Best Practices Conference

Posts categorized as Best Practices Conference

Apr 18

5th Method’s Jonathan Wynn to Speak on Staffing Your SharePoint Deployment.

Published: April 18, 2013 12:04 PM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Jonathan Wynn from 5^th Method will be speaking on How to Staff Your SharePoint Deployment . Here is the full abstract to his pre-conference session:

Are you the midst of a SharePoint staffing crisis? Did you ever step back and look at the skills your enterprise resources have? Do you know your team well enough to think they can fully execute on deploying and supporting SharePoint in your environment? This could be a disaster waiting to happen. If you've answered "Yes!" we need to talk! In this session I'll peel back the "proverbial" layers of the SharePoint Onion and see what's inside. I'll address long term support, in addition to staffing on deployment. You'll come away with a better understanding of how to map roles to people and how to build the right team of SharePoint Professionals. This interactive discussion will address:

Break down your staffing needs and define roles and skills than draw a correlation to SharePoint roles & skills
How does Governance play into this?
How to sell these positions to management
We'll explore the best practices on managing roles & responsibilities with a team of any size

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is a peer-sharing conference for business leaders and stakeholders who are responsible for the success of SharePoint in their environment. This conference will focus on the "who", "what" and "why", but very little, if any, "how". At this conference, there are no sessions specifically targeting IT pro administrators, developers, web designers or end-users. This is a niche conference focused on helping business leaders establish and mature their best practices when it comes to their own SharePoint deployment. By listening to what others have faced and overcome and by hearing what they would not do again, each attendee is afforded multiple opportunities to down-step methods and ideas that have worked for others into their own deployment, helping them to discover their own best practice.

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, FPWeb, 5^th Method, Highpoint Solutions, Corridor Company, SharePoint AMS, Agilepoint, RJB Consulting, Meritide, Nintex, K2 and Avepoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Apr 18

Sitecore and SharePoint: Maximizing Value from Integrating Both Platforms

Published: April 18, 2013 10:04 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Sultan Ghahtani from Sitecore will be speaking on Sitecore and SharePoint: Maximizing Value from Integrating Both Platforms . Here is the full abstract to his session:

"In this pre-conference session, Sultan Ghahtani from Sitecore will discuss and demonstrate how Sitecore's Web Content Management System works with SharePoint to give you maximum value from your investment in both provider's solutions. You'll learn about the Sitecore product line, focusing on its' Customer Engagement Platform and Web Content Management System. Sultan will also go over Sitecore's SharePoint connector and demonstrate how it integrates SharePoint and the Office platform with Sitecore's functionality. Sultan will also offer deployment and integration best practice ideas learned from their experiences in working with Fortune 500 companies."

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Apr 16

Cultivating User Adoption: Ten Best Practices from Fresenius Medical Care

Published: April 16, 2013 10:04 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Devashri Gupta from Fresenius Medical Care will be speaking on the Ten Best Practices for Cultivating User Adoption. Here is the full abstract to her session:

SharePoint helps people to collaborate. However, as is the case with most change, not everyone adapts to new things at the same pace. For collaboration to thrive, having the full team participate is not only ideal but crucial. Fresenius Medical Care implemented SharePoint 2010 when manufacturing became the first global business unit in a decentralized multi-national company. SharePoint was the collaboration platform of choice from the President of the manufacturing business unit. Even with senior management support, there were pockets of resistance. There were technical global infrastructure challenges. These challenges were mitigated by focusing on the enthusiasts' pain points and systematically building the business case for SharePoint, such as:

• A customized .NET solution to create an Activity Management web part won over the Treasury team from SalesForce.com

• An Engineering team spread across 3 plants saved time in reporting project status

• Global team sites and dashboards are bridging the gap across plants and cultures

Focusing on the benefits of SharePoint won over users who recognize the savings in time and effort in their everyday lives. Come learn how we helped drive user adoption in our multi-national company and while meeting the needs of our teams.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Apr 10

Putting the right data in the right hands: Applied Materials SharePoint solution for service knowledge management

