I Am Sick

I am wide awake right now. I slept almost the entire day. I have been sick this week. Not feeling good at all. I just cannot get to sleep right now. Nothing is comfortable on the bed. I tried watching TV. I decided to come into the living room and blog for a minute to see if that would get me to sleep.

Don't know if I have the Swine Flu or not. One of the kids at Chloe's Halloween party did have the Swine Flu and has missed a bunch of school this week. That might be it. Or, I might have something completely different. If I can get to sleep in the next little while I am going to try and get to work on Friday, or maybe I will take one more day trying to get well. I don't know. A lot of it depends on if I can get to sleep tonight.

I do feel a lot better today. I actually ate something solid. From Tuesday afternoon to tonight I had only eaten a bowl of cocoa krispies and 3 yogurts. Tonight I had some spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread. It was good.

I don't want to complain too much, Diana and Jordan have been sick as well, but I don't think they have what I have. I have had fevers, chills, sweats, pains and aches with a little cough. Those two have been mostly coughs, but Diana has also spoken of some aches and pains. But neither has had the fevers or the sweats like I have.

I know, pity me.

Parent Watch Night

I am at Chloe's parent watch night for dance. She is a dancing machine. Her team is preparing for their Christmas concert - which will just be in the studio. Sorry, I won't be able to get you tickets.
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Broken Glass

We had family over on Sunday night (busy weekend, right? - haven't even told you that I fixed a toliet too!). We were happily preparing - doing last minute cleaning, getting chairs out, moving the coffee table. Well, let me go back...

We have a pretty small front room, enough room for our two couches face-to-face and our coffee table with aisles to walk through. It is great when people are over. No TV to distract, you are just face to face with the other people and you can chat. We bring in chairs from the office or kitchen or downstairs. We then take the coffee table and put it in Jordan's room or down the hall. We have been doing this for years with no problems (I am usually the one moving everything).

Yesterday, Diana and I were snuggling on the couch and having the kids take care of getting ready. They were doing a fine job, took the coffee table out, started getting chairs. Diana and I were reading the Ward Newsletter and all of a sudden CRASH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't think I could put enough exclamation points. I look over and see Chloe inside the coffee table - I did say it was glass top, right?

I run over to Chloe, Diana asks if she is OK, I can tell she is fine, maybe a small scratch where she broke through. I toss her out and start surveying the scene:

Glass is broken into hundreds of pieces
Table is scratched on the top and the bottom
I am pissed

I try not to yell, I think I do a pretty good job: I go outside for a minute to calm down. I do go in and give her some choice words, basically asking her 1) what was she thinking climbing on the glass with a chair; and 2) what was she thinking as she crashed through the glass. She just sobs. Now remember, she is not hurt physically, she is just mad/sad that it happened.

I get a box to pick up all the glass. My parents arrive and start babying her once the hear the story. I get things picked up and vacuumed, my Dad measures the opening so he can check with some people on the glass.

I now spend the rest of the night making "funny" (to me) comments. Diana is not happy and Chloe is not talking to me.

Now, the question I have is: did I do anything wrong? I was mad, but controlled, I left the house when things were too bad. I didn't kill her. I think I did good. What are your thought and comments?
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And Trick or Treating

The night finally arrives. Jordan is in his mad scientist costume. Chloe is in her Athena costume (to answer the door). I on my way to ChikFilA for dinner when I get a call on the cell phone. Jordan wants to go trick or treating with friends. Now, trick or treating is a family activity and I have turned the kids down many times on going with friends and no adults-we have gone with friends, but always with adults.

I had already spent 3 and a half hours walking the hike with Jordan and my feet hurt. I took the opportunity to stay home and hang out. It has been years since I stayed home on Halloween (one year I was in Germany).

I got back home, took Jordan to his friends and Chloe, Diana, and I all hung out listening to music and YouTube videos (mine were mostly met with Boo's or apathy). It was a good night and my feet didn't hurt by the end.

