Spotlighting the Rock Stars of SharePoint

Spotlight on Joel Oleson, SharePoint Rock Star

2008-12-08T19:52:00Z

Joel Oleson, or SharePoint Joel as he's widely known, is probably the SharePoint rock star most likely to elicit a "we're not worthy" bow for his contributions to SharePoint and the surrounding community. Not that he'd stand for such behavior, as Joel is one of the nicest and most down to earth members of a professional community that is blessed with a multitude of such individuals. Joel was, as they say, "present at the creation" of SharePoint, and for the next seven years he was integral in shaping the development of SharePoint at Microsoft. Joel remains a tireless evangelist for SharePoint, recently accepting a position as Senior Product Manager on the SharePoint team at Quest Software. In this exclusive interview, conducted to coincide with the launch of the SharePoint for Administrators feature area which was created in partnership with Joel, he not only provides his unique perspective on SharePoint's past, but unflinchingly shares his thoughts on its present and future as well.

You were with Microsoft for 7 years. Was the entirety of that time devoted to SharePoint development and deployments, or were you brought into the SharePoint team from another area?

It wasn't called SharePoint when I got there in Dec 2000, but on the very first day I went to Gabe Bratton's office and we talked about Office Server Extensions and Office Web Server (later known as SharePoint Team Services and now WSS). I had 4 years of IIS administration experience at that point, going back to IIS 2.0 and another 5 years of IPlanet/Netscape Enterprise Server and Apache. My interviews were with the Exchange team. I had just gotten my MCSE in NT 4.0 and hadn't spent more than a week using Widows Server 2000 (what I had learned in class). Essentially, the Office Web Server team was asking Microsoft IT to host SharePoint (or what would be called SharePoint) in the data center and asking them to pilot the Web collaboration software and build out a service. They had purchased a server and Gabe himself took it out of his car and put it in the datacenter (definitely against the shipping/receiving policy). You can imagine the IT pushback from some "random" under the radar product. In that same first week, I met up with the Tahoe team to look at what they'd been doing with Magma (the Exchange Webstore). A few weeks later I was doing performance testing with Ross Smith (Exchange Guru) to determine how to size both these apps with the idea of designing a service. My role and responsibility was to manage, operate and pilot these apps to determine if Microsoft IT should build a service based on this software. I was employee #1 on the ops team for SharePoint. At that time we were the little "C" in the Messaging & Collaboration team, MACS. One guy, Shawn Parks, did Unified Messaging; one guy, Rudi Peterson, did Conference Server and Fax; and one guy, Florian, did mobile. We were the special ops amongst a much broader Exchange Messaging Group of more than 20 that was staffed 24/7.

Can you briefly sketch out, from your firsthand experience, the evolution of (what came to be known as) SharePoint from its inception to the current MOSS 2007 version?

To set the stage, let me give you some background on what prepared me for SharePoint. I supported and designed a few databases for our SQL 6.5 environment at XO Communications, and configured NLB for our Intranet load balanced IIS 3.0 environment. We even ran hardware load balancing solutions for the Internet sites. SharePoint wasn't my first publishing app. I used Notes and Domino for a couple of years at XO. I supported and did code reviews for the publishing functionality in Allaire's Cold Fusion, Homesite, and publishing platform and various Java apps in BEA Weblogic, supported a few iPlanet Web apps and Apache Java Tom Cat Apps.