Published: April 10, 2013 12:04 PM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Erik Wolf from Applied Materials will be speaking on Putting the right data in the right hands: Applied Materials solution for service knowledge management. Here is the full abstract to his session:

"Applied Materials was named to the 2012 InformationWeek 500 list of business technology innovators for delivering a customized, highly searchable knowledge management portal for field service engineers. The Applied Rapid Knowledge (ARK) portal has increased work efficiency and stream-lined product-related document searches to better service our customer's equipment. The solution architect behind the program, Erik Wolf discusses how ARK was developed from concept through enterprise deployment. Topics of interest include program justification, planning, design, implementation, successes and lessons learned."

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Apr 03

Business Social in SharePoint 2013: Best Practices Learned from Working with our Customers

Published: April 03, 2013 08:04 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that David Gwyn from Highpoint Solutions will be speaking on Business Social in SharePoint 2013: Best Practices Learned from Working with our Customers. Here is the full abstract to his session:

"Organizations continue to face conflicting messages and ideas on how social technologies can offer serious business value. Some companies avoid deploying social functionality within their SharePoint environment, claiming a myriad of concerns. Happily, with the introduction of SharePoint 2013, the updated social technologies in SharePoint 2013 will give hesitant business leaders more business value than ever before. In this session, David Gwyn, Vice President of Highpoint Solutions will review the best practices for establishing communities of knowledge, how search and discussion technologies support product development activities, and how to deliver practical results to mobile devices. Social technologies are here to stay and are dramatically transforming how we do business. Come and learn best practices from David's experiences in working with his customer base."

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is a peer-sharing conference for business leaders and stakeholders who are responsible for the success of SharePoint in their environment. This is a niche conference focused on helping business leaders establish and mature their best practices when it comes to their own SharePoint deployment. By listening to what others have faced and overcome and by hearing what they would do and not do again, each attendee is afforded multiple opportunities to down-step methods and ideas that have worked for others into their own deployment, helping them to discover their own best practice.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 30

Pre-Conference: Building a Business Process Portal in SharePoint

Published: March 30, 2013 21:03 PM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Mike Fitzmaurice from Nintex will be presenting a 3.5 hour pre-conference session on How to Build a Business Process Portal in SharePoint. Here is the full abstract to his session:

"SharePoint isn't just a place where work can be put and found — it's a place where work gets done. SharePoint provides a set of services well-suited to the task of managing and executing business processing at a wide range of complexity. Designing, cataloging, monitoring, measuring, and deploying process solutions are the hallmarks of of a business process portal, and delivering this kind of solution requires a set of strategic and tactical best practices. This seminar will provide explanations, recommendations, and examples of:

The key components of a business process portal
Organizational factors that increase/reduce success
Components of a well-designed process
Balancing centralization with decentralization strategies
Mapping business process portal requirements to SharePoint capabilities
Measuring processes from a portal
Usability/adoption/engagement considerations
Avoiding common pitfalls

The seminar will be conducted by Mike Fitzmaurice, Nintex's Vice President of Product Technology, who has spent more than 15 years on workflow and collaboration solutions at Nintex and Microsoft. Joining him will be Jacob Maciolek, who directs North and South American sales at Nintex and spent years delivering workflow and process solutions to customers at OBS, Australia's premier SharePoint consulting organization.

Note: while some — but by no means all, or even most — of the examples presented will make use of Nintex software, the focus is on concepts and best practices that are independent of any product (other than SharePoint itself of course)."

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 29

Creating the Magic: Using SharePoint as a Platform to Effectively Leverage Mobile Solutions

Published: March 29, 2013 07:03 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Shawn Boling from Walt Disney Parks & Resorts will be speaking on Using SharePoint as a Platform to Effectively Leverage Mobile Solutions. Here is the full abstract to his session:

