Everything I Know About SharePoint Consulting I Learned from The Ghostbusters

I recently wrote an article about the skills that consultants need to be successful, and since it also applies to SharePoint consultants as well, I thought I’d cross-post here. Enjoy!

3 Reasons Why Los Angeles InfoPath-Lovers are Awesome

This past Saturday Improving Enterprises sent me to the West Coast to meet with a couple of our clients, but primarily to speak at SharePoint Saturday Los Angeles on the topic of InfoPath 2010. I had a full room (sorry to the folks that had to stand), and a very lively and interactive group of folks who were all very interested in learning more about InfoPath. In fact, I enjoyed our time together so much, I thought I’d share with everyone at least 3 reasons why Los Angeles InfoPath-lovers are so awesome!:

SharePoint Saturday Los Angeles

Next Saturday, April 14th, the Cowbell will be in Long Beach, California speaking at SharePoint Saturday Los Angeles on the topic of InfoPath & SharePoint. I’m looking forward to doing some demos to show attendees how easy it is to create powerful smart forms and pseudo-applications using InfoPath (don’t let me down, virtual Cloudshare environment!) : )

Check out the other great speakers that will be sharing their expertise at this event as well. Also, if you attend my session, you’ll have a chance to take home some swag that my company (Improving Enterprises) will be giving away! See ya there!

SharePoint User Groups on Twitter

“Lists” are a great Twitter feature for grouping all the tweets from a list of people into one convenient feed. You would create a list if you want to follow the tweets of a group of people talk about the same topic. So, wouldn’t it be great if there was a list of all the SharePoint User Groups (SPUGs) that have Twitter accounts? That way, you could keep up on all the SPUG activity around the world!

Well, the Cowbell wants to help! Check out the Cowbell SPUG list here:

SharePoint Crash Course webinar with BDPA Atlanta

On Tuesday, April 3rd at 7pm EST, I’ll be delivering an online webinar for the Atlanta chapter of the BDPA as part of their Tech Talks series. I’ve got 90-minutes to give a crash course to attendees on everything that is the wonderful world of SharePoint – that’s right, from calendars to content types, from lists to libraries, from RBS to BCS.

My intent is do a 60-minute lap around the “wheel”, then wrap up with some live demo of solutions that attendees can do as soon as they get back to their office or friendly-neighborhood VPN. Q&A will also be included.

To join the webinar on Apr 3rd, 7pmEST:
   Go to URL http://www.anymeeting.com/bdpaatlanta1
   Call conference call toll free number: (218) 339-2409
   Use Attendee Access Code: 471 4295

[Update 4/4/12 – slide deck added below, and on Slideshare:]

So strap yourself in and join the ride – I’m gonna show you all the stuff you didn’t even know you didn’t know, and weren’t sure you ever wanted to know, but now you know – and knowing is half the battle.

Useful phrases for fighting SharePoint-Sucks-Syndrome

Many organizations face the challenge of good SharePoint adoption due to the battle of fighting the SharePoint-Sucks-Syndrome (not to be confused with Paul Culmsee’s SharePoint Fatigue Syndrome). SharePoint-Sucks-Syndrome is a debilitating illness that includes the lingering misconception that current-day SharePoint is no good, simply because of bad experiences with previous versions (read SharePoint 2003). Most of us know that SharePoint has improved with leaps & bounds over the past few years. But if you have to work among, or consult for, those who are still suffering from the destructive symptoms of this disease, : ) here are some great affirmations and other useful phrases to help people feel better about their SharePoint experience:

Why BAD Consultants are so necessary

I’d like to think that I’m a pretty good SharePoint Developer. I can jump back and forth from SharePoint Designer to Visual Studio.  I can talk to you about the pros and cons of sandboxed solutions.  I can even talk your ear off about the advantages of using Silverlight and the Client Object Model in SharePoint 2010.

But, as I reflect over the last 2 years, and the SharePoint projects on which I’ve worked with several clients, I realize that I’ve spent an overwhelming portion of my time being a Business Analyst in addition to a SharePoint Developer.

I also realized that’s exactly what each of my clients really needed - a Business-Analyst-Developer consultant. They needed a BAD consultant.