SharePoint, Office 365, Azure, and Other Musings…
May 1, 2014 Leave a comment
Are you curious about Office 365? What it is, how it can save you time and help you be more productive? Are you getting the full benefits of all that Office 365 has to offer?
One of the ways for people to get the most out of this new and constantly evolving suite of products is to have people to turn to; a place to go to explore new features and functionality or just learn more, share experiences and ask questions. Formal training is great (we strongly encourage ongoing training for users of the Office 365 suite of products), but there are times when you just want to interact with others or ask a simple question.
Help has arrived. Jornata is pleased to be a founding organizer of the Boston Office 365 User Group. Our co-organizers include Microsoft, Wellington Street Consulting, Slalom Consulting and Cognizant Technology Solutions. The group will met monthly, beginning on Thursday, May 22nd, and on the third Thursday of every month thereafter. The event will take place at Microsoft’s New England Research and Development Center (NERD) at One Memorial Drive in Cambridge. Attendance is free and food and beverages will be provided. You can learn more and register for the meeting or join the mailing list.
Fittingly, for the initial event, Microsoft’s Chris Bortlik will present an overview of Office 365. His discussion will include an overview of current Office 365 functionality, including Yammer, Lync Online, mobile applications and Office 365 Pro Plus. He’ll also explore administration and update issues. Chris is an Office 365 technology architect at Microsoft.
There are plenty of ways to keep the conversation going. We have a web site, Linked In group and Yammer group, or you can follow us on Twitter @Bos365.
We want this to be your group. Feedback, ideas, and suggestions are welcome. What topics would you like to see the group address? Are there other elements that you feel should be added to the program? We’ll provide a place to air your grievances and perhaps learn how others have dealt with the issues you’ve encountered.
We’re also looking for event sponsors to provide food, beverages and raffle prizes for the events or pick up the tab for the Office 365 Happy Hour that will follow each meeting at a local bar or restaurant. If you’re interested, or know anyone who might be, please contact us.
We look forward to seeing you there!
April 18, 2014 Leave a comment
Good morning everyone, just a quick post to let you know that I have updated the New England SharePoint (and Office 365) Community List.
Is your group or event missing, anything need correction? If so, please drop in a comment below and let me know!
New England has a fantastic community around SharePoint and Office 365. Lots of opportunities to learn and network with some great people from around the area.
See you at a SPUG soon!
March 24, 2014 Leave a comment
With Microsoft’s focus on Office 365, and it being the largest product in history for them (surpassing SharePoint on-premises licensing), a few great minds here in the Boston area started talking a few months ago, about creating an Office 365 users group (not just covering SharePoint Online, but Lync, Exchange, Yammer, and whatever else gets tossed out onto the buffet line that is Office 365!).
Well, we have done just that, and are having our inaugural meeting on Thursday, May 22nd, at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center (N.E.R.D.) from 6pm to 8pm. We will have Chris Bortlik, a Microsoft Office 365 Technology Specialist, kicking us off with his session “Introduction to Office 365”. See below for an abstract and bio for the session.
We will be having regular monthly meetings on the third Thursday of each month, so stay tuned for more as we build out our schedule of great speakers and topics going forward!
Our website is up (work in progress), but please sign up for our mailing list to be notified about future meetings and information about the group! http://www.bostono365usergroup.com/
Abstract
Office 365 is the fastest growing product in Microsoft’s history. Come to this session to learn what Office 365 is and how your organization can get started leveraging it today. During this talk we will cover the following topics:
Bio
Chris Bortlik works at Microsoft as an Office 365 technology architect. He works with Enterprise customers and partners in the Northeast in a technical role focused on SharePoint, Office, Exchange, Lync, Yammer, and other parts of Office 365. Chris is an “Insider” within Microsoft and works closely with the Office 365 product team. He holds the SharePoint MCITP and MCTS certifications. Chris speaks frequently at Microsoft events (including the SharePoint Conference); is a contributing author of the "Essential SharePoint 2010" book; and a coauthor of the “Essential SharePoint 2013” book. Chris also blogs regularly on TechNet: http://blogs.technet.com/cbortlik Prior to joining Microsoft in 2008, Chris was a customer for 14 years working in technical IT architect, development, and management roles – primarily leading .NET and SharePoint related projects. You can follow Chris on Twitter @cbortlik
January 31, 2014 Leave a comment
Found out a couple of weeks back that my content just happens to be in the top 3% of content viewed on SlideShare in 2013! Pretty cool statistic. Click the link above to see what presentations were the most popular, and to browse my content on SlideShare.
January 30, 2014 Leave a comment
The Boston Area SharePoint Users Group (BASPUG) was founded to bring together like minds to network and share their experiences, triumphs, and tribulations around Microsoft SharePoint, to provide a community platform for Boston area SharePoint users, administrators, developers, architects, of all experience levels, even brand new to SharePoint, to share their knowledge with the community. We meet on the 2nd Wednesday of every month at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center in Cambridge, MA.