"How does Walt Disney Parks and Resorts effectively leverage the SharePoint environment to support mobile solutions both domestically and throughout its worldwide locations? Come and find out how the world's leader in family entertainment applies its "Four Keys" quality standards to many internal operations in the growing mobile space. Shawn will tell the story of the magnitude of the Disney environment, it's focus on safety, it's complexity, internal user expectations and some of the challenges faced while spanning three continents with multi-lingual and multi-cultural requirements. Find out how Disney sprinkled a touch of pixie dust on their infrastructure to use SharePoint as a platform supporting mobile field auditing needs in both technical and non-technical environments. Shawn will also discuss how Disney simplified communication between leaders and their Cast Members in this same environment. Finally, Shawn will take us on a walk through two specific SharePoint 2010, as a platform, solutions and their respective mobile solutions that leverage Apple's iOS, Android, and Windows devices. These solutions enable Disney's internal teams to provide that special behind the scenes "Magic" that make our Guest experiences so memorable."

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 24

Best Practices for Leveraging Taxonomies in SharePoint

Published: March 24, 2013 11:03 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Seth Earley from Earley & Associates will be speaking on Better User Engagement through Better Organizing Principles: Best Practices for Leveraging Taxonomies in SharePoint. Here is the full abstract to his session:

"Our work environments are increasingly complex; and as a result, our user communities demand solutions that provide access to the right content at the right time. But, content keeps changing at faster and faster rates. How do we keep up? How do we create applications that provide new content in context – without significant maintenance costs? How do we ensure that our designs are comprehensive, robust, and sustainable?

This session addresses this challenge. Using real-world examples, we look at best-practice methodologies that ensure persistent business value from SharePoint solutions. The starting point is to blend both a user-centric and content-centric approach. What content do users need to perform their tasks? How can that content be optimally organized? Among other topics, we will cover important front-end methods for engaging the business in building an understanding of critical content types and various ways to leverage taxonomy. We'll walk through key information architecture approaches including, for example, audience analysis, use cases, heuristics, affinity modeling, bulletin board focus groups, and audience/task/content mapping. Attendees will leave the session with a strong understanding of training requirements for business analysts, UI designers, and SharePoint implementers, and most importantly, a model for engaging the business."

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 22

User Centric Strategies for Employee Portals

Published: March 22, 2013 10:03 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Matt Varney from the Kentucky Community and Technical College System will be speaking on User Centric Strategies for Employee Portals. Here is the full abstract to his session:

"To build a successful employee portal, you have to know your people and your organizational culture. We all know the risks involved in simply following a "if you build it, they will come" approach to technology solutions. You have to know what people want and need, as well as their capacity for change. At KCTCS, we're building a user centric SharePoint 2013 portal with lots of cool technology, but more importantly, we are including lots of familiar and easy to use concepts and features. In this session, we'll go over some of the key points of our strategy, some of the lessons we've learned, and what each of those means to the success of our employees – not just the success of our employee portal."

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 22

Securing Sensitive IP: SharePoint Best Practices at Intel’s Atom Products Development Team

Published: March 22, 2013 09:03 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that David Knight from Intel will be speaking on Securing Sensitive IP: SharePoint Best Practices at Intel's Atom Products Development Team. Here is the full abstract to his session:

"David Knight, Program Manager at Intel, will discuss the SharePoint best practices used in Intel's Atom Products Development Team. He'll discuss how they work with permissions, custom forms, enterprise rights management, and multiple environments to improve team effectiveness and secure their sensitive intellectual property."

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 22

How SharePoint is being used to manage content at United Airlines: Collaboration, Document Management and Social

Published: March 22, 2013 08:03 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Denise Wilson from United Airlines will be speaking on How SharePoint is being used to manage content at United Airlines. Here is the full abstract to her session:

"From the first release of "Tahoe" in 2001 to the Rapid Deployment Program for 2013, United Airlines has been building on lessons learned with SharePoint. First deploying on an Enterprise scale with SharePoint 2007, the user base grew rapidly during the merger of Continental and United Airlines in 2010 – 2012 and was embraced as a business critical tool in the Working Together culture of the new airline. The enterprise deployment was built on a foundation of Enterprise Content Management (taxonomy), site provisioning and governance to automate document management, while empowering users to build the functionality they need for their department. Several major high-ROI enterprise applications such as Operational Alerts, Technology Project Management workflow and Global Environmental Compliance have been built on the platform, in addition to multiple high-value, user-created applications. Come hear about the lessons learned from our 10 years of experience and the plan for the future with SharePoint 2013 that brings together the metadata and touch points in a rich search-driven environment."