Jordan loved going with friends and he knows this is a one time thing as next year he will be having a party and no treating.

You know, a good Dad would probably have taken some picture or something. Sorry.
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A Hike

Jordan is an 11-year old scout. He is tryung to get to his Second Class Boy Scout badge. He has some swimming still to do (the boy sinks like an anchor- the swimming could be a problem) and a five mile hike and map orienteering. Jordan's troop was doing the 5 mile hike on Halloween (nothing like tiring out the kids before trick or treating). I decided to go on the hike with Jordan.

We looked at the map and set up our five mile path. Up 6400 West to 5400 South, over to 6000 West and then down throught the golf course. From there we cut through the neighborhood to get back to the starting point.

It was a good five miles and Jordan did pretty good. We stopped to rest a bunch of times but we made it through strong.

Once we got back to the house we hurried home for trick or treating! I thought Jordan would be too tired. I was wrong.
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A Party

At my house, kids do not trick or treat after the sixth grade. Chloe just started seventh grade. That must mean this rule now applies to her. Diana and I decided that becuase she cannot go out trick or treating, she should be able to have a Halloween party. Chloe happily accepted the terms of the deal and invited 16 friends.

About 12 kids total atteded the party last Friday. It was wild. We did "Witches Brew" which is where you get a list of food items to be blended and drunk by each person (everyone gets a custom made witches brew). We had food items like strawberries, blueberries, ice cream, pickles, string cheese and broccoli. Everyone got a prett wild drink - no I did not partake (I wasn't invited, I was making sure no one blended their fingers off).
After the witches brew we did "Donuts on a String" where you have a group of people eating donuts off a string with no hands. First one to completely eat the donuts wins.

At this point we broke out the glow sticks and the kids went outside to play tag in the dark. They really enjoyed this.

Lastly, the kids went downstairs and played "Mafia", don't ask me what it is, they tried to explain it and I have no idea.

Once we got all the kids out (some parents don't know what 10pm is I guess). Chloe then started the long taks of cleaning the house. She did an ok job that night and finished up the next morning.

I was asleep for all the cleaning - it wasn't my party.
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Day 4 of SPC09

Updating your 2007 site to 2010:
This session dealt with a highly skinned site (which BG does not do).
There was all kinds of problems and errors that had to be fixed and the demos did not go smooth
The presenters blamed it on beta software, I am not so sure
I am glad that we do not have highly-skinned sites to worry about upgrading
After the demos, they started shooting out t-shirts, I did not get one. Sad face.

Driving End-user adoption:
SP is more about culture than technology
The Challenge of Adoption:
Users don’t have to use SP to get their job done (usually)
Really take 18-36 months to see results
Must-have elements in an adoption strategy:
Communication, training, content conversion, user support, incentives and rewards
Training:
Its not just for developers and IT
Power users and site administrators need it - they can do too much damage without it
Microsoft "buzz" kit for SP - google it
People love getting something that tells them they are smart
Training should be just in time and just enough - don’t bore them
User Support:
Contact person for every page
Internal user group
Metric and anecdote feedback - ratings, good/bad experiences
Must-have (free) resources:
SP Buzz kit
SP Training kit, videos, articles, interactive, tutorials, 2 versions: 1 can be installed on desktop, the other is installed on SP
MS Productivity Hub: installed on SP, is a site collection with pre-loaded content about SP - it is not static
Get The Point Blog: MS blog with tips and tricks for SP users
SP channel on YouTube
Demo Spotlight: MS resource

Upgrading 2007 code to 2010:
This session got pretty technical pretty fast, but there were no other sessions that really interested me. I left this one early because there was a problem on my hotel bill (you know how they just print them out and throw them into an envelope without you actually seeing it. I looked at during the break and noticed that I was double-charged for a meal. I headed back to the Luxor - I didn’t want to go back, but I had to.

After I got done with the hotel I am heading to the airport for a flight home. See you all later.

