I had the distinct pleasure of speaking at a much closer SharePoint Saturday to home than all of the others I’ve attended in the past. This was the turn of SharePoint Saturday London at the Imperial College in Kensington and although I’m good friends with both Seb and Peter who ran the event, that doesn’t save them from a review of it from a speakers perspective!
On the Friday night we had the usual speaker social which is a great chance to meet fellow speakers, some of whom you already know and see regularly, some you know, but only see at big events in the US (and generally end up drunk eating burgers at 3am!) and more importantly, some that you don’t know, but you will after sharing a K2 inspired cocktail and a burger (after a hasty run to McDonalds when the kitchen closed!)
I really enjoy the speaker socials for this reason, it’s part of what makes the community work for me as these are people I can reach out to when we may need speakers at SUGUK, or other events and having a good friendly relationship with them works wonders! It’s also a great opportunity for the organisers to say thanks to the speakers for giving up their time to speak at the event. (A few people I spoke to during the day were under the impression that the speakers were paid to be there, We’re not, everyone involved is volunteering their time, from the organisers themselves, to the volunteers manning reception, pointing the way and of course the speakers themselves.)
But the real reason we were there is to present to the community the next day and so with that in mind most of us were up bright and early to get set-up. The speaker room filled up very quickly but luckily I was up first to deliver my “Building an FAQ in SharePoint 2013/Office 365” session as part of the SharePoint Saturday London Customisation track. I really liked this track title as it moves away from the tradition IT Pro track, which tends to focus on the infrastructure/services and away from Developer which should focus on Apps/Development to one that covered everything from both of these tracks to Power Users too.
The session went well, I had a good size room with some great audience participation and some good questions. You can find the slides for this session on SlideShare and embedded here.
After my session, I had a chance to catch up with some of my good friends in the community over coffee, as well as take a look at some of the vendor stands. I know people sometimes find the vendors can be a little pushy at some events (and I didn’t see any of that here I have to add!) they are a really important aspect of the SharePoint Saturday events as without them we just couldn’t put on such a wonderful free one day event, so thank you to the sponsors. Especially to Crimson who sponsored an excellent spread at lunchtime!
Unfortunately sometimes speakers get sick, or have to drop out at the last minute and SharePoint Saturday London was no exception, so Peter and Seb asked me to fit in another one of my sessions which I was happy to do as it didn’t take much setting up and I delivered this session in the last slot of the day. This was a session that I haven’t delivered in a while, so it was nice to revisit it including some of the tweaks that I had made to the demos and slides following feedback from previous events but never had the chance to test out. Again, you can find the slides on SlideShare and if you have any questions, reach out to me here in the comments or via twitter (@Cimares)
Of course no SharePoint Saturday event would be complete without a SharePint and SharePoint Saturday London was no exception with a wonderful bar within the Imperial College itself that looked somewhat like the Hogwarts dining room! The beer vouchers were flowing well thanks to Metalogix and everyone seemed to be having a great time.
Overall I heard lots of great comments about the event throughout the day, the speakers were all full of praise for the facilities (You cannot underestimate how nice it is to just sit your laptop on the podium, plug it in and find that everything just works!), the attendees liked the venue and remarked on how easy it was to get to and the quality of the catering (though a more regular supply of coffee would have been nice!).
It was a great event and I have to admit I’m pleased to see a SharePoint Saturday in the south of England at last, I enjoy doing the Midlands event too, but it’s a long drive for me. Not that this will stop me submitting for the next one, so I hope to see many people there too!
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Thanks for stepping in Paul: completely lost my voice on Friday and wasn’t much better yesterday
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More than happy fella!
Legend! x
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