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 20

The Ford Foundation Will Discuss Lessons Learned on Launching a New Intranet Based on SharePoint

Published: March 20, 2013 17:03 PM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Dalia Levine from The Ford Foundation will be speaking on Lessons Learned from Launching their New Intranet Based on SharePoint. Here is the full abstract to her session:

"We learned some valuable lessons from our intranet overhaul. Our experience of bringing users into the process, engaging and responding to their needs, providing training and then thanking them for their time led to a more successful launch of a new product than in the past. We will share how we took the direction from our stakeholders to keep using a product, make it pretty, and how users have started to trust and use the platform."

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 18

Making Good Choices: The General Mill’s SharePoint Journey

Published: March 18, 2013 14:03 PM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Jeremiah Werner from General Mills will be speaking on how they have developed their best practices based on over 10 years of experience in working with SharePoint in a production environment. Here is the full abstract to their session:

"General Mills has been an adopter of SharePoint from version one of the product and has 10+ years of experience defining SharePoint's role within General Mills. With this maturity, the environment has been adopted by the organization as the ECM, collaboration and search platform of choice. With over 30,000 sites spanning multiple version of SharePoint, General Mills has been forced to clearly define processes and best practices around its service offering and governance of the SharePoint platform. In this session, Jeremiah Werner, Senior Architect – SharePoint Platform Team will discuss and show examples of a number of Best Practices spanning the various phases of a SharePoint deployment project. Not all organizations are in the same place on their SharePoint journey, but many face similar business requirements and governance hurdles along the way. In this session we'll do more than discuss Best Practices: Jeremiah will show examples and strategies General Mills is using to make good choices and continue to make SharePoint a successful and broadly adopted platform at General Mills."

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 15

Faegre’s Katrina Dittmer and Shawn Swearingen to Speak at the 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint

Published: March 15, 2013 13:03 PM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Katrina Dittmer and Shawn Swearingen from Faegre Baker Daniels will be speaking on how the lessons learned from building a new intranet while merging two law firms. Here is the full abstract to their session:

Every organization experiences change – it is just a matter of how big the change will be and how quickly you will need to respond. This is the story of two law firms coming together to form one new law firm. It is about building a new intranet from the ground up to create a new, single culture and a sense of shared community. It is about rolling up your sleeves during uncertain times and collaborating with strangers (who later become colleagues). Truly, this is analogous to any shift in an organization including a merger, leadership change, reorganization, new or changing business units, and so on. A company intranet needs to be fluid enough to meet the needs of the business before, during and after such changes. In this session, we will share our journey, discuss our approach to supporting the business, and impart best practices should you find yourself in a similar situation.

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 15

Microsoft’s Ken Hausman and Don Scott to Speak at 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint

Published: March 15, 2013 11:03 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Ken Hausman and Don Scott from Microsoft will be speaking on How Business Executives Can Work with IT for SharePoint Disaster Recovery. Here is the full abstract to her session:

"Although IT and executives both desire the best for their company, there is often times a communication barrier that exists between the two which can lead to increased costs, overengineering and deployment timelines. This session will cover the essentials of how to speak to an IT department from an executive perspective, teaching important information to help you understand and convey your business needs to help keep your business running in the event of a disaster."

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 12

State of Oklahoma’s Joy Adkins will Present on the Business Impact of a SharePoint Upgrade: Lessons Learned

Published: March 12, 2013 15:03 PM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Joy Adkins from the Oklahoma Administrative Office of the Courts will be speaking on the Business Impact of a SharePoint Upgrade. Here is the full abstract to her session:

How can you know if your business is ready for a technology upgrade? Whether you're forging forward with SharePoint 2013 or moving up from SharePoint 2007, planning for the business impact and testing the results of an upgrade on your current content is crucial. In this session, Joy Adkins from the State of Oklahoma discusses lessons learned in a mid-sized state agency's SharePoint 2007 to 2010 upgrade. She will discuss the conflicts encountered in choosing between technical upgrade approaches, estimating timelines, creating a user-centric test environment, minimizing the business impact, and getting the business up to speed with new features. This session covers both the technical aspects and the business aspects to consider—before, during, and after the upgrade. Included is an ever-growing Dirty Little Secret List of items to evaluate in your test environment: items which may "look right" to the technical team, but not behave as expected when business users interact with them.

