I’d like to invite you to SharePoint Saturday DC on May 15. SharePoint Saturday DC is a FREE, community driven, 1-day event that provides education around SharePoint at all levels.

You wouldn’t want to miss this event as there will be around 89 speakers and 84 sessions that will be delivered. Touted as the biggest SharePoint event in Washington, DC right after SharePoint 2010 is launched, 800 people are expected to attend. Get to network with SharePoint experts and get a chance to win raffle prizes such as Apple iPad, Netbook, Zune HD, SharePoint books, training passes, Access to online content from Microsoft’s SharePoint Conference 2009, and many more!

So what are you waiting for? Register now http://bit.ly/spsdc3

I am extremely pleased to have been picked as one of those speakers at the upcoming SharePoint Saturday DC in the Microsoft Reston office. The presentation is titled Secret Ingredients of Successful SharePoint Project Management.

In this session we will be going over  time-proven project management techniques that will:

• Generate executive support
• Control schedules and finances
• Keep project teams aligned
• Encourage user adoption
• Lead teams to successful deployments

About SharePoint Saturday:

Join SharePoint architects, developers, and other professionals that work with Microsoft SharePoint Technologies for ‘SharePoint Saturday’, on Saturday, December 5, 2009 at the Microsoft Technology Center on Sunset Hills Road Reston, VA. SharePoint Saturday will be an educational, informative & lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics. SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint!

The long-awaited SharePoint 2010 Beta was finally released this week. It has set the entire community on fire! Many new features have been added and existing ones improved. I will be posting a series of blog posts next few weeks as the adventures take place. Stay tuned!

Before you start installing the beta in your sandbox environment, you will need to have the 64-bit hardware ready. Below is a list of the minimum requirements:

• Windows Server 2008 64-bit with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or later OR Windows Server 2008 R2
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 64-bit with SP2 or later OR SQL Server 2008 64-bit
• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 with SP1

Level 1 Internet browser options running on the Windows operating system:

• Internet Explorer 7 32-bit
• Internet Explorer 8 32-bit
• Firefox 3.x 32-bit

Level 2 Internet browsers options:

• Internet Explorer 7 64-bit
• Internet Explorer 8 64-bit
• Firefox 3.x on non Windows operating system
• Safari 3.x

For the complete and updated list of prerequisites for installing SharePoint Server 2010, see “Determine hardware and software requirements (SharePoint Server 2010)” (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=166546) on the Microsoft TechNet Web site.

It was such a great time catching up with old friends and making new ones at SharePoint Saturday Baltimore this past weekend! I had to change my travel plans slightly and ended up getting there in the afternoon and missed all the parties!

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for coming out to SharePoint Saturday Baltimore on such a gorgeous weekend. It ran from early morning all the way to the early evening. The turnout was awesome. Eric Harlan and Buddy Weber, the event organizers, truly did a superb job and deserved our standing ovation!

For a late Saturday afternoon, the attendees for my session were rather animated despite Business Process Management (BPM) and workflow are both pretty heavy topics. I truly appreciated all the lively interactions and discussions. A few questions came up surrounding SharePoint & Designer 2010. Having been selected a Beta tester for SharePoint 2010, I will start writing about those topics in the coming weeks. So stay tuned to my blog for follow-up and further details.

I have posted the PowerPoint presentation here for your “enjoyment”. Please drop me an email if you have any questions. Cheers!

SharePoint Saturday Baltimore: Designer or Custom Workflows – Do I Look Fat in This?

The event is completed filled up. The turnout will be huge. I look forward to seeing you all there!

It was an awesome experience presenting to an animated crowd at the SharePoint User Group of Washington DC (SUGDC) meeting on July 9. The presentation was titled “Docs with Attitude: How to Give Your Content Meaning”. Please see my earlier post for more details regarding the meeting.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to SUGDC and HireStrategy for having me. And special thanks to Nelson Johnson, Gary Vaughan, and Deanna McNeil; they are terrific hosts!

A few attendees have asked me to post the presentation. So here comes some PowerPoint. Please enjoy it!

SUGDC: Docs with Attitude – Enhancing Document Management with Content Types

Content types are one of the most important new features of WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007. Content types enable organizations to organize, manage, and handle content in a consistent way across a site collection. By defining content types for specific kinds of documents or information products, an organization can ensure that each of these groups of content is managed in a consistent way.

For more details, visit the official SUGDC website.

Join SharePoint architects, developers, and other professionals that work with Microsoft SharePoint Technologies. SharePoint Saturday will be an educational, informative & lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics. SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint!

The presentation is titled “Designer or Custom Workflows – Do I Look Fat In This?”. A brief session description follows:

What is a workflow? How can it be applied to automate and manage business processes? We will discuss the concepts of workflows and the different ways to quickly develop lightweight workflows that integrates with SharePoint. In addition, we will examine the pros & cons of developing workflows in SharePoint Designer, Visual Studio and K2 blackpearl.

For more details, visit the official SharePoint Saturday Baltimore website
http://klopmp.com/spsbmore

Mark Miller, the founder of EndSharePointUser.com, was extremely generous in lending his equipments and recording my session, Docs with Attitude: Enhancing Document Management with Content Types and Metadata. The embedded screencast is also avilable in its entirety on EndSharePointUser.com.

A few of the attendees have contacted me afterward for a demo. I will be releasing a follow-up screencast on how to implement content types in a couple weeks. Please stay tuned!