Microsoft PDC 2009

I've arrived in L.A. for Microsoft #PDC09. It's just like L.A. Story--sunny.... 72.

SharePoint Conference 2009 Wrap-up

"Wow..." -- a Microsoft Vice President's reaction when I told him at this year's sold out Microsoft SharePoint Conference (#SPC09) that Metalogix Software has migrated and upgraded over 1000 customers to SharePoint.

SPC09 was amazing; with over 7400 attendees, it was larger than the Mircosoft TechEd Conference and TechEd is for ALL Microsoft products. Although, I have been to a few conference over the last year, I still had a great time catching up with old friends from my Microsoft days.


- the Metalogix booth at Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009

Metalogix Booth and Zune HD Giveaway

This year, Metalogix had a fun conference giveaway. Each day, the person who scored the highest score on our custom Xbox 360 game, Metalogix SharePoint Shooters, won a brand new (and highly acclaimed) Zune HD.


- the exhale games sign for Metalogix SharePoint Shooters



- trying to win a Zune HD from Metalogix


- winning a Zune HD from Metalogix

Metalogix Session

CTO, Julien Sellgren, and I were pleased to have the opportunity to deliver a session at such a key conference. We spoke about SharePoint upgrade and migration, showcasing two demos: SharePoint Site Migration Manager for SharePoint 2010 and Website Migration Manager. The last time I presented at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference was in 2004. That year, there were about 900 attendees, so things have changed considerably.

The expo was on a similar scale as the Microsoft TechEd show. There were a few new names, but mainly the usual suspects.



Gannotti Interview

With over 36,000 followers (and counting), SharePoint social media expert Michael Gannotti (the SocialMedia Samurai, @gannotti) is one of the most prolific tweeters/bloggers in the SharePoint community.

During Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 (#SPC09), Mike came by and did two interviews with me at the Metalogix booth. The first one has been posted here: http://socialmedia.mikegannotti.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=278 (direct link to video: http://www.vimeo.com/7262459).

In this first interview, we talk about Metalogix SharePoint Site Migration Manager and how it makes upgrade to SharePoint 2010 a whole lot easier. Migration and upgrade to SharePoint 2010 was also the topic of my session at SPC09.



Since I posted about this interview in my blog, the second interview has been posted. In the second video, we talk about Metalogix Website Migration Manager (WMM). Website Migration Manager can migrate any web pages from other web systems to SharePoint. e.g., Interwoven, Oracle Content Server (Stellent), HTML, cold fusion, ASP, ASPX, Vignette, etc.

Keynote Address

I think the keynote was the largest session I've seen at any Microsoft conference. There were around 7,000 people in the audience.

Steve Ballmer and Jeff Teper were the main speakers, but a few others (e.g., SharePoint point man, Arpan Shah) went on stage to do demos. They showed off the new editing experience, but most demos were pretty technical.



Venue

Las Vegas is an interesting venue for this type of conference. The distraction of having so many things going on here (gambling, shows, parties) made it difficult to monitor the twitter feed and blog posts because attendees talk about so many things they're doing that aren't related to SharePoint. For example, my tweets about meeting comedian Louie Anderson while waiting for my flight to Vegas.


- the Mandalay Event Center hosted SPC09

Although I found myself either working or sleeping, I did manage to fit in a visit to the Mandalay Shark Reef Aquarium after the show was over.


- Kimodo Dragon


- puffer fish


- lion fish

HUG SharePoint



During SPC09, I announced the launch of the Halifax Users Group for SharePoint (http://www.hugsharepoint.org/). HUGSharePoint will provide Atlantic Canada with its first SharePoint user group. This is one of two SharePoint projects that I have in the works.

Microsoft Tech Days Halifax Sold Out

Next week, Halifax will host the Microsoft Tech Days conference. I'm happy to say that the Halifax event is sold out.

The sessions include a wide range of interesting topics: Visual Studio 2010, Expression Blend, Windows 7 UI development, ASP.NET, RESTful web services, and collaborating with SharePoint. I plan to use this opportunity to get the word out about the Halifax Users Group for SharePoint (HUG SharePoint).