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

Mar 12

Corridor’s Russ Edelman will Present on How to Build a Grounded Value Proposition for SharePoint

Published: March 12, 2013 07:03 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Russ Edelman from the Corridor Company will be speaking on how to Build a Grounded Value Proposition for SharePoint. Here is the full abstract to his session:

SharePoint has and continues to be the Swiss Army Knife of content management systems. While this flexibility is very powerful, it can also be dangerous and unwieldy as the message and approach to SharePoint can often be misinterpreted. As a result, the true value of SharePoint and all that it can do misses the mark. The purpose of this session is to redefine how SharePoint professionals can provide a grounded and realistic value proposition for the audiences that they serve. Be it the end users, executive management, IT, external clients or partners, a unique value proposition must be understood and communicated. In this session, we will review what works and what does not in your messaging, your value proposition, your economic model and how to build a business kit for SharePoint. At the end of the session, you shouldn't be speaking about SharePoint. You'll be talking about the value proposition you can deliver and by the way…it runs on SharePoint!

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 08

PPG’s Diane Kallet will be Speaking on How to Improve Employee Productivity with SharePoint’s Intranet Search

Published: March 08, 2013 10:03 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Diane Kallet from PPG will be speaking on how they improved their employee productivity using SharePoint's intranet search and the best practices they developed as a result. Here is the full abstract to her session:

Every year PPG's IT Leadership team surveys their business communities looking for opportunities to improve productivity and provide value-added solutions. As a result of this survey and other IT leadership initiatives in 2012, an objective was set to select an advanced search tool for our intranet environment that would improve content visibility, the trusted source employees could use to not only find information but trust that the information is current and correct. After an initial proof of concept, PPG chose to move forward with purchasing Microsoft FAST for our SharePoint 2010 environment. This presentation will review how PPG came to this important decision and the approach taken to gather requirements from our business and functional representatives to ensure that our new search implementation would provide value to all employees, making it easier to find information and increase productivity. We will provide examples of how we conducted business interviews, defined user requirements, and provided valuable data refiners, the communication plan, and our on-going Search Center of Excellence.

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 03

Summit 7 System’s Ben Curry to Keynote the 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint

Published: March 03, 2013 13:03 PM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Ben Curry from Summit 7 Systems will be the Keynote speaker and will be presenting on Best Practices for Implementing Business Critical SharePoint: What Most Architects Think They Know, but Don't. Here is his entire abstract:

SharePoint is fast becoming all about Business critical content and processes. In fact, many still don't know that SharePoint Server is in the Gartner magic quadrant for ECM and has been for a while. There are three essential ways that SP can be seen as Business Critical:

1. SharePoint IS your business critical platform. SharePoint would host and server ECM, BPM/Case Management, WCM, Social, Collaboration, BI, and Search

2. SharePoint is the application layer for other business critical platforms. We often use the WCM and BI capabilities in this scenario

3. SharePoint is the back-end, or integrated with other business critical platforms. As SharePoint Server 2013 joins the big leagues in ECM and scalability, we have begun using it for large archives and document storage for other applications, such as Cerner and Epic.

However, you can't treat SharePoint as an "install and forget" product if you expect to have critical content available when needed. Success will take a purpose-built, deliberately designed platform to deliver enterprise-class availability. Whether it's coding a stable, usable solution or architecting a 2013 server farm, your entire team will get immediate and usable information to take back and apply in your environment.