Day 3 at SPC

Art of the SP Story

Business value is more important now, people used to just buy, now people have to show Value for the money they spend
99% of failure is not product or technology, it is organizational culture (afraid of change)
People don’t WANT to do more - with less people or more time, it just let people mess up faster
Intimate engagement with an executive sponsor
ROI in 6 months is smoke and mirrors, need to have accountability
Need to be able to measure
IT should not be making the business case over business improvements
IT should be a teammate - a business leader should own it
Must always question "why am I doing this?" and don’t let IT answer - it must be the business leader than answers
MS expense management project - funny, same problems as BG
Why don’t we tell stories?
Don’t have a good one - make a good one
Cant remember a story - learn how to
Don’t tell good stories - you can get better
Need documentation to support my story - no you don’t
I'm new and don’t have many stories - start building your inventory, a story every day
Don’t get measured to tell stories - too bad, you are
Great stories drive action
Make value proposition tangible
Asks "they did it, why can't you?"
How the story is told can be more important than the data - doesn’t mean you can lie
The idea of the story is to motivate someone to do something
Is it a marketing pitch or is it real?
Storytelling is critical to your organizations success
Good story:
Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Stickable
Sellable
Make it stick
What makes great storyteller
Candor
Honesty
Authenticity
Role Model
Action Oriented
Credible
Trustworthy
Enthusiastic
Real
Not a recession, but a reset, things will not come back quickly
Used properly, SP will make your face to face meetings better, through prior to event collaboration
To be the best you can be:
Develop your story inventory
Look for opportunities to tell stories
Find a coach
Expose yourself in critical review
Put yourself in front of people you trust
Get training
Practice and measure results

BG session - Governance

Went to Craig's governance session to say "Hi", it was super full with a lot of good comments afterwards.

SP Workspaces
Office 2010 - pro +
Rich client for SP
Fast - against a local copy
Anytime, anywhere
Sync's collaborative content: documents, tasks, information worker items
Works with LOB lists, external lists, doc libs, SP lists
Very easy to use - can be used in client or browser
Only connects to what you want
Has unread notice - green dots
Is searchable through your stuff (Windows desktop search), just stuff you have
Uses contextual ribbon, has "quick launch"
Follow unread icons to new/edited items
Has "Backstage" info about the site - things you might want to know
Brings down views
Upload like normal
New can have different content types
Syncs every 15 minutes, new content types will contact the server looking for changes, can save directly to SP or to Workspace (for offline)
Works with the Office 10 multi-authoring features
Has conflict resolution for changes
Does not have admin CRUD tools
Those must be done in browser
Will not sync a list over 30,000 items
Keeps permissions from browser site
Through browser, an admin can set "do not take offline" to stop offline access
There will be a Mac version, created by a different team though, won't guarantee same functionality
Version history controlled by SP Server, only keeps latest on Workspace

No Code Business Applications
Using the BCS (overview)
Ability to compose no code solutions, with some IT control
Presentation - extend office and SP UI to extend data capabilities
Connectivity - read-write capable from client and server to DB or other sources
Tooling - Integrated tools (SPD) for simple solutions
External Content Types (building blocks) for getting data into SP
This session needs to be viewed to see how cool some of the stuff you can do with this. Lets just say that you are in Word, accessing databases from SharePoint through Workspaces (so it will even work online), there was even tabs in Outlook that were using information from SP. Every company should be doing things like this.
Awkward typo during this session, his name is Dan, he wrote "Damn"
How about using this for dialogues - closing and such right in Outlook - the analyst would never have to leave - Consulting? Sales? Almost everyone can use this.

Deploying Office 2010 on the Desktop
I had hoped this session would talk about the different Office 2010 versions and what you need to run with SharePoint. It wasn't. It was a session about how to modify the install files (.msi) to give or take-away any features from the system. I sat for about 10 minutes and decided that Ivan would be the only person that cares about it.