Michael Gannotti Interview

With over 31,000 followers, SharePoint social media expert Michael Gannotti (the SocialMedia Samurai, @gannotti) is one of the most prolific tweeters/bloggers in the SharePoint community.

During Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 (#SPC09), Mike came by and did two interviews with me at the Metalogix booth. The first one has been posted here: http://socialmedia.mikegannotti.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=278 (direct link to video: http://www.vimeo.com/7262459).

In this first interview, we talk about Metalogix SharePoint Site Migration Manager and how it makes upgrade to SharePoint 2010 a whole lot easier. Migration and upgrade to SharePoint 2010 was also the topic of my session at SPC09.



- @gannotti and @cawood talk about SharePoint 2010 upgrade and management


Unlike the out of the box options, upgrading to SharePoint 2010 with SharePoint Site Migration Manager does not require the same software, hardware, DB and service pack prerequisites. For example, you can migrate from SPS 2003 on SQL Server Express running on a 32 bit version of Windows in a simple copy and paste interface.

Update: Since I posted about this, the second interview has been posted. In the second video, we talk about Metalogix Website Migration Manager (WMM). Website Migration Manager can migrate any web pages from other web systems to SharePoint. e.g., Interwoven, Oracle Content Server (Stellent), HTML, cold fusion, ASP, ASPX, Vingette, etc.

HUG SharePoint!

The Halifax Users Group for SharePoint is up and running.

If you're in the Halifax, Canada area and you're a SharePoint fan, contact me.

Ballmer: The SharePoint business is absolutely on fire

Today's Microsoft PressPass article helps explain the motivation behind the success of SharePoint. At Metalogix we’re the world champs at getting people onto SharePoint from other systems.

Here's an excerpt:

"PressPass: Starting on Monday, you are kicking off a busy week of activities for Microsoft, and your first stop is the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas. Why did you choose to begin there?

Ballmer: The SharePoint business is absolutely on fire, and I’m excited to meet with our customers, partners and developers who are driving this success. I’ll have the opportunity to catch up with customers and hear how they use SharePoint to collaborate, work together and drive intranet and external Web sites. This product has such a wealth of value that the customer, partner and developer stories are incredible.

In addition, the SharePoint community is discovering that in the same way Office delivers a valuable suite of productivity technology, SharePoint unleashes a suite of capabilities that dramatically improves the way people work — it is so much more than the sum of its parts. I find it enlightening to hear their questions and gain new insights about how SharePoint is impacting businesses all over the world.

PressPass: To date, SharePoint is one of the fastest growing server products in Microsoft’s history — what is behind this growth?

Ballmer: Businesses and consumers are facing significant challenges in today’s climate with the increase in information across numerous technologies and devices. With amplified pressures to control costs, businesses are looking for new ways to harness the increasing amounts of information in a productive and cost-effective way. That is exactly what SharePoint does — it is built as a business collaboration platform to allow people to interact with each other, with content, and with both internal and external data to increase their productivity. As a result, SharePoint helps companies deal with the ever-growing and ever-changing business landscape."

SharePoint Conference is Sold Out

The Microsoft SharePoint Conference for 2009 is sold out! I'll be presenting a session about SharePoint upgrade and it's good to see that the wave of SharePoint enthusiasm continues.

From the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog:

"We’re officially SOLD OUT! With 7000+ SharePoint experts, developers, partners, users, MVP’s and enthusiasts this is officially the BIGGEST SHAREPOINT CONFERENCE EVER!!! We’ve had a phenomenal response to the conference this year with a 94% increase in attendance and we can’t wait to see you all in just over 10 days!"

Moving to the Cloud

Tomorrow, I leave for a conference road trip to Tampa and Denver for the Moving to the Cloud Migration Solutions Series for Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).

