09
 SharePointBP
spsaturday
 MOSSCamp
Secure SharePoint Tweeters:
 Jonathan Kauffman – Search GPM Still waiting for him to accept my following.
 KKRSeattle – Kristian Rickard Enterprise Search, (secure) Fast GPM
 erobillard (Secure) Eli Robbilard – SharePoint MVP (Toronto)
SharePoint PMs that really LOVE SharePoint and fly under the radar on twitter. We may not want to randomize them as they are working on 14, but I hope to see them get more active as it gets more public. I see a few of these guys are fairly open about who they are in their profiles.
 LoungeFlyZ Chris Johnson - PM Dev experience
 zorbadgreek George Perantatos - SharePoint & Office Labs
 umeshunni Umesh Unnikrishnan - PM Services
 tylerbutler Tyler Butler - PM Content Management/Content Deployment
 MisterMorrill - Kevin Morrill - PM Social Features
Not enough people to follow?
This list is not complete, and is really pretty random based on my own experiences and really based on one night of walking through recent conversations and tweeting experiences I’ve had.
There are some apps to help you expand your circle:
http://www.Twollow.com – This wild app will help you add people fast based on terms they use in their tweets
Twubble – This app will make recommendations for friends based on your current friends (doesn’t scale if you have thousands of friends)
http://search.twitter.com/advanced Search has gotten better on Twitter, but it feels burried at times. People search in some ways seems worse to me.
TweetDeck – This is my favorite app for following twitter. The web UI is really pretty weak.
By the way, feel free to put your name and number of followers in the comments and why you think you should be listed here.
I welcome your feedback. 12/15/2008One of the last things I did with Bamboo just released. I did an interview with John Anderson of Bamboo side by side with the launch of a new Admin area on their community efforts. John’s probing deep questions really brought out areas that I hadn’t thought about in a long time. They also stretched my thoughts into the future. They were written in such a way that it really captured some unique insights. The Joel Oleson SharePoint Interview is captured in the Rock Stars area. Here are some examples of the questions: - Can you briefly sketch out, from your firsthand experience, the evolution of (what came to be known as) SharePoint from its inception to the current MOSS 2007 version?
- What would you say was the biggest challenge the SharePoint team faced during your tenure?
- Just a few weeks ago, you announced your acceptance of a position at Quest Software. Can you tell us a bit about your role at Quest? I understand that one of your responsibilities will be designing new tools to help IT administrators...
- More in the interview…
And a snippet of one of my answers: What is your vision of collaborative computing five years from now? The rapid development that happens on the Internet in social computing will converge. One example is the number of social bookmarking platforms. There are literally hundreds, and the value is still low and personal since there are so many. The FriendFeeds, Facebooks, and Twitters of today will encompass more of these features and functionality, but the base of applications that span to give us different interfaces to tag. I expect Digg, Del.icio.us, and the others to be much more clearly led by one or two market leaders that have integrated search. Google's Readers, Chrome, and its Web client apps come together with tighter integration with the social platforms, and Microsoft's Azure embraced with Office Web Applications and choice in the browser space. The way we add properties today in documents will be tagging, and we'll know when people create docs in the enterprise that relate to us. It's rich multi-user editing in Word, OneNote, etc... The value in followings in companies is going to be interesting. You don't want to fire the guy who has hundreds of internal people following his document authoring and blogging. The masses will rise up! I love that idea of someone at the bottom in the long tail influencing management so much that they are following him visibly, and soon he's a secret executive such as distinguished engineers. These ICs (individual contributors) can have more flexibility in their jobs because their value is understood and appreciated by the execs. How would that be? Launch of the SharePoint for Administrators Bamboo Blog In the new portal I provided an intro article in this area includes some information on Metrics and Measures for the Tier 1 support team, the Tier 2 ops team, and Engineering including some info on Information architecture. This article lays out SharePoint Administration in a tiered structure and may provide insight not previously considered. Including a list of good SLA metrics for Tier 1: Average Time To Resolution # of Tickets open # of Tickets closed % of Tickets closed within SLA (72 hrs service level agreement for example) # of Tickets opened beyond SLA % of Tickets closed - User Response Dissatisfied % of Tickets closed - Satisfied % of Tickets closed - Highly Satisfied Tickets flagged to be reviewed/escalated What does Tier 2 Operations do on a day to day basis? Installation Upgrade Maintenance: hotfixes, service packs Backup/restore - they will often have to work with another team to manage the TAPES or other devices Disaster recovery solutions - may be another farm or virtual solution Optional - Cluster and Load Balancing Support Security and Authorization (DC support/Firewalls) SQL Support and Maintenance (This may be outsourced to SQL team) o DBCC - Database Consistency Checks