I walked around to see what else was going on and nothing was that interesting to me. I went back to the hotel room dropped my stuff off and then came back for Ask The Experts and a night out with BG people. Long day.

What I'm Getting Diana

It is a rule that when you are away on a business trip you have to come home with stuff for your family. I have been wondering what I should get my wife, but I finally found it!
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SharePoint Fairy is back!

This time in white. All this time I thought she wasn't real.

Meet the Bold 9700

RIM announced my next phone today. It has been a while in the making. No, it is not Earth-shattering, or an iPhone killer, but what this Bold 9700 does do is improve every problem I have with my current phone (the Blackberry Curve).

You can find out more about the Bold 9700 here: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/devices/blackberrybold9700/?iid=RIM_Bold9700_Homepage

This phone will be available for purchase in early November. The carriers (AT&T and TMobile) have not announced pricing, but I have heard it should be around $200 (they can't make it more than the iPhone for sure).

Now, I know you probably aren't going to click that link, so let me tell you what improvements in the phone make this the next phone for me:

• First TMobile 3G phone - finally some speed while on the cell network (I hate EDGE)
• 3.2 megapixel camera - I cannot stand my 2.0, it is horrible (evidence of this is all over my blog). By the way, my current digital camera is only 3.2 megapixel, I will be able to get rid of it once I get this phone.
• WiFi calling - that really works. My Curve has wifi calling, but I always (OK, maybe not always) lose the connection when the phone switches between UMA (wifi) and cellular calling.
• Better QWERTY keyboard than my current Curve

And all this in a form factor that matches my current phone (the old Bold was quite a bit larger - width and height - than a Curve).

I am still waiting for TMobile to announce their launch date and pricing. Need to get me one of these.

Day 2 of SPC

What I learned the second day of the SharePoint Conference:


SP2010 - does not have PDF icon (again), probably won't search PDFs out of the box (again) when will MS really start to play nice? I have an interoperability session later today - we will see. Spoke with someone during lunch and he says Foxit PDF search is the best he has seen for SharePoint.

Dashboarding Session

PerformancePoint makes it easy
Can slice and dice the data.
Conditional data can be opened to see where the numbers come from
Dashboarding is easy as 1, 2, 3 with SP2010 and Performance Point

SP2010 based document assembly and manipulation using Word automation and services and open xml

Open xml software developer kit coming, based on .net, will work on server
Works on office 2007 and 2010
Uniform platform for solutions
SDK does not: replace office apps, perform layout or recalculate, perform conversions to pdf or xps
Version 1 of sdk (june 2008), v2 in development now
Shooting for release near office 2010, support all new features on 2010
Demos:
Use document sets in SP2010 - binder of docs that are related, can use different types of docs
SDK can manipulate documents, but still tasks that need to be done in Office services (see above for things that SDK does not do)
NEW: Word automation services in SP2010
Allows word automation services to open, save, convert to docx, pdf, others,
Works on any file word can open - mainly for conversion tasks
Server-side rendering
Super fast, about 175,000 docs a day
SDK and Word Automation are meant to be used together, SDK for manipulation and Word automation for conversion/archiving
Excel services can query a word doc and make calculations
New File i/o for SharePoint: multiple word users collaborate at the same time on a document (need SP10 and Word 10), dotted lines to show where people have edited, new changes come in when save is hit, the changes show in green for other users
Building block - content control - "work item" to enter needs for docs, use workflow and can pull and push info through sharepoint
Tasks that result can be managed - and items added right through SP workflow and attachments
Allows you to stay in office while working, do not have to rely on busy-work tasks, automate tasks

Workflow in SP2010
Ability to modify a workflow and save it out as a new workflow
Buld on-demand columns as you build workflows
Manager and user-profiles/lookups are now built-in
Columns added to workflows as you bind workflows to a list
Ability to add user data (and tell the system how to use it) in emails
Impersonation Step is NEW - to get around the person that created the workflow shows as creator on SP lists - and this does not work in all environments
NEW ability to interact with "document sets" new SP10 feature
Ability to export workflows to visio for review - COOL
Ability to edit in visio and re-export back into SPD
NEW Task Process Designer - build robust behaviors in human workflows
Can add a "task process" (a mini workflow) inside of other workflows
Custom activities for SPD, deploy to sandbox

