Bamboo Technical Advisory Board

Bamboo Solutions continues to produce effective and unique Web Part solutions while positioning itself as a leader in a competitive and growing SharePoint market. Our Technical Advisory Board members provide feedback, insight, and direction to Bamboo as we continue to grow and evolve. We are proud to be working with Bob Fox, Bob Mixon, Joel Oleson, and Jeff Webb.

For your convenience, the Bamboo Guru Blogs present aggregated content from the individual blogs authored by these SharePoint gurus.

"I have been working as an IT Professional since the mid '90s. During that time I have spent a great deal of time working as a Systems Administrator with a focus on various Microsoft Technologies. For the past 6 years my primary focus has been Microsoft SharePoint Services. I specialize in Architecture, Deployment, Portal and Site Customization, Administration and Collaboration Solutions."

"I have worked for such companies as Merrill Lynch, BISYS Retirement Services and Educational Testing Services, Time Warner Cable, The National Football League, Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson to name a few. I currently work for B&R Business Solutions, LLC as a SharePoint Technologies Technical Lead, and am based out of Lawrenceville, NJ."

Bob lists search as being his favorite SharePoint feature, and "a lack of support for GEO-dispersed organizations" as SharePoint's biggest drawback.

When asked about his vision for collaborative computing five years from now, Bob told us that, "early in the lifecycle of 012 (now known to all as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007), Microsoft introduced their notion of social computing.  The product they envisioned was called Knowledge Networks.  Although this product has since been pulled from the offering in the current version, I see this as hopefully becoming a large part of the future versions.  Rich search capabilities... Who knows who... who knows what.... who is working on the same stuff in differnt sectors of the organization that I can pull in with me to collaborate. This will in my eyes be a big win."

Asked about his interests and hobbies, Bob lists: "music (the New Jersey/ NY music scene is incredible, and I also dabble with the guitar, piano and harmonica); paintball (once a year at the MVP Summit, but a great time is had by all); military history (former Army); walking around NYC getting lost (even after all these years my sense of direction there is way off); SharePoint UserGroups (I am someone you should contact if you want to start a User Group in your area); and the ISPA (International SharePoint Professionals Association, a new organization that I am helping to form that will combine both Developer and ITPro into one single entity devoted to all things SharePoint)."

In addition to authoring his own blog, Bob's published works also include the book, "SharePoint 2007 The Definitive Guide," regular contributions to the SharePoint Beagle community, original premium content for Mindsharp, and TechTarget articles on Improving SharePoint with managed paths and Enabling email in SharPoint.

"I have been working in the technology industry since the early 1980s. I started my career with goals of designing circuits and computers but quickly learned I had a gift for software development. I spent the first 7 years writing software for embedded systems in the robotics industry. Afterwards I moved into applying technology to solve business problems; I have been doing so ever since."

"I am currently a principal owner of Mixon Consulting, providing training and technology solutions for SharePoint, Collaboration, Intranets, Extranets, eBusiness, Knowledge Management and Business Process Management."

"I have extensive skills with design, architecture and the implementation of Windows SharePoint Services 2003, SharePoint Portal Server 2003, Windows SharePoint Services v3, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and related Microsoft Client/Server technologies. Other core technical competencies include development experience in C/C++, C#, .NET, ASP.NET, Web Services, Windows Workflow Foundation, MSMQ, and other leading Microsoft developer technologies."

"In January 2008, I was honored with my third annual Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for my continued efforts and dedication to growing and helping the SharePoint community."

In addition to authoring his own blog, Bob is the founder and a regular contributor to the SharePoint Beagle community. 

"I was an original member of the Microsoft Visual Basic team. I helped ship three versions of the product, worked with Excel to integrate VBA, and conceived the Office Development Kit - now VSTO. I left Microsoft in 1994 to found Wombat Technology, which I still run today. I have published a dozen books with Que, Microsoft Press, and O'Reilly Media. I wrote the first books (ever) on Programming Excel and ASP.NET certification. O'Reilly Media's "Essential SharePoint 2007" is my third book on SharePoint."

Jeff's SharePoint-specific areas of expertise include: planning, information architecture, Web Part and workflow software development, InfoPath form development, branding, training and rollout.

When asked about his favorite feature of SharePoint, Jeff replies, "extensibility - it's like VB or Excel for the web."  In response to a question regarding the biggest drawback of SharePoint, Jeff calls out its "inconsistent admin UI, and poor built-in documentation."

Jeff's vision of collaborative computing five years from now is that, "client apps are either dead or on life support," and that "all business solutions and most consumer applications are delivered via the browser."

When he's not working with SharePoint, Jeff names fly fishing and building wooden boats as his hobbies.

In addition to "Essential SharePoint 2007" from O'Reilly Media, Jeff's SharePoint-related published works also include the AppDev course, "SharePoint 2007 Administration."

"As Sr. Technical Product Manager for SharePoint Products and Technologies at Microsoft, I owned the technical messaging and product positioning for the IT Professional audience. With more than 12 years of experience in the Internet Industry, I have a vast background in web technologies. First, starting out with Internet and intranet application web design including enterprise backend data storage. I later moved into design and infrastructure architecture, engineering, and operations."

"Previous to my 7 years at Microsoft, I spent a few years at a McCaw Telco designing extranets and deploying intranet business applications. My first experience on Microsoft campus came in the form of a contract job at Slate.com managing the staged deployment including web publishing aspects of a daily webzine. In 2000, I was brought in to lead the initial deployment and service offering of an early version of both SharePoint Team Services and SharePoint Portal Server which would become the largest and most influential deployment of SharePoint Products and Technologies. Over the next 5 years I would play the role of lead architect in deployment of Microsoft’s global intranet portal and collaboration service offering. I rarely miss an opportunity to present at TechEd (since 2003), various SharePoint Conferences internal and external, and have presented at dozens of internal, customer, and partner conferences and summits."

Popularly known by his nom du blog of SharePoint Joel, Joel is the author of SharePointJoel.com.