I'll be showing Microsoft partners how they can migrate their customers' data to the cloud using Metalogix software. In particular, I'll be demonstrating how to move content from on-premise SharePoint servers to SharePoint Online with Metalogix SharePoint Site Migration Manager, and also how to move files and web content using FileShare Migration Manager and Website Migration Manager.

And who knows, maybe I'll even give a sneak peak of one of our new Microsoft Exchange apps.

Registered for TechEd Europe 2009

This week I registered as an attendee for TechEd Europe in Berlin. This is the first year that the conference for EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asia) has been called "TechEd Europe." I'm not sure if that means that there will be more, smaller TechEd conferences (sort of like the Southern hemisphere is divided up into Australia, New Zealand, and Africa.), but it seems like a bad year to be trying that. The timing obviously isn't great with the recession still hanging on, but hopefully that won't take the wind out of the sails of the first European branded event.

With fewer people expected to attend, the conference was changed from the two paths of last year's show (IT Pros and Devs) to just one event for all. I prefer the combined format because--unlike many attendees--I actually want to go to sessions, and having the one conference for everyone means that I have more choice.

The Microsoft Paradox

As a former employee of the software behemoth, I’m often faced with the question, “What is it like to work for Microsoft?” I usually utter some sort of sound, such as “Well…” and then stall so that I can figure out how best to personalize the answer to the person asking the question. After dealing with this for a few years, it eventually dawned on me why I felt I had to make this effort, and why it was such an impossible question to answer. I’ve come to call it…

The Microsoft Paradox: Every generalization about Microsoft is simultaneously true and false.



First, some quick examples:

-- Microsoft employs somewhere in the range of 90,000 people. However, many of these people work in small, and sometimes largely autonomous, teams. so working at MS can feel like being a small cog in a big machine, or you can--as you might expect more from a small company--feel like you have direct influence on Microsoft’s bottom line.

-- Microsoft obviously brings in tremendous revenue, but if you happen to be affected by any of the cutbacks (or even the layoffs) then you’re not going to feel like you’re working for a company that probably has the largest war chest in business.

-- While MS tries to maintain similar benefits across their offices (e.g., free soda for all), working as a developer in Redmond is a completely different experience to working in Microsoft Consulting Services, Microsoft Research, or one of the support offices. (BTW -- they get free cappuccino in Paris, but don't tell anyone)

-- I’ve heard MS staff say (read: boast) publicly that there aren’t any cubicles in Redmond. I used to work in Building 1 in Redmond and walked by a room of cubicles on the way to the cafeteria.

-- An MS employee told me that he could expense anything under $1000 as long as it was for work. But I once received a phone call and had to explain why I needed a Windows 2000 Server DVD. (Note: Almost all installs are done over the network, so my request was not common. However, it still didn’t cost the company very much.)



So what about all those Microsoft stereotypes? Do any of those apply to the whole company? Probably not.

"Microsoft products are slow and unstable because they just stuff them with features."

To refute this as an empty stereotype, I refer you to the "marching red ants" sparkle text feature in Microsoft Word XP. I used to use this very feature as my example of the "code on code" dilemma that faces any software company (i.e., you have to create new features to sell new versions, but working on new features means less time to make the existing ones better). This feature, and others, have been removed. Whatever the reason--and I'm willing to guess that it wasn't being used enough--taking this out will probably be good for Word and its customers.

"Microsoft doesn't care about security."

I was working for Microsoft when billg's famous "Trustworthy Computing" e-mail was sent to every employee. If anyone questioned Microsoft's commitment to security, you just need to refer them to that initiative. For example, they aimed to have every developer go through security training and the Windows team took a month off just for security reviews.

"Microsoft doesn't invent anything."

Just check out some of the things Microsoft Research is doing. I've seen a few things at MS first and then witnessed other companies getting the credit for "inventing" them.


- Lake Bill

So it's possible to say that there is bloated code in Microsoft products and security issues, but you can't point to a team in Microsoft and say that every stereotype refers to them. How each decision is made at Microsoft is largely a function of individuals.

I've been inside, so I know that Microsoft generally isn’t interested in being evil—they’d rather sell great software. So when you hear about some screw up in Redmond, it’s best to stay away from the conspiracy theories and put it down to good old human error.