Multi-user authoring in Office 2010 and Office Web Apps
One note multi-authoring
Bold= new unread content
See content that has been added since last look
Markings to know who added and how much
System syncs back and forth
Sync rates get faster with more users on a notebook
Can move table rows/columns as others are typing, the system will figure it all out
Find changes by author/age of edit

Word multi-user authoring
Bubble notification alerts you that multiple people are editing, also new box that lists all people editing - with contact information (via SP or AD)
OneNote is more free for all, Word pops up dotted lines and names balloons - others are locked out of editing paragraphs that someone else has edited
Updates available once someone saves, changes get highlighted
"Backstage" shows versions
Word Office web app: slow load the first time (rendering slowness)

PowerPoint
Alerted to changes that conflict
Broadcast a slide show through SP/2010 gives you URL to viewers, via email

Same kinds of things in Excel
Only works through the webapp - not in the client

General Info
Syncing is faster because they are just updating what changes - not replacing the entire item!
If system cannot reconcile the change, a popup will appear and user can make decision

Interoperability with SharePoint
UI Interoperability
Better user experience across browser - cross browser rich-text editor, firefox open/save integration with Office apps
Saw basic SP functions on: opera, chrome, firefox, safari (pc), ie
Better code output, html, css, wcag 2.0, xhtml
Identity Interoperability
WS-Federation 1.1, WS-Trust 1.4, SAML Token 1.1 will all be supported
Search Interoperability
OpenSearch Standard (from Creative Commons) for syndication and aggregation of results
Content Indexing via BCS - business connectivity services
Data Access
CMIS and REST
External Data Access
Line of business data in sharepoint UI
Build end-to-end client and server apps right within SP
Any SQL app data can be exposed through SP UI
BCS client runtime in Office2010 apps, allows for read-write compatibility both ways
Storage Interoperability
End users don’t care where data is stored as long as the data can come back, data can be stored outside of the SP SQL database - but why - who wants their data mixed around like that? MS heard that SQL is too expensive - but doing this will increase operation costs

Will need IE8 for interoperability > IE6 will not work as well

At the end of the day there was the Beach Party that was pretty cool. I posted a couple pictures from that. You won't see any of Huey Lewis and the News bacause I was so far away and my stupid camera wouldn't zoom, so nothing turned out. It was a good time. After that, I hit up the M&M store and then off to bed.

Now for this mornings sessions...

My Favorite

Everyone has their own favorite place in Vegas or on the Strip. Mine is M&M World. 4 floors of M&M goodness. Everything you could ever want. Wish their was one closer to my house.

Michael Jackson dancers

These guys are on a glass floor on top of the water. They are pretty good. Hopefully one of them falls off.

The Party

This is the madness of the SP beach party. It is 80's themed. Love Is A Battlefield is on the speakers as I type. Huey Lewis and the News is about 20 minutes away. Right now I am just trying to live through the night.