o Database Backups
o Database Index Maintenance
o Defrag
o Whitespace and Growth management
o Disk Disk Management Virtualization Support (may be outsourced to another team) Dev environment support Test environment support Staging or Pre-Production Deployment of solutions and features (hint: require .WSP) Tier 3 or Engineering - Planning for high availability
- Upgrade validation and steps
- Storage management
- Performance management over time
- Risk management
- Oversight on change management
- ITIL and MOF implementation with the PMO (Project Management Office) team
- Database management plans and optimization techniques
- Operations best practices
- Cluster solutions
- Virtualization and imaging solutions and testing (may be outsourced)
- Reviewing usage reports and making recommendations for scale up / scale out
- Firewall and security management reviews
- Optimization plans and techniques
- Meeting with the dev teams to ensure best practices
- Investigating list scale, database scale, and site and site collection scale issues, and providing guidance and best practices
As well in this new area you can find a lot of deployment essentials as well as good resources on deployment and optimization. Finally, some good work has been done in making SharePoint the defacto portal and upping it’s compliance in the community. WSRP Producer Toolkit. For those people on the Java side of the house, or for those in a mixed environment this means. Many in mixed environments have been looking for SharePoint to not just consume WSRP compliant information, but also to produce it so it can be consumed by WSRP consumers like BEA’s Portal, WebSphere, SAP, etc… Check out more at TechNet Office SharePoint Server Interoperability TechCenter Thanks Ryan on the WSRP Producer MSDN samples announcement at the SharePoint Team site. Nice vids. This will just make it even easier to put a check box in how SharePoint can do whatever you need it to. 12/9/2008If you're looking at this next calendar year and trying to decide what conference to go to you've got a daunting task ahead of you. Sooo many good choices! I've had this post in draft and have been planning on putting out my calendar... Essentially after I saw Dave Pae put out conference list, I realized I had a lot of things on my calendar... Here's what I'm aware of, plus more. I see the first official mention of a SharePoint Conference in 2009. I also see the link to sign up to find out about the SharePoint Conference 2009 is on the mssharepointconference.com site. I guess we can rule out that this conference will NOT be before Tech Ed. I can't speculate, but I do recommend getting on this email list. 
SharePoint Related Conferences SharePoint Technology Conference
January 27–29, 2009: Burlingame, CA
For three exciting days in January, you'll be eating, drinking, sleeping, talking and living Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Windows SharePoint Services. The first day at SPTechCon is filled with intense full and half-day workshops, half in the morning, half in the afternoon. The next two days are filled with more than 50 break-out classes to choose from. Build your own custom program! This conference is hosted by BZ Media LLC. Line up includes Tom as keynote. Speakers include many MVPs and leaders including Shane Young, Todd Klindt, and Nicola Young, John Ross, and Mike Watson. SharePoint Best Practices Conference
February 2–4, 2009: San Diego, CA
The SharePoint Best Practices Conference eliminates design, deploy, organization and administration confusion, replacing disorder with Clarity, Direction and Confidence. This conference is hosted by Mindsharp. Keynote, Joel Oleson. This line up is MOST impressive: Ben Curry, Mike Watson, Bill English, Bob Fox, Bob Mixon.... I already did a post on this best practices conference. 2009 SharePoint .Org Conference March 22-24: Baltimore, MD For Associations and Not for Profit Organizations, SharePoint Conference for networking and education networking Sharepoint Connections -- Dev Connections Spring 2009 March 22-25, Orlando FL Ritz Carlton & JW Marriott - Penton Media. 150+ Sessions from Microsoft, MVPs, and more. I'll be giving a couple sessions in the IT and Leadership track. European SharePoint Best Practices Conference April 6-8 2009: London, UK. Hosted by Combined Knowledge. This is sure to be the best SharePoint related Conference in Europe, this year. It already has an amazing speaker line up. This conference was just announced this week, and hey, I am Keynote! Woohoo! Check out the killer line up of the SharePoint greats. Steve Smith MVP, Spence MVP, Mike Watson (X MSFT), Todd Bleeker MVP, Andrew Connell MVP, Penny Coventry MVP, Bob Fox MVP, Andrew Woodward MVP, Natalya Voskresenskaya MVP (Blogger think Squirrel) Montreal SharePoint Summit April 6-8: Montreal, Canada Centre-Mont-Royal Third annual SharePoint summit. Speakers include Errin O'Connor, Mike Fitzmaurice, and Bill English Conferences that will have lots of SharePoint Sessions Microsoft FASTforward '09 (SEARCH+)
