SPS Cambridge

Saturday 9th September 2017 saw what I think was the fourth combined SharePoint and SQL Saturday run by Mark Broadbent (@retracement) with myself initially filling the position of Track Chair for SharePoint. In the end, due to drop outs, Mark asked me to take a bigger part of the organisation and I ended up co-organising the event on the day. As a result, I’m now a full time part of the organising team along with Mark and his wife and looking towards next years event.

If you attended, I’d really love to hear from you with what you liked or didn’t like about the event. Follow and msg me on Twitter and I’ll get right back to you for your input! We’re currently looking at booking the Moller Centre in Cambridge again for the next event and I’m going to begin speaking to sponsors and potential speakers to help them plan their diary for next year.

Of course I have to say thank you to all the speakers, sponsors, volunteers and attendees, but I do have to add special thanks to the following:

Thomas Vochton – For picking up the keynote session at fairly short notice and providing a fun view of the relationship of SharePoint and SQL and all those who work/use the platforms.

Gosia Borzecka and Nigel Price – For dropping into the schedule at very short notice to help cover speakers that had to drop out. it was much appreciated to help keep the schedule full for the attendees.

I very much look forward to next year, although I have to say I won’t combine organising with doing a session as well, that was just a little too much!

Work changes

On the real work side of things (You know, that thing that pays the mortgage!), I accepted the position as Business Productivity Practice Lead at Trustmarque Professional Services (Part of Capita plc). This is an internal promotion and I’ll be stepping up to lead a team of great guys, looking after Trustmarque’s clients delivering solutions around Office 365, SharePoint, Skype and Exchange. It’s early days, but I really hope to be able to make a difference and to grow the existing team. We have some challenges, but I want to shape the team into somewhere that people really want to be a part of.

Next steps…

I’ll be speaking at SharePoint Saturday Belgium on October 21st, presenting a session on Auditing in SharePoint and Office 365. This session will look at the different options available in SharePoint Auditing and the Office 365 Unified Audit log, as well as options for backing up/taking data offline for storage.

This will then be followed by my first ever time presenting at SharePoint Unite in Haarlem, Netherlands. I’ll be presenting an enhanced version of my Managed Office 365 Identities session, taking a deeper look at Cloud, Synchronised and Federated Identities, the hardware you may or may not need as well as introducing licensing into your User lifecycle management.

I hope to see you at an event soon.

Paul.