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Mar 02

Mindsharp’s Bill English to Speak on a Best Practices Framework for User Adoption of SharePoint

Published: March 02, 2013 20:03 PM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Bill English from Mindsharp will be speaking on How Diffusion and Chasm Theory Provide the Framework From Which You Can Develop Your Own User Adoption Best Practices. Here is the full abstract to his session:

There is established, credible research that discusses predictable stages people go through when adoption a new idea. By discussing the research, you'll learn the principles of user adoption that can be down-stepped into your environment and provide a framework within which you can establish your own user adoption best practices. This is a compelling and interesting presentation. You won't want to miss it.

Bill has worked with SharePoint since 2001 and has written 14 books on SharePoint, Exchange, CMS and Security. He is currently the CEO of Mindsharp, the leading training company in the United States on SharePoint education. Mindsharp has over 55 unique days of education on SharePoint and has deep experience in working with companies of all sizes. Bill brings his experience to the classroom and this conference to help business leaders understand what their best practices are for their own SharePoint deployment

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Feb 27

Has SharePoint Met Your Expectations?

Published: February 27, 2013 15:02 PM by Bill English

In doing a webinar today, we did a quick, non-scientific poll about whether or not SharePoint had met expectations for those who were attending the webinar. You can see that a full 66% indicated that SharePoint had met their expectations only "Somewhat". Wow.

Surprisingly, nearly 30% are using SharePoint less today than they were in the past. One wonders why.

In many deployments, SharePoint doesn't do as well as what people had hoped. The "SharePoint promise" can seem hallow, yet intuitively, people sense this software package could propel their business forward.

The lack of success for SharePoint implmentations is one of the reasons that we've formed the 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint. We think that many deployments deliver less than what was expected because of business and culture issues, not because the technology itself is lacking in features or functionality. The Best Practices Conference for SharePoint will focus on the business issues connected to SharePoint deployments. It is geared for business leaders and stakeholders – those who are responsible for SharePoint's success from the business side of the house.

If you're deployment has been less than you thought it would be, then perhaps the conference to attend is the Best Practices Conference for SharePoint. Take a look at this peer-sharing conference and see if this conference is right for you. While the conference will be small, it will be powerful. You'll rub shoulders with people who are "doing it" in the trenches every day and finding success in their SharePoint deployments. You'll hear new techniques and ideas on how to deploy SharePoint, increase user adoption and "connect the dots" between your business processes and models, your ECM architecture and your SharePoint deployment.

The 2013 Best Practices Conference will be held May 15-17 in Minneapolis. You won't want to miss it.

Bill English, CEO
Mindsharp.

Feb 25

Best Practices on Client-Side Development vs. Server-Side Development

Published: February 25, 2013 09:02 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Mark Rackley from Summit 7 Systems and Jim Bob Howard from Planet Technologies will be sharing a unique presentation on the Best Practices for when to use client-side development vs. server-side development processes. Here is the full abstract to their presentation:

"Mark Rackley and Jim Bob Howard are co-presenting this topic, stressing the importance of knowing when you should and shouldn't develop your SharePoint application on the client-side. We'll use real-world examples of custom client interfaces, dashboards, reporting, Gantt charts, process flows, and advanced application development in SharePoint, to show the robust capabilities and rapid prototyping and deployment of client-side solutions. But we'll also provide a balanced view of when to go server-side, when to go client-side, and when to combine them; as we discuss the trade-offs of each approach."

While this might sound like a technical presentation more suitable for SharePoint developers, Mark and Jim Bob will be 100% focused on presenting this topic for business leaders, so you don't need to know anything about how to code or write SharePoint applications. Instead, you will learn, from a business and project management perspective, when to use client-side development processes and when to use server-side development processes.