So much to think about. In this session we’ll break it down. SharePoint 2013, Yammer and Office 365 product families bring new capabilities for content sharing, finding, organizing, and authoring. They also create new challenges. The move to the cloud and the integration of SharePoint and Yammer—the enterprise social network—have made this release very profound and disruptive to the business. In this session, we’ll dig into planning and strategy for social architectures around both business process and the technologies to help ensure compliance and success. Social enterprise technology is transformative and will lead to more agile business when used correctly but disaster and chaos when not used properly.
About Joel…
Blogger, traveller, and top social media influencer, Joel has built communities all over the world and travelled to over 140 countries since 2008, including keynotes on all continents. Joel is director of technical evangelism at ViewDo Labs, a social analytics platform. He was the first SharePoint administrator ever and spent seven years at Microsoft, including a few years on the SharePoint team. This past year, as a 13-year SharePoint veteran, he was awarded top SharePoint blog and #1 influencer in the community by Forbes study. Joel is co-founder of many community efforts—SPYam Yammer community (4500 members strong) and Sharing The Point (a community building and training group designed to help underserved countries). You can find his popular technical bog at http://www.collabshow.com and his travel blog at http://travelingepic.com and on Twitter: @joeloleson
ViewDo Labs offers a federated view of what’s happening with Yammer, SharePoint, Chatter, and other ESNs — across the enterprise, and around the world – so companies can increase adoption while lowering the risks of collaboration. Through our technology, we help organizations fuel innovation, better leverage their business data and intellectual property.
Food and beverages will be provided at the meeting free of charge from our meeting sponsor. Food arrives at about 5:45. We generally have pizza (with and without meat), as well a salad, water, and sodas.
We will be handing out raffle tickets at the BASPUG meetings.
We will be meeting at Robert Half Technology, 125 High Street, 20th Floor, Boston MA 02110.
LINKED IN
Join our group on LinkedIn today to connect with the rest of the BASPUG members, and spread the word!
FACEBOOK
We are also on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Boston-Area-SharePoint-User-Group/113652405354617
TWITTER
Follow news about the Boston Area SharePoint Users Group on twitter by following us@BASPUG, and by using the hashtag #BASPUG
WEB
Visit the Boston Area SharePoint Users Group website athttp://www.bostonsharepointug.org
ORGANIZERS
Event meetings are organized by Geoff Varosky of Jornata, Eugene Rosenfeld of Black Blade Associates, Dan Diachenko of UnoSquare, and Talbott Crowell of Third Millenium
February 6, 2013 Leave a comment
I am pleased to announce that I will be speaking again at the Granite State SharePoint Users Group on February 21, 2013. I will be presenting “Automating your Enterprise Application Deployments with PowerShell”
Session Abstract
In enterprise application deployments to SharePoint, there are generally farms, or web applications that host specific applications for specific groups, rather than having just an all-in-one deployment. Often times, you do not have access to these other environments, and will need to pass the deployment baton off to the system administrators of those farms.
This session will walk you through how you can deploy your applications, without needing to have the administrator who will be deploying the application, have to do much more than type a few keys into the SharePoint Administration Console and press enter – and having full configuration and deployment of your custom SharePoint applications to other environments.
Meeting Location
Eaton Richmond Center, Room 122 at Daniel Webster College, Nashua, NH
Meeting Time
6P – 8P
Meeting Registration
Click here to register: http://granitestatesharepoint.eventbrite.com/?ref=ebtn
User Group Information
For more information on the Granite State SharePoint Users Group, visit them at: http://www.granitestatesharepoint.org
Hope to see you there!
August 1, 2012 Leave a comment
Just a quick post to announce the first meeting of a new local New England SharePoint users group, the Rhode Island SharePoint Users Group!
Here is the information on tonight’s meeting:
Speaker: Talbott Crowell, Microsoft MVP
Bio:
Talbott Crowell, a Microsoft MVP, is a partner and founder of Third Millennium, Inc. (ThirdM), a custom software solution provider and a Microsoft Partner. Talbott has worked with many companies large and small to help leverage technology to solve their business problems. Talbott is a frequent speaker on Microsoft technologies including SharePoint, PowerShell, F#, and C# development and is the co-founder of two Boston user groups: The New England F# User Group (FSUG) and the Boston Area SharePoint User Group (BASPUG). Talbott and ThirdM hosted every SharePoint Saturday Boston (SPS Boston) since it was first launched 2009.