Before joining Microsoft, I had played with SQL Dashboards, ran a few Front Page Server Extensions 98 boxes, and evaluated site server and had some limited experience with it. I'd say I was really prepared for SharePoint with my experience doing Web support at Slate.com (a Microsoft Webzine at the time). I did all the technical support, and ran the dev and test environments, including the propagation of code and managing the publishing environment code named InterPress (I think it was used by MSN -- not sure if anyone outside ever saw it). Search and audiences had their beginnings in site server which we used at Slate.com in early 1998. We were using ASP, and I had written a few ASP apps for automating common responses. That's where I got my first experience with SQL 6.5 and IIS 2.0. Once I got to Microsoft, I upgraded an Office Server Extensions box to STS Beta 1, Beta 2, RC. There was a decent deployment of 800 Sites under Gabe's desk on his desktop essentially. In the first couple months of running the pilot service I got my first experience with database migration pains and server health check. In designing that early service I was very fond of an add-on that was created by Radu R, one of the PMs. Despite the push back, I saw it as the future and a way to achieve scale and provide a global service. It was called the SSC, Self Service Creation. With no quotas and thousands of sites on one virtual server, I was very concerned about scale and capacity. I worked with the SharePoint team to understand the administration experience. Running 17 STS servers with 500GB and 5 SPS 2001 servers with 75 Workspaces, I was the sole ops resource until we started upgrading. We consolidated the File Server team of 2, hired a contractor, and I became the ops manager.

The products continued to evolve through better management through leveraging SQL as a store, getting rid of dependencies on the Exchange Webstore (SPS 2001) and local groups (STS). In the Office 12 wave, the portal would try to manage the WSS sites. WSS lists and site collections were solid, and SPS would look to take advantage of the modularity. SPS finally drank the list Kool-Aid in MOSS and they truly became integrated, making WSS and MOSS management very consistent. I could obviously go on and on about this stuff...

Indeed, I don't doubt that you could write an entire book! What was your sense of the public reaction to the release of WSS 2.0, and how do you think that reaction informed development efforts and/or product planning for future releases?

WSS 2.0 was overcoming that stigma of STS as a site for 15 users, a poorly written marketing document that was seen as the law. SPS 2001 was seen as a repository for a group. Neither were taken seriously as an enterprise Portal (maybe departmentally by analysts), but not even considered enterprise apps until 2003. That's when things really came together. The Microsoft Intranet would fully adopt SPS 2003 as its portal, where before only search was used in 2001 for MSW. This re-architecture would help us build real scalable farms. In V1 on both products you were really stuck on one box. 2003 opened up real farms with load balancing and SQL clustering. The portals were seen as enterprise portals and the team sites as an enterprise collaboration offering. The partners really came on in this version as well with real integration workflow apps, anti-virus, and obviously a bunch in the back-end around backup/restore, some of which were there with us in SPS 2001 in the beginning.

What would you say was the biggest challenge the SharePoint team faced during your tenure?

The biggest challenge was moving from the enterprise to the cloud. The dedicated service was something I worked on for a little over a year. Trying to turn all of what we learned internally and in the extranet space into a repeatable and scalable service with a skeleton crew that could be run hands off. We began with the pilot hosted service in WSS 2.0, SPS 2003 which really wasn't viable for doing much beyond small sites. Our first customer was running STS and getting that data from the Midwest to Redmond area presented challenges of space and time. Each company has different challenges and different dynamics. The CIO may say one thing, but his right hand man may be making different decisions which then might get backed up by the CIO. Trying to manage to cut through these politics and provide a common vision as a SharePoint Architect was extremely challenging. The product itself needs to build that vision beyond the marketing wheel, and the stacks. SharePoint Governance is different in every organization and with some common threads, managing these differences in an organization where it touches everything and everyone in a company that is not yours is extremely challenging. The technical challenges are simple in comparison, while I still think there is a lot of room for growth here and I have high hopes for the Office 14 wave.

Given your extensive experience as a member of the SharePoint team at Microsoft, and the prominence of your blog, your name is virtually synonymous with SharePoint in the community, so I'm curious what prompted your decision to leave Microsoft earlier this year? Were you just ready for a new environment and new challenges?

In some ways it was, "OK, so I've seen SharePoint hit a billion in revenue, what's next?" I've seen it through three releases from various, compelling roles. Yet, in Microsoft I had the ability to jump into Live or Mobile or ILM. My passion was SharePoint, and my ability to do exactly what I wanted to do was getting limited as I scaled the ranks. Let me give you an example, like going to the Middle East to speak at a couple of SharePoint conferences and going to see Petra and venture into the Holy Land, or teaching a SharePoint class with my friend Shane Young and connecting with consultants and architects for 5 solid days. I found that my passion was connecting with the MVPs and the community and that was limiting my ability to do my "day job" at Microsoft. I'm still obviously a big fan of Microsoft and the people there. I have a ton of friends at Microsoft and may return some day when my desires to do what I want are more satisfied, or until I see an opportunity where such freedoms were available.

Since leaving Microsoft, you've kept up an almost superhuman pace of blogging, traveling the world to speak at SharePoint conferences and workshops, consulting, training for the Ted Pattison Group, working as a SharePoint evangelist at Nintex, serving on Bamboo's Advisory Board (and, more recently, guest blogging for us) ... you've had quite an active year!

Arpan Shah gave me some advice when I was leaving. He said, "You have 18 months. People know who you are because of Microsoft. When you leave, you'll have 18 months to capitalize on that." That burned a pretty solid impression in my mind that I needed to prove that I knew what I knew not from internal memos, but from real experiences and based on my career and the perspective that has been built over years of experience with the Web administration and Web engineering and operations since 1995, not since SharePoint.

It was my goal not to drop out of sight, and to keep extremely connected with my community contacts. Waiting 1 year to even be considered for an MVP award was hard to swallow and put the 18 month name visibility challenge at risk. I haven't made a lot of money, in fact I've burnt through a lot of money to have the amazing summer that I had. It's been an incredible year. December 27 marks 8 years with SharePoint for me, and I have to say it's been another incredibly rich year of connecting with SharePoint's best through social networks and conferences around the globe.

Just a few weeks ago, you announced your acceptance of a position at Quest Software. Can you tell us a bit about your role at Quest? I understand that one of your responsibilities will be designing new tools to help IT administrators...

My title is currently Senior Product Manager. My role is an entirely flexible one. (I will likely change it on slides as I feel fit.) This means support for speaking at Best Practices conferences around the globe, building community, blogging, and connecting with the community. I recently blogged about Mike Watson ... he and I have been talking about an idea I had about configuration management tools, and true enterprise management for SharePoint. We are now realizing our ideas and dreams with Quest. While most product managers would go heads down and focus on their product, I won't. I'll stay connected to the community and be the outward-facing strategy guy to help the Quest SharePoint team understand customers. I'll also be spending time with Quest customers and helping them understand both the SharePoint and Quest SharePoint and SQL roadmap. In fact, just yesterday I was presenting the Office 14 roadmap deck with Microsoft as a Microsoft Consulting services consultant subbed through Quest in a leadership meeting with a customer. (Great job Ann, Vern, Mark, and Mike.) It was a fascinating experience to speak to 14 from the outside, but representing MCS.

Speaking of tools for administrators, since we're talking on the eve of the launch of the SharePoint for Administrators feature area in Bamboo Nation, I'd like to publicly thank you for your involvement in the creation of the area. We're thrilled that your schedule permitted the guest blogging you did for Bamboo Nation over the past couple of months, and that those efforts culminated in the launch of our newest feature area, SharePoint for Administrators.

Thank you! When I was looking for something to fill in my time while waiting to work out the details, and looking to pay off some bills from my Asia trip, you guys were there to help me out. I had a fun run as a professional blogger. I really enjoyed the experience. You guys did a great job making me feel important and making me realize that I was helping you make a difference.

I understand that you provided some valuable feedback (as well as an enthusiastic blurb) to Dux Raymond Sy, resident expert for our SharePoint for Project Management feature area, on a pre-publication draft of his book, SharePoint for Project Management. How did that come about? Are you approached regularly by publishers seeking feedback and/or blurbs for SharePoint books?

Yeah, I was asked by Laura from O'Reilly to review the book and provide feedback, which I was happy to do. Each of the MS Press SharePoint Resource kits and Admin Resources, and a number of other related titles, such as the Best Practices book and SharePoint Essentials have many quotes from my blogs, some include entire posts (with permission). I have relationships with Penton Media, O'Reilly, and TechTarget.

Ironically, I was turned down an MS Press STS Admin book I proposed in 2001. They didn't think the market was big enough. I did review a few chapters for MS Press in the first SharePoint book that MS Press published, but I think it was their loss that they never came back to me when they realized the market and demand was there. I have a relationship with nearly of all the SharePoint authors. Don't be surprised if I take a stab at a book this next time around (now that I have more flexibility).

Dux's book, by the way is great to finally have. How many times have we asked the PMs to ramp up and they didn't get it? Dux's book is simple and easy to read and doesn't get bogged down in the technical details.

Given your stature in the SharePoint community, it seems to be a rather common (and understandable) misconception that you're an MVP. You mentioned earlier that there is a one year "waiting" period that's required after leaving Microsoft before you become eligible. Since you're pretty obviously a shoe-in for the designation, is this something you'll be pursuing?

Yep. I think I hear this question at least once per conference. To clarify, you don't pursue MVP, they even watch for that and don't like to see MVP pursuits that could be "fake." You can focus on activities that do help you qualify for the MVP award. I love hanging out at the MVP booth at Tech Ed Asia. All the cool people are there. Why have a conference booth if people can't pursue it? Confusing, huh? I think it's about promoting community and connection. I am not eligible for the MVP award or to be considered until 1 year after leaving MS, so this would be right after MVP Summit around the end of March (March 28^th to be exact). I have been nominated a few times over, but they are insistent in following this guideline or rule. I'm not complaining. I am frequently invited to the MVP dinners (don't think I've missed one yet when I was around) and I haven't missed an MVP paintball game yet. They've adopted me in their circle. There is so much emphasis on these awards, I feel bad when someone doesn't get renewed. I think it's important that we as a community recognize those that contribute whether they have the MVP award or not. We shouldn't be cliquish or try to be exclusive. I think Bob Fox and Andrew Connell have done a good job of having events where everyone is invited for example. Whether or not I get the MVP award I will continue doing what I'm doing because I enjoy it and feel satisfaction doing it.

Since I started at Bamboo in mid-May, and was new to SharePoint, my first exposure to your blog was with the buzz that was generated around our office in response to your Top 100 SharePoint Blogs post. That list, which you've since updated, has proven to be so popular that I wonder if you have any concerns about having created a monster?

Yes, it was a fun exercise which started from seeing a blog that ranked Analyst blogs. It is pretty time consuming, but it was enjoyable to see a stack rank. It did start some competition and some people really started blogging more. So it did serve its purpose and helped tighten the SharePoint community. I think we also gained some better bloggers who optimized their SEO and I think we get better search results from that.

You just announced this past week that you'll be the keynote speaker at the Best Practices SharePoint Conference in February. I was already looking forward to blogging the conference for Bamboo Nation, and your keynote is sure to launch the event in style. Any early thoughts that you'd like to share as to the approach you'll be taking with your speech?

I love the blogging approach to conferences. It's great to see other people's perspectives and share notes.

I plan to take a fresh approach. I'm super excited about this opportunity to address this audience. It's my audience. These are my kind of people: People who are seeking the diamond in the rough. I enjoy the passion in those seeking order in the chaos. I'll leave it at that.

I was just getting back from a month long Asia trip after 3 conferences, so I missed the last one, but I hear from Bob Fox, Mike Watson, and Ben Curry that it was a huge success and I'm very excited to be presenting at this one. Presenting the keynote is a great honor.

I'd like to wrap up with a set of questions that we ask all of the SharePoint experts we speak with, beginning with, what would you say is your single favorite feature/functionality of SharePoint?

The self service collaboration - having a site in seconds that is fully functional without IT having to be involved.

Conversely, what do you feel is SharePoint's biggest weakness/drawback?

The dev ramp up requirement and associated confusion. It's hard to take an off the shelf developer and get them to digest what they need to know, especially when they've got requirements in front of them. Most experienced .NET developers want to jump in and start coding, but with SharePoint they have to step back. This ramp up, when skipped, is a disaster and can turn a decent SharePoint deployment into chaos. The same thing can happen with an admin in relation to the faults in the default settings and need for IT Governance. Both developers and admins require training and ramp up, but I think I'm more concerned about what can happen when the developers get thrown under the bus. That's the part I'm anxious to address. Often developers want to learn by getting their hands wet, they don't want to have to crack the manual. I do expect tools to address this, but also maturity of SharePoint as a development platform. Developers in the meantime need to spend time in blogs, in training (like TPG), and re-learn the basics around Web development. They aren't used to seeing so much functionality in the box and the development platform is so HUGE! Creating your first feature and packaging it in a solution requires quite a ramp. Don't forget to run the SPDisposeCheck!

What is your vision of collaborative computing five years from now?

The rapid development that happens on the Internet in social computing will converge. One example is the number of social bookmarking platforms. There are literally hundreds, and the value is still low and personal since there are so many. The FriendFeeds, Facebooks, and Twitters will encompass more of these features and functionality, but the base of applications that span to give us different interfaces to tag. I expect Digg, Del.icio.us, and the others to be much more clearly led by one or two market leaders that have integrated search. Google's Readers, Chrome, and its Web client apps come together with tighter integration with the social platforms, and Microsoft's Azure embraced with Office Web Applications and choice in the browser space. The way we add properties today in documents will be tagging, and we'll know when people create docs in the enterprise that relate to us. It's rich multi-user editing in Word, OneNote, etc... The value in followings in companies is going to be interesting. You don't want to fire the guy who has hundreds of internal people following his document authoring and blogging. The masses will rise up! I love that idea of someone at the bottom in the long tail influencing management so much that they are following him visibly, and soon he's a secret executive such as distinguished engineers. These ICs (individual contributors) can have more flexibility in their jobs because their value is understood and appreciated by the execs. How would that be?

When you're not busy writing about, coding for, or training SharePoint, how do you enjoy your downtime? Your love of travel is well documented ... do you have any particular travel destination recommendations based on your experiences?

Here's my Top 5:

Petra, Jordan - Blows your mind, Popularized through Indiana Jones. Loved the hiking and breathtaking monumental views. Start early in the morning. (There's a Marriott if you want a hotel. )

Bali, Indonesia (Ubud, Monkey Forest or any of the temples) - Beautiful peaceful place, beautiful people, and super cheap once you get there My hotel, 2 blocks from the beach, was $6, and my 2 guides and van for a DAY was $30 USD.

Ait Ben Haddou through the Atlas mountains near Marrakech, Morocco - This takes you back in time 2-3,000 years. The adobe clay looking homes are amazing, the camel and donkey ride, the Berber people. Fascinating.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia - It will take you more than a day or two to explore even a few of these temples. Incredible ruins, largest religious complex in the world.

Chiang Mai, Thailand - Elephant trekking and bamboo whitewater rafting and visiting the long necked Karen villages. Wow, an amazing incredible experience.

Bonus:

Molokai, Maui - Snorkeling and Snuba/Scuba with Sea Turtles. Blows your mind how clear the water is. Beautiful and peaceful.

Thanks for those recommendations (and I've got to say, I couldn't agree more strongly with your recommendation of Bali in general, and Ubud in particular), and thanks for being so generous with your time!

Spotlight on Jeff Webb, SharePoint Rock Star

2008-09-27T21:00:00Z

Jeff Webb, in addition to being the author of Essential SharePoint 2007 from O'Reilly Media, is the author of numerous other programming books, as well as a blogger in the SharePoint ecosystem. With his company Wombat Technology, Webb is primarily a sought-after SharePoint consultant and trainer, and he has directly translated that experience into authoring and hosting CD/DVD-ROM course on SharePoint for Administrators for AppDev. Additionally, Webb maintains multiple SharePoint domains, Essential SharePoint and SharePoint Workshop among them. A member of Bamboo's Technical Advisory Board, Webb was an original member of Microsoft's Visual Basic team. We touch on all of these topics in our freewheeling interview.

After having been relatively quiet in the space for some time, you've recently become active again in the SharePoint blogosphere with your Essential SharePoint blog. Was there any particular trigger that prompted your return to regular blogging?

Really, I've just been a bit scattered over the years. I restarted the Essential SharePoint blog to support some training I've been presenting. If I'm developing software, I'll be active in a newsgroup related to the project because I can ask as well as answer questions in that format. And if I'm working on a new book, you won't hear from me for three to six months because that's enough writing during the day!

How are you enjoying flexing those blogging muscles again?

I love writing, but I worry about sounding like "Mr. Know-It All". I think it's important to separate fact from opinion -- blogs can fall down in that area, perhaps because they don't get edited the way a book does. So, I've been trying to report from the field as much as possible: what works, what doesn't, any tips or tricks I've learned, but every once in a while I'll still write something a little off-topic like Googlenomics or The Eye of the Ezel.

I love the "Ask Jeff" feature that you began on Using SharePoint, and that you're continuing on Essential SharePoint. The notion that a SharePoint expert at your level is essentially putting yourself out there publicly as SharePoint's one-man answer to Ask Jeeves is most commendable. As the community of SharePoint users continues to grow, do you have any concerns about Ask Jeff blowing up and getting too big for you to handle on your own?

Thanks! I try to provide a space for readers to ask questions. You don't have to buy one of my books to ask a question on Ask Jeff, but if the answer is in my book I'll usually just reference the page - if nothing else it makes it easy to find the answer at B&N the next time you stop for coffee! Folks are amazingly nice when they post a question, so I enjoy that. I hope the SharePoint community gets too big for me to handle. That would be great!

Speaking of Using SharePoint, would it be fair to say that that site ultimately evolved into what you're doing now with Essential SharePoint?

The Using SharePoint site was for the first edition of the Essential SharePoint book - that's actually what I wanted to call the book, but O'Reilly had other plans. The first edition covered WSS 2.0, which some folks are only now transitioning off of so I left the site up and started the Essential SharePoint site for the 2007 edition of my book. I had to do things that way because for a time I had both WSS 2.0 and WSS 3.0 running on my server. Doing those site migrations was very instructive and I wound up doing a lot of migrations for other folks and ultimately I wrote all that up in the SharePoint Administration course for AppDev.

Now, I've kind of got too many domains... Nah, you can never have too many domains!

In addition to Essential SharePoint, you also recently launched the SharePoint Workshop site, choosing to employ the wiki functionality of SharePoint to deliver the majority of the content. It's a bold choice to present workshop-style information in a collaborative online medium such as wikis. Has that decision presented any particular challenges?

I started out trying to use the Community Kit for SharePoint but quickly figured out that I would have to become a CKS-expert, and I just didn't have time. I know the out-of-the-box SharePoint features, I know Bamboo's stuff, and I have my own tools, so a plain-Jane SharePoint Wiki was the best choice for me. I'll tackle CKS at some point in the future.

A couple nice things about Wikis, though: the content is easy to edit and maintain, and you can add web parts to the bottom of the page. Ultimately, I'll have to create some new master page layouts so I can put the dynamic content somewhere besides the bottom, but that can wait.

How would you describe the different goals of Essential SharePoint and the SharePoint Workshop?

The Essential SharePoint site supports my book and products. It's really all about me. SharePoint Workshop is a directory of SharePoint add-ins (Web Parts, solutions, bundles) and services such as consultants. It's really about everyone else - I'm just the editor, and I have some help from Patricia and Joey. Hopefully, it will be self-maintaining to some extent. I've already gotten updates from some of the add-in vendors.

There's really nothing like SharePoint Workshop on the web right now: It's a single place that IT managers can go to find components and consultants. It needs to be independent and open to all. I hope to get some head-to-head product reviews up there as well as some Try-It-Now areas similar to what http://www.w3schools.com/ does in the Web 1.0 space.

Moving away from new media, you're also a published author several times over, best known in the SharePoint ecosystem for O'Reilly's Essential SharePoint 2007: A Practical Guide for Users, Administrators and Developers. That book recently saw an updated, second edition published. Do you expect that additional updated editions may be forthcoming?

You might assume I prefer print to new media, but really books are licensing artifacts. I love open source, free stuff, and all, but there's no great model for how to get paid. I plan to do a new print edition for the next product release, but I think it needs even more online content. O'Reilly (my publisher) is