February 9–11, 2009: Las Vegas, NV
3 days of compelling discussion on the evolving business environment and how search is enabling companies to succeed. This conference is hosted by Microsoft. (Text from SharePoint Team blog) Microsoft MIX09 (WEB+)
March 18-20, 2009: Las Vegas, NV
Now in its fourth year, MIX is a unique technology conference that connects web professionals with industry thought leaders to explore the future of the Web together. This conference is hosted by Microsoft. There are usually a few SharePoint Conferences, but you'll see a lot of other .NET and Social Networking sites. Microsoft Tech·Ed North America 2009 May 11-15: Los Angeles, Convention Center "Seventeenth year as the best technical education and networking event in the industry." Tech Ed Global You can navigate to the other Teched's through the WW drop down in the corner. My favorites are South East Asia, NZ, and Australia. More SharePoint Details Coming soon... TEC - The Experts Conference (Exchange, AD and Identity, Las Vegas - Spring, Berlin - Fall) Free Conferences SharePoint Saturday and Code Camps: Virginia Beach SharePoint Saturday Jan 10: Joel Oleson, Michael Lotter, Paul Galvin, Mark Miller (Free community event) - Yep I'll be there. NYC SharePoint in the Real World, Imagine Event (SharePoint Saturday) Jan 21: NYC (Many partners) Kansas City SharePoint Saturday Feb 7 - Free event. Still in the planning stages South Florida Code Camp Code Camp is a FREE one day GEEK FEST held on Saturday February 7, 2009 Boise Code Camp March 28th, 2009 Twin Cities Code Camp April 4, 2009 Where in the world is Joel? Toronto SharePoint User Group Dec 12 - Noon Community Luncheon: Spring Rolls on Yonge south of Bloor Contact Eli for more details Virginia Beach SharePoint Saturday Jan 10 I'll be doing a couple of sessions... San Diego User Group Jan ~21- More info TBD One session likely on legacy migration SharePoint Best Practices Conference
La Jolla, California - Best Practices US - La Jolla, CA
Feb 1 - Feb 4, 2009
Keynote + a session or two Sharepoint Connections Spring 2009 Orlando, FL
Mar 22 - Mar 25, 2009 IT Leadership Governance session, plus migration and avoiding failed deployments European SharePoint Best Practices Conference
London - London, United Kingdom
Apr 6 - Apr 9, 2009
Keynote + a session or two Tech Ed US - Los Angeles, CA
May 11 - May 15, 2009
In process of submitting sessions. Trip to the Hospital - Seattle, WA (Baby Due staying home for a few weeks)
May 25 - May 29, 2009 If you are asking if you have one conference you can go to what conference should you go to? My favorite is Tech Ed for volume and cross coverage, but the new Best Practices Conference (California or Europe) outside of the main Microsoft SharePoint Conference is my recommended focused pick for this year. If I was in Europe it would be the Best Practices Conference and ITForum/Europe. In Asia, it would be Tech Ed. I plan/hope speak at Tech ED South East Asia 2009, Tech ED Hong Kong 2009, maybe Tech ED South Africa 2009. Others??? The analysts themselves have many conferences, I've found those to be insightful as well. Gartner's AIIM, Burton's, Forresters, IDC, etc... The WPC is always a big crowd and often ISVs get a chance to do a who's who and do some serious networking. That's usually in the middle of the summer. Additional Resources: More Code Camps Moss Lover: More Free SharePoint Saturdays User Groups around the world As you can see there are SharePoint User Groups all over the world see ISPA SharePointPros.org for more info. Also Culminis has a User Group search by country and language.  12/7/2008I'm quickly becoming a fan of Slideshare.net. A very easy to use, and very useful tool for both finding and sharing presentations. I've come across some good finds that are both enlightening and fun. The related feature is seems to work really well when people use the right tags. I know I see a lot of downloads from my presentations and I think this is a more effective way of managing the content in a way that it can be shared and manage the rights. The sharing, embedding, and requesting download really nail what I need. It was very easy to copy and paste the embed right into live writer. No editing HTML required. I've uploaded 10 presentations so far, from a security presentation I did a while back to the SharePoint Server Overview I did at TechMentor last year. Also many presentations from Tech Ed US, Australia, and South East Asia. Global Deployment, Advanced Administration, Upgrade, Scripted Admin, and loads more. The presentation mode for these decks actually looks pretty good right from the web. After running the for a week, I do like the built in stats and I'm even seeing these show up in search results. I haven't found any easy way to allow certain people to download these decks, so if you're looking for downloadable decks, a few of these have that option, but when it was a joint presentation, I haven't elected to make it downloadable. So don't bother asking. I do suggest adding me as a contact. The other thing these decks should be good for is understanding my background for topics I've talked on in the past. I'm sure you could get the same kind of feedback. If you're looking to become more of a speaker, getting your decks out there for people to see could pay off! 
12/5/2008 | | |