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Feb 25

H.B. Fuller’s Don Frederiksen Will Share Best Practices on Data Visualization

Published: February 25, 2013 08:02 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Don Frederiksen from H.B. Fuller will be sharing the Best Practices on Data Visualization. You'll find that Don is one of the most thoughtful and smart people on the planet when it comes to business intelligence and the visualization of data. He has a deep history in database and warehouse design as well as understanding how to pull insights from large data sets that can be used to make smart business decisions. Here is the full abstract to his session:

"Data visualization is a key element of the current data movement and SharePoint is an important delivery vehicle for organizations looking to make sense of their data with charts and dashboards. Data visualization is an important skill. As proposed by Hal Varian, Google's chief economist, "The ability to take data—to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it—that's going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades." This Best Practice session will validate the important role of data visualization and provide five principles that are key to extracting value from your growing data environment. You will explore these principles with specific best practices that work, sprinkled with a sampling of charts and approaches that fail to deliver insight."

You can watch a short video by Don on his session to learn more about what he plans to speak on.

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Feb 25

Mobile Iron’s Ojes Rege Will Share Best Practices on How to Secure SharePoint Content on Mobile Devices

Published: February 25, 2013 08:02 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Ojes Rege from Mobile Iron will be sharing the Best Practices that he has learned on How to Secure SharePoint Content on Mobile Devices. Here is the full abstract to his session:

Enterprises are increasingly turning toward mobile devices as their primary computing endpoints. Mobile users now expect access to a wide array of behind-the-firewall content from SharePoint and other content repositories. However, mobile devices present several security challenges that can increase the risk of data loss. In this session, Ojas Rege from MobileIron will describe the emerging best practices for mobile content security, and Mike Brannon from National Gypsum will describe the practical realities he faced when implementing a mobile security and management program at National Gypsum.

Mobile Iron has been chosen by thousands of organizations that are transforming their businesses through enterprise mobility. Available as an on-premise or a cloud solution, MobileIron was purpose-built to secure and manage mobile apps, content, and devices for global companies. MobileIron was the first to deliver key innovations such as multi-OS mobile device management (MDM), mobile application management (MAM), and BYOD privacy controls.

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Feb 13

How National Gypsum is Leveraging the SharePoint Platform

Published: February 13, 2013 18:02 PM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Mike Brannon from National Gypsum will be speaking on how they are using the SharePoint platform to lower their software point-solution costs while increasing content management value for their content owners, company-wide. Here is the full abstract to his session:

National Gypsum is a well-known manufacturer of gypsum drywall, cement board and related construction materials. National Gypsum has been making effective use of SharePoint to support the business starting with the 2001 platform. Currently, SharePoint is a tool for communication and collaboration, but they plan to make it their focus of enterprise content management in 2013. By using SharePoint, National Gypsum has decreased their software spend and resources consumed by various point solutions and in their next iteration, they will make SharePoint the ONE way to share, store and retain or defensibly dispose of ALL our unstructured electronic content. Come hear Mike Brannon from National Gypsum outline their future plans and the best practices they have developed over the last 10 years that has formed the foundation for their upcoming move to SharePoint as their core ECM platform.

Mike has known Mindsharp and has worked with SharePoint since 2001. He has successfully managed a growing SharePoint deployment during the same period of time that his company shrank in size and revenue due to the economic downturn in the housing industry in 2008 and 2009. Increasingly, it appears that National Gypsum is depending on SharePoint to lower their enterprise software costs while increasing value to content owners and managers relative to the information they create and manage. Mike's presentation will be informative and helpful to anyone who is finding that SharePoint plays in increasingly pivotal role in their Enterprise Content Management architecture.

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Feb 12

Getting Business Value from SharePoint

Published: February 12, 2013 09:02 AM by Bill English

The 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint is excited to announce that Symon Garfield from Foundation SP in the UK will be speaking on how to maximize business value out of your SharePoint deployment. Here is the full abstract to his session:

Packed with stories and experience from 6 years of consulting engagements with some of the world's leading organisations this session is the perfect guide for executives, managers, project managers, consultants, business analysts, and anyone involved in ensuring that SharePoint is a business success. You'll hear about the 10 most common causes of SharePoint failure and learn the best practices that you need to avoid them. The Art of SharePoint Success is a four point framework combining the best practices for SharePoint Governance, IT-Strategy alignment, Business Architecture, and Transition that ensures your investment in SharePoint delivers long term, measurable, business value.