- More Canadians on the Microsoft campus

Proudly Breaking Wired's New Rules

When I found a front page story in Wired about digital manners (How to Behave: New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans), I was happy to see that some of the niceties of new media were being highlighted. Many of these matters of manners--such as "Provide subjects for all emails"--are being ignored simply because they're not well understood.

However, when I read the article, I was surprised to find how many of Wired's "rules" I disagree with--yes, I understand that some are jokes. It doesn't matter how many funny images of Brad Pitt and Quintin Tarantino you fit in, I still won't be following these:

- Turn off "Sent from my iPhone" email signatures -- I understand what they're getting at here. No one cares if you have an iPhone or not. However, unless you write messages on your phone exactly the same way as your do on your PC, then having some sort of indication that the message came from a phone is a good thing. When people first started mailing from their phones, I can remember hearing lots of "oh, that's why your message was so short" stories. I don't write which phone I have, but I do let people know why I don't have spellcheck.

- Leave your WI-FI open -- I've read this one a few times, trying to find the sarcasm, but I can't read it any other way than Wired is advocating turning off network security. It's not a question of messing over your neighbours--as the article suggests--it's about your privacy. Anyone can download network monitoring software and use it on your insecure network. Want your e-mail public? Go ahead... be an "altruist," leave your network open.

- Never BCC anyone -- This is just a dumb one. Blind Carbon Copy has been around since, well... since carbon paper, and obviously there's a reason that it survived into the era of e-mail. I don't have to come up with a philosophical argument for it, I can give you an actual one. When a support rep at Metalogix sends an e-mail to a customer, he or she will BCC an internal support alias and thereby give every support rep in the company access to every conversation with each customer. Incidentally, (read: shameless plug) the Metalogix Exchange archiving software allows there to only be one copy of each message in our network. CC isn't appropriate because the internal address isn't for public use. BCC is just right.

- Don't type BRB -- Why not exactly? If you get caught up for a few mins, the person you're chatting with will understand exactly what has happened. I believe one of the new rules missed in this article is to try to keep your online status accurate. If you're not there, I don't want to be waiting for you with the chat window on top. I want to go back to work.

- Don't follow more people than follow you -- By way of disclosure, I should mention that I currently have more followers than people I'm following (which is a small number), so this isn't affecting me personally. Somehow, I just can't imagine a scenario where I ask someone to follow me because I don't have enough followers to add Cheryl Ladd to my list. If I want to follow Cheryl's tweets or every actor who appeared in a John Hughes film, then that's what I'll do.


- yes you should follow all of Charlie's Angels (even the new ones)

- Don't send ecards -- I can only imagine that the Wired manners instructor feels that ecards are somehow insulting or valueless because they are more convenient than going to a brick and mortar store, buying a card (and a stamp, or course) and then mailing it. The problem here is that new media have reached out in many other ways that would be stuffed into the same category. E-mail, video messages, even twitter updates have all changed the way people send messages of consolation or congratulation. Sure, I love the fact that my sister sends me actual postcards when she travels--yes, she is one of the few left of my generation who do this. But the fact is that everyone can decide how they want to communicate and, oh ya, my sister loves to get ecards.

Evidently, the Wired 'new rule' I'll be following the most is "Sometimes you have to break the rules."

Twitter is down, good for Twitter?

Can you imagine how many people are trying to tweet that Twitter is down?

I think the current interruption in service may have a positive benefit to Twitter. As the old adage--and the Cinderella song--goes, "you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone." Not to mention the media coverage--a few hours without Twitter was on the national news in Canada. I wonder how many people watching that broadcast started to wonder if they should try Twitter?



There are still plenty of Twitter haters out there, but I expect quite a few "tweeps" will realize that just a few hours without the service is actually quite annoying.

Games are the Way to Test Software

When the .NET framework was being developed one of the mechanisms that Microsoft used to test the framework was a game available to any employee. The goal was to give the framework a more thorough and real-world test pass by crowd sourcing and disguising the fact that the gamers were actually testers. (OK, that's not quite true, they told us point blank that the aim was to test.)