Talk:
PowerShell and SharePoint, the Dynamic Duo
PowerShell is a powerful scripting environment and language for developers and administrators. SharePoint 2010 has built in PowerShell administration commandlets, but you can use this powerful scripting language with any version of SharePoint. Using PowerShell, Talbott will demonstrate how you can build and deploy SharePoint sites for development, testing, proof of concepts, and production. Using an agile methodology, you will learn how to leverage PowerShell scripts for your planning and development process.
Location Directions
Location: Providence College Moore Hall Room 1
Directions to campus are available here: http://www.providence.edu/visit/maps/Pages/default.aspx.
Moore Hall is #16 on the map. Please enter via the Huxley Avenue gate, you will be directed to visitor parking next to that gate. Moore hall is a short walk up the street to your right, and then your first left after the Dominican Cemetery. Moore hall is the first building on the left. If you have any questions or problems getting to campus, please contact Dan Demmons at 401-865-1755.
Food
Pizza and soda will be served.
SharePint (After the Meeting)
There will be a sponsored SharePint after the RISPUG meeting (location TBD).
For more information and to register, visit: http://www.meetup.com/RISPUG/
December 29, 2011 2 Comments
New England is a bustling SharePoint community, and I am happy that I just happen to live in the area, and can experience most or all of what the New England area offers as far as SharePoint is concerned.
Since this is the season of giving, being the holidays and all, I thought this was a great time to inventory the resources in the New England area to allow people to give and to receive SharePoint community goodness. In building this list, I also learned that there are more SPUGs in New England that I did not even know existed – so I hope this does the same for you!
Please feel free to add to the comments on this post with any other resources I may have missed, I know I must have! Also please feel free to send any updates for information below. All group and event information has been culled from their respective websites and other various sources.
UPDATED 8/3/12:
UPDATED 2/6/13:
UPDATED 4/18/14:
ABOUT: The Boston Area SharePoint Users Group (BASPUG) was founded to bring together like minds to network and share their experiences, triumphs, and tribulations around Microsoft SharePoint, to provide a community platform for Boston area SharePoint users, administrators, developers, architects, of all experience levels, even those brand new to SharePoint, to share their knowledge with the community. We (usually) meet the 2nd Wednesday of every month at either Microsoft’s New England Research & Development Center in Cambridge, MA, or at the Microsoft Office in Waltham at 201 Jones Road.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Monthly, second Wednesday of the month
MEETING LOCATION(S): Microsoft New England Research & Development Center (NERD), 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA and Microsoft Waltham, 201 Jones Road, 6th Floor, Waltham, MA
WEBSITE: http://www.bostonsharepointug.org
ABOUT: The Boston Office 365 User Group is a community focused on sharing knowledge around Microsoft’s Office 365’s ever-growing, always changing suite of technologies. The group will focus on every level of interest, from those who are just “kicking the tires” to business users, Office 365 administrators and IT pros.
Discussions (and coming in May, meetings) will focus on every angle of the Microsoft platform, covering topics around Yammer, Exchange, Lync and SharePoint Online.
Topics may range from introductory sessions for new users — even experienced hands can pick up new tips and tricks — as well as more advanced technical subjects such as migrations strategies and integration. This is your group.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Monthly, third Thursday of the month
MEETING LOCATION(S): Microsoft New England Research & Development Center (NERD), 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA and Microsoft Waltham, 201 Jones Road, 6th Floor, Waltham, MA
WEBSITE: http://www.bostono365usergroup.com
ABOUT: SharePoint Saturday Boston is a free community‐focused SharePoint event dedicated to educating and engaging members of the local technical community. SharePoint Saturday draws upon the expertise of local SharePoint IT professionals, developers and solutions architects who come together to share their real world experiences, lessons learned, best practices, and general knowledge with other like‐minded individuals.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Yearly
MEETING LOCATION(S): Microsoft Waltham, 201 Jones Road, 6th Floor, Waltham, MA
WEBSITE: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/boston
ABOUT: The purpose of the Women in SharePoint Boston chapter is to connect the many women in the New England area currently working with SharePoint. This group is also intended to build the SharePoint community alongside the other local SharePoint groups including the Boston Area SharePoint Users Group (BASPUG), the Granite State SharePoint Users Group, and local SharePoint Saturdays.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Monthly
MEETING LOCATION(S): Meadhall, 4 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA
WEBSITE: http://www.womeninspboston.com
ABOUT: The SharePoint Technology Conference is the world’s premier independent event for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server technology and services. The format includes 90+ technical classes, workshops and breakout classes with content geared to IT professionals, business managers and developers. It features a top Microsoft MVPs, dozens of expert MS speakers and solutions from 50+ exhibitors.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Yearly
MEETING LOCATION(S): Various
WEBSITE: http://www.sptechcon.com
ABOUT: Welcome to the Connecticut SharePoint Users Group (CTSPUG) a place for professionals to come together and share their successes, near-successes, and almost-successes with the Microsoft SharePoint Platform. Our goal is to replicate the magic of the Boston Area SharePoint Users Group with the scenic views and quaint New England charm of Hartford Connecticut.
We meet monthly at the Microsoft Farmington Office at 74 Batterson Park Road.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Monthly
MEETING LOCATION(S): Microsoft Farmington CT Office, 74 Batterson Park Rd, Farmington, CT
WEBSITE: http://www.ctspug.org
ABOUT: The mission of this group is to establish a local community for the FCSPUG members to discuss and collaborate on SharePoint best practices and evolving technologies. The vision is to empower the users with the resources and better understanding of how to build applications/solutions for their organizational needs leveraging Microsoft SharePoint.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Monthly, second Wednesday of the month
MEETING LOCATION(S): Bigelow Tea, 1 Constant Comment Way, Fairfield, CT
WEBSITE: http://www.sharepointusergroup.com/FCSPUG/
ABOUT: SharePoint Saturday Hartford is a free community‐focused SharePoint event dedicated to educating and engaging members of the local technical community. SharePoint Saturday draws upon the expertise of local SharePoint IT professionals, developers and solutions architects who come together to share their real world experiences, lessons learned, best practices, and general knowledge with other like‐minded individuals.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Yearly
MEETING LOCATION(S): New Horizons Learning, 340 West Newberry Road, Bloomfield, CT
WEBSITE: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/hartford
ABOUT: We’re about tip sharing and making connections in the industry without having to head south of the border.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Monthly, second Thursday of the month
MEETING LOCATION(S): Daniel Webster College, 20 University Drive , Eaton Richmond Center, Room 122, Nashua, NH
WEBSITE: http://www.granitestatesharepoint.org
ABOUT: SharePoint Saturday New Hampshire is a free community‐focused SharePoint event dedicated to educating and engaging members of the local technical community. SharePoint Saturday draws upon the expertise of local SharePoint IT professionals, developers and solutions architects who come together to share their real world experiences, lessons learned, best practices, and general knowledge with other like‐minded individuals.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Yearly
MEETING LOCATION(S): Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), Manchester, NH
WEBSITE: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/nh
ABOUT: The Vermont SharePoint Users Group is an open and independent forum for evaluating and extending the knowledge of the SharePoint Products and Technologies architecture, technologies, tools and business applications for its membership. Its purpose is to provide information and guidance to the full breadth of its capabilities.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Monthly
MEETING LOCATION(S): White River Craft Center, 50 Randolph Avenue, Randolph, VT
WEBSITE: http://www.vermontspug.com
ABOUT: Swap tips and tricks with other local SharePoint professionals. Share problems and solutions at an old-school user group, meant to support everyone’s knowledge of this extensive application. Our goal is to bring the local SharePoint community together to share tips, tricks and ideas on the uses of the various SharePoint products and technologies.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Monthly
MEETING LOCATION(S): Winxnet Offices, 5th Floor, 84 Marginal Way, Portland, ME
WEBSITE: http://www.winxnet.com/spugme
ABOUT: The Rhode Island SharePoint User Group (RISPUG) is a community based organization focused on driving awareness and support for the Sharepoint Community in Rhode Island and its surrounding areas.
MEETING FREQUENCY: Monthly, First Wednesday of the Month
MEETING LOCATION(S): Providence College, Moore Hall, Room 1, 1 Cunningham Plaza, Providence, RI
WEBSITE: http://www.meetup.com/RISPUG/
December 5, 2011 3 Comments
UPDATE 12/14/11: 2011 – not 2012! As in tonight!
It appears next week is Connecticut week! In addition to speaking at the Connecticut SharePoint Users Group (CTSPUG) on December 13th, I will be headed back into The Constitution State again on Wednesday to deliver a presentation to the Fairfield County SharePoint Users Group!
Presentation information below…
Title: The Ribbon UI and Custom Actions in SharePoint 2010
Abstract: Custom Actions control features in SharePoint such as the List Item Menu, the Site Actions menu, toolbars, and the links within the Site Settings page, as well as the Ribbon UI in SharePoint 2010.
Learn how to leverage Custom Actions to extend the SharePoint User Interface. This session will describe the basics of Custom Actions, demonstrations to build and apply them in SharePoint as they relate to our lists using SharePoint Designer 2010, as well as provide resources for additional information.
Meeting Agenda:
5:30 – Eat & Greet: Food/Drink courtesy of K2
6:00 – News: Commnents from meeting organizers
6:15 – Session Keynote: The Ribbon UI and Custom Actions in SharePoint 2010
7:15 – Wrap-Up: Announcements and Giveaway
7:45 – SharePint @ Field, 3001 Fairfield Ave
I look forward to seeing you there! For more information, and to register for the meeting, please visit: http://www.sharepointusergroup.com/FCSPUG/default.aspx
Geoff Varosky's Blog 