Day 1 at SPC

What I learned day 1 of the SharePoint Conference:
7400 attendees
7.5 miles of cable for the "wireless" LAN
Microsoft is pushing the SP Online hard - Ballmer must have said it 25 times.
Using the Office 2007 ribbon all throughout SP2010 and SPD 2010. Microsoft loves their ribbon.
Inside content areas is very wiki like, add pages and links using wiki markup.
Media will automatically play in SharePoint via Silverlight (work on a Mac?)
Spell check in content areas - which is a big help.
Steveb@microsoft.com is Steve Ballmer's email address, hit him up if you like.
All new programs (designer, visual studio, the 2010 suite) must be upgraded together to get the benefit, you cannot get Designer 2010 and use it with SP2007.
OneNote on the web is what SP is trying to emulate
Power of the crowd - tagging, rating, taxonomy - favorite of the SP dev team
Silverlight org chart built by sp automagically
Made social and interactive a lot better
Scaling up and out on lists and libraries - over 1 million items in lists, actually multiple millions - and it was fast in the demos I saw
PerformancePoint reporting (NEW) can break down where the numbers come from. Slice and dice. Very nice.
2010 is mostly AJAX - don't have to wait for pages to post and redisplay - which will save me HOURS per month!
SPD 2010:
You can restrict spd and what it can do in central admin and site collection Summary pages, ribbon, quick launch navigation
Creating sp content
Manage site security
Manage lists directly in spd, which is brand new - and awesome!
List items must still be added via browser - link on summary page
Security is faster and easier in spd
Create content types and attach to lists directly
Site assets - images, xml, javascript, css - everything for the site XSLT data view web parts are everywhere and can now be manipulated through the browser and in spd
Drag and drop functionality in spd for data files!
Site assets are automatically added to lists/available content
Insert formula to combine columns - cool, but how useful really?
Connect to data sources outside of sharepoint - use single sign on
Business connectivity service external content types - user does not even know they are editing a database
Workflow: reusable workflows! YEAH! Site collection workflows as well!
Workflow subject line can contain workflow data and free text (string)
Rich text editing for workflow emails!

Overall, SP 2010 and Designer 2010 seem awesome, but I don't know if I have seen a compelling reason to actually upgrade. Today I have dashboarding, document assembly in SP and Office tools, a special Colligo lunch (the SP offline guys), workflow overview, and finally a multi-user authoring session. It will be another full day.

Now I know what Catalyst attendees feel like. Too much information...on overload.

I Knew It!

This elevator has felt like riding the Tower of Terror ride. I knew there had to be some problem, and today, it is closed and being worked on.

Mandalay Bay at Night

Sure wish the camera on my phone took better pictures. The Mandalay Bay just kind of "glows" gold at night. This picture just doesn't do it justice. At least you can make out the words Mandalay Bay across the top.

My Room

Just realized I showed you all the view from my room, but did not show you my actual room. Here it is. Notice the 2 queens when I specifically requested 1 king. Didn't even get an upgrade for that. The room is nice enough. Nothing spectacular. Cool to be in the pyramid.

View from my room

Here is the view from my room that looks back down to the Mandalay Bay and the conference area. You can compare and contrast the two pictures.

The SharePoint Fairy

Microsoft Fail

Waiting outside a breakout session that is supposed to start in minutes. The room is going to be packed.

As I write this they let us in - but insist on scanning our badges to see what we have attended, thus slowing the process down further.

The Luxor

Here is a picture of the hotel I am staying at (the Luxor). It is right across the street from the Mandalay Bay (where the conference is happening). Funny thing is - my room looks directly back this way. I will post a picture of that later today. I got this picture from out in the common area of the conference space.

So far today I have had an OK breakfast (don't like biscuits), a great keynote (lots of good things happening with SharePoint and an OK lunch. Had a good conversation with an analyst at CMS Watch over lunch. He was very interested in the vendor briefing system I help build in SharePoint (he knows about it because he knows Dan Blum, another BG analyst, who was bragging about it.

Alfreds of Sweden

The demo guy just connected an external database to SharePoint, made it viewable in SharePoint and Office. And it is not only viewable - it is editable. Inside Outlook the demo guy edited the server list. All with no hand code - just enter in URLs and click some boxes. He used SharePoint Designer for this - which is my favorite program. Sweet.

The Keynote

Steve Ballmer is keynoting right now. He is not discussing the economy because IT and productivity workers are bringing us out this poor economy. SharePoint is at the heart and center of innovation for Microsoft. Beta of SP 2010 available in November. Along with Office 2010 and SharePoint Workspaces (Groove). Workspaces will be client based and allow people to work everywhere. Release in 1st half of 2010.

More to come.