We have only a handful of consultants speaking at this event. The reason Symon is speaking is because nearly all of his time is spent assisting his customers in the UK connecting their business models and processes to what SharePoint brings to the table. We're confident that you'll enjoy listening to Symon as he weaves into his presentation experiences that will help you develop your own best practices.

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Feb 11

Goodwill’s Erin Glenn to Speak at 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint

Published: February 11, 2013 19:02 PM by Bill English

I'm very excited to let you know that Erin Glenn from Goodwill of Central Virginia will be speaking at the 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint. Her topic will focus on how a "wild west" implementation of SharePoint was tamed and matured to the point where people can find the information they need quickly and easily. This is the abstract for her presentation:

You might have heard "I can't find anything" from your users when they work with SharePoint. We experienced this at Goodwill in our initial SharePoint deployment. However, we figured out how to solve this problem in our deployment. In this session, we'll walk through our initial SharePoint implementation at Goodwill, which included poor information architecture, navigation, poor search results and other problems. Then, we'll outline our new and improved intranet that solved the "I can find it!" complaint. We will discuss our pain points, high-level project milestones, go-live, and lessons learned.

Knowing what I know about Erin, I'm sure it will be a *great* presentation. She has walked into a situation in which their SharePoint deployment was less than what it could have been and that as negatively affecting their non-profit business. But under Erin's leadership, they have turned around their deployment and turned it into a value-add for their organization.

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Bill English, CEO
Mindsharp

Feb 11

How the Kellogg Foundation is using SharePoint’s Report Center to Manage Digital Assets

Published: February 11, 2013 19:02 PM by Bill English

I'm honored to have one of the more thoughtful people in the SharePoint space, Tim Dechant, from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, speaking at the 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint. His topic will focus on how they are using the Report Center in SharePoint to manage their digital assets. You'll find his presentation to be thought-provoking and you'll learn best practices in using the Report Center. You'll want to hear this presentation!

Tim has been working with SharePoint for nearly 10 years. They have a robust, mature deployment and understand how to connect the "goodness" of SharePoint to their foundation's purpose and processes. This is the abstract for his presentation:

We have created charts, graphs, maps, lists, and drilldown reports to make sense of the wealth of data we possess in our organizations. These visualizations and standard reports have been created by technical analysts and end users employing an increasingly powerful set of tools from the desktop to the server. We have been so successful in this that users now have the challenge of efficiently finding and sharing the desired visualizations and reports. Report Center provides a rich set of tools for organizing these valuable digital assets for easy creation, management, and consumption. This session will focus on the features of Report Center and how it has been deployed at the Kellogg Foundation, as well as provide some insight on the power that exists in the standard tools we have available. We will share lessons learned on the journey to make our information more available to decision-makers.

You won't want to miss his presentation and the 30+ other presentations by our impressive line-up of speakers!

This conference is hosted by Mindsharp and sponsored by Summit 7 Systems, Nintex and AvePoint.

2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint
May 15-17, Minneapolis, MN

For more information, please visit our web site at https://bestpracticesconference.com.

Feb 11

Discover Your Best Practice

Published: February 11, 2013 13:02 PM by Bill English

The tagline – and hence, the branding – for the SharePoint Best Practices conference has changed and you might be wondering why. In the past, our tagline and branding focused on giving you best practices that had been gleaned from the field: Clarity. Direction. Confidence. But when we decided to focus our conference on business leaders and stakeholders, we knew we needed a different position for this conference in the industry. That's why we decided to use Discover Your Best Practice.

In a peer-sharing conference like this, we don't ask the speakers to tell you what your best practice should be, instead, we ask them to share how they arrived at their best practices, given their situation, culture, needs, drivers, and so forth. In listening to others talk about their own experiences, you're given the opportunity to down-step and adjust their lessons learned to your own environment. At the SharePoint Best Practices conference, you'll hear new ideas and new ways of looking at how to improve your business – not only your SharePoint deployment. Learning from other's experience is a powerful way to grow your own skill set and knowledge base.

Discover Your Best Practice at the 2013 Best Practices Conference for SharePoint.

Bill English, CEO
Mindsharp