The bing search engine Page Hunt game has once again proven that the best way to test software is to make testing fun. This game is designed to provide information about the search phrases that people expect to use to find websites they want to find. However, the test is packaged up in a spoonful of fun and challenge. Give it a try and help make Internet searching easier.


- the bing Page Hunt game

Read more about the bing Page Hunt game at TechnologyReview.com.

Update: here's a video that supports the fun theory: Piano Stairs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw

Update: Microsoft Ribbon Hero allows gamers to test the Office Ribbon UI

bing images are cool

I've really been enjoying the background images used on the bing search engine page.

Here's the one from yesterday...



I'd like to have access to a store of the images, but the only one I've found is the bing images on Facebook and they're not very good quality.


- Moorea

Bing has a "previous image" option in the lower right corner that allows you to scroll through other pics.

Worldwide Partner Conference 2009

This year's Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (#WPC09) took place in New Orleans. It was the first time I had been back to New Orleans since hurricane Katrina, so I excited to see how the city is doing. However, we ended up being so busy at the conference that I didn't get a chance to get any further than the French quarter, so I really didn't see much at all.


- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer during a keynote (photo: http://www.momentsindigital.com/)

The hottest topics at the show were SharPoint 2010, bing and Windows 7. Of course, since Metalogix is the leader in SharePoint and Exchange productivity solutions, I was particularly interested in the SharePoint 2010 sneak peak session that Arpan Shah. I had heard that SharePoint 2010 would support different browsers, but it was interesting to see that all of the demos were done with Firefox.



I'm really excited about the developer tools that are coming. Check out the SharePoint 2010 developer sneak peak video. The visual web part editor looks great. As soon as I got back to the office I started setting up a Hyper-V image to run the technical preview build of 2010. I haven't installed the dev tools yet, but the install went smooth and I'm looking forward to diving in.

In terms of the success of the show, I sent out a tweet that started "recession, what recession?" Attendance was strong and we had more attention this year than in the past. The only sign of cutbacks were the feeling (maybe it was just me) that the air conditioning was noticeably less than in previous years and they actually ran out of attendee bags. I don't remember that ever happening before. In fact, exhibitors usually have to wade through them to get out on the last day.

Of course, since I hadn't been to New Orleans since 2004, I also got to catch up with some old friends from my Microsoft days and even one from junior high.


- ran into an old friend. Bruce from http://www.momentsindigital.com/

YouTube sensation Playing for Change killed with Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" at the closing party.


- Playing for Change playing the attendee party (photo: http://www.momentsindigital.com/)


- New Orleans still has its shine (photo: http://www.momentsindigital.com/)

Does your Xbox Blog?

I just came across this great post on SharePoint expert Mike Gannoti's blog and just had to share.

"Did you know that my Xbox 360 blogs? No, not me blogging about my Xbox, but my Xbox blogging about me and my gaming exploits (okay more it blogging about my son playing on it). Seriously, it seems everyone is blogging including machines. My Xbox has its own blog at http://360voice.gamerdna.com/blog.asp?tag=MasterG and it is pretty active in it’s commentary. On July 17th my Xbox 360 wrote:

“My power supply almost exploded! MasterG turned on the juice and we did some serious gaming! 5,025 points of total gamerscore is pretty good. Admit it. That is an improvement of 20 points over last time! He made some progress on Infinite Undiscovery finishing 2 achievements, and without even blinking! Ok, maybe he blinked once...”

Now how the heck can an Xbox blog? Well it is a pretty neat example of the magic of software couple with web services. Xbox 360 is hooked to Xbox Live. When I, or in this case my son, is logged in and playing, the Xbox supplies the service with raw data that is then exposed by some public APIs and then a service such as this blogging one uses an AI engine to look at the activity, or lack thereof (you should see what it starts saying when no one plays it for a while) and generates auto text complete with links to info. If you are a gamer you can grab one of these yourself and let your own Xbox start telling the world about you and your exploits, or is it Xploits? Check it out at http://360voice.gamerdna.com/"

SharePoint 2010 NDA

The Microsoft SharePoint team has become frustrated with people failing to live up to their NDA obligations for SharePoint 2010.

This is from Joel Oleson's post on the topic:

SharePoint 2010 is "Still in TAP, Still NDA except for specifically revealed info during one of the PDC keynotes, Channel 9 interview video, WPC Elop keynote (well done Takeshi!), Arpan’s Preso at WPC, System info on SharePoint blog, SP2 detail, Tom’s SharePoint Roadmap preso at Teched, the 2010 Sneak Peak videos and other info on http://sharepoint.microsoft.com!"

SharePoint 2010 Dev Docs Preview

Curious about developing on the SharePoint 2010 platform? Download the technical preview of the SharePoint 2010 developer documentation today.

This is taken from the readme in the download:

"This download contains the following pieces of developer documentation:
Customizing the Ribbon in Windows SharePoint Services “14”: The Ribbon is now included in the user interface for Windows SharePoint Services “14” and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. This white paper describes how developers extend the Ribbon by using a combination of XML and ECMAScript (JavaScript, JScript). Customizations to the Ribbon in the included example are created by using the Feature infrastructure, and can be deployed by using a solution package (.wsp file). This white paper is provided in both PDF and XPS format.

SharePoint Products and Technologies 2010 Technical Preview Managed Reference SDK: This compiled help (.chm) file contains reference topics focusing on types and members new to the SharePoint Products and Technologies 2010 managed object model that are called by other Microsoft applications. This reference does not reflect the entirety of the SharePoint Products and Technologies 2010 managed object model."

Paul McCartney in Halifax

So you can file this in the 'right place at the right time' category...

My brother and I leave the Halifax Jazz festival and decide to go check out the Paul McCartney gathering in front of the Lord Nelson hotel. Tipped off by a local radio station about a Sir Paul sound check, the crowd believes they might get a glimpse of the superstar.

Well, after about 15 minutes and a few Beatles songs--led off by the Halifax Police Department, I kid you not--Paul's security comes up the ramp from the underground parking. I figured we'd be lucky to see anything but it turns out that the vehicle slows down, his window is open and he's filming the crowd. I was amazed how close we got.



- Sir Paul films the crowd filming him

SharePoint Stops IP at the Door

My father-in-law has a great understanding of the difference between a traditional bricks and mortar company and a modern software business. For example, he once commented that "the value of a software company walks out the door at 5:00 every day."

Most people half his age don't appreciate this point--we'll set aside the fact that 5:00 doesn't mean much in the software world. Clearly, what he was saying is that the knowledge and experience of the people is the most important intellectual property in any software organization. Of course, there is value in the source code and collateral that employees create, but imagine the impact of your staff leaving without any sort of knowledge sharing.

In the past, I have made my own efforts to help prevent the loss of data as I moved from one company to another. At Microsoft, I used the MCMS FAQ as a way of sharing knowledge about Microsoft Content Management Server. When I left, it was just Stefan Gossner and myself working on it--it wasn't a community project, but it probably should have been.

But times have changed, with systems like Microsoft SharePoint taking hold in organizations, social computing can keep that valuable knowledge inside the company. The SharePoint social computing demo discusses the different ways that people share knowledge with MOSS 2007 and the new new methods seem so obvious now--for the MCMS FAQ, I had to write custom code to package the data in a consumable format. However, before I left Microsoft, SharePoint MySites were starting to be used, and the wave of change was clearly on the horizon. Nowadays, I can create a wiki on the Metalogix SharePoint intranet in just a few clicks.

What's coming in the future? Well, details about SharePoint 2010 are hard to come by right now, but there are certainly going to be some improvements. For example, the new SharePoint 2010 taxonomy features will allow users to categorize their information and further remove any friction from knowledge sharing. Instead of your IP walking out the door, it can be blocked at the firewall.