Upcoming Events: June and July 2014

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After a couple quiet weeks at home, the summer schedule has started up, with some major events on the horizon. While things may look hectic to the outsider, I’m actually looking forward to a slightly calmer schedule than previous years. The big difference is that I am doing fewer weekend excursions…which means fewer SharePoint Saturdays, but I am trying to get some life balance back. Having said that, I am working from my hotel room in downtown Washington DC, participating this week in another installment of the AIIM.org Executive Leadership Council (ELC) where we’re discussing information governance for 2 days, followed by SharePoint Saturday DC this weekend. Can’t remember if this is my 3rd or 4th SPSDC event, but as always, looking forward to seeing good friends and having great interactions with the community. I head back home Sunday morning (early), spend 3 days at home, and then make my way down to South Africa for SHARE. Lots of airline quality time. Mmmm.

So here is my schedule for the next 2 months, and a preview of what comes after that:

SharePoint Saturday DC (#SPSDC)
http://www.spsevents.org/city/DC/DC2014/home
June 7th, Chevy Chase

Many Paths to the Cloud: On-prem, Online, and Everything In-between
(An update to my SPC presentation) Many "clouds" support SharePoint 2013. And these many “clouds” can be combined adding unique value based on your unique requirements. This session is designed to help administrators and IT decision-makers find the right cloud formula to deploy based on practical business and technical considerations. You'll understand how to differentiate between private and public clouds, IaaS and SaaS, as well as hybrid scenarios with absolute clarity of the business benefits and the IT best practices.

Join the Yammer conversation at https://www.yammer.com/spsdcyam/#/Threads/index?type=algo

SHARE South Africa
http://www.shareconference.com/za/
June 18-20, Johannesburg

How Social and the Cloud Impact Your Governance Strategy
Two of the biggest disruptors impacting your organization are social and Cloud. If you're like the majority of companies around the globe, you want to do what is right for your end users and provide tools and solutions that will keep them engaged and productive, while also driving down costs. At the same time, these new solutions are not yet as mature as your other enterprise platforms, and managing them comes with hidden costs and as-yet-foreseen impacts.

This session will outline the management and governance fundamentals for social and cloud-based collaboration, and help you understand the many considerations for ensuring your systems remain scalable, secure, compliant, and manageable.

Join the Yammer conversation at https://www.yammer.com/share4business-southafrica/

Worldwide Partner Conference (#WPC14)
http://www.digitalwpc.com/
July 13-17, Washington DC

Instant Productivity with Yammer, Monday July 14th, 3 to 3:30pm
Wondering where to begin with Yammer, and what steps you can take to quickly realize its business benefits? Come join this session conducted by SharePoint and Yammer Certified Admin Christian Buckley, Chief Evangelist at SharePoint ISV Metalogix, as he walks through several tips and tricks for getting the most out of Yammer.

Connecting with Partners Using Yammer, Tuesday July 15th, 12:30 to 1pm
One of the most compelling use cases for the Yammer platform is how quick and easy it is to connect with and extend your partner relationships. In this session, SharePoint MVP and Yammer Certified Admin Christian Buckley, Chief Evangelist at SharePoint ISV Metalogix, will demonstrate how simple and powerful Yammer can connect your company with partners and customers, which is perfect for maintaining Product or Sales-related communities, helping organizing better incorporate the voice of the customer and partner into your business planning.

Social Options for On Prem Customers, Tuesday July 15th, 3 to 3:30pm
While the record-breaking growth of SharePoint in the cloud (via Azure and Office365) is outpacing the growth of SharePoint on premises, many organizations are still planning to maintain their on premises infrastructure – and yet still want to utilize social capabilities. In this session, SharePoint MVP Christian Buckley, Chief Evangelist at SharePoint ISV Metalogix, will share some of the product roadmap for social inside of SharePoint and highlight the native social and hybrid (using Yammer) options for SharePoint on prem customers, providing Q&A for participants.

Join the Yammer conversation at https://www.yammer.com/msuspartner/

Utah SharePoint User Group (confirming)

http://www.utsharepoint.com/ 
July 31st, Salt Lake City

The gig and abstract have not yet been confirmed, but I hope to have this locked down within the next week, and will be using this event as the kickoff of a multi-state SPUG tour into early August. Which leads to…

August Road Trip

I was originally planning to take a vacation before my two younger boys head back to school in the fall (my youngest starts football mid-month, as well), but when I mentioned to some community members my plans to be in their regions, I started getting invites to speak. So of course I accepted those invitations, and while still being organized, I have plans to visit a handful of user groups – as a speaker, or just as a visitor. I’m trying to figure out which events align with my travels, but right now I am hoping to sync up with SPUGs in Columbus, Boston, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and a couple of the DC user groups before heading back out west. Essentially, I travel east from Salt Lake City on August 2nd, making stops in Illinois and Ohio before hitting upstate NY and over to Boston, then down to NYC and DC, before heading back out west with stops in Minneapolis and Mount Rushmore. It’s going to be a long 2 weeks of road travel. My almost-16-year-old will get some good driving time in!

And then its back home, and then turnaround and head back to Columbus for their SharePoint Saturday event. Looking forward to participating once again!

Christian Buckley

Christian is a Microsoft Regional Director and M365 Apps & Services MVP, and an award-winning product marketer and technology evangelist, based in Silicon Slopes (Lehi), Utah. He is the Director of North American Partner Management for leading ISV Rencore (https://rencore.com/), leads content strategy for TekkiGurus, and is an advisor for both revealit.TV and WellnessWits. He hosts the monthly #CollabTalk TweetJam, the weekly #CollabTalk Podcast, and the Microsoft 365 Ask-Me-Anything (#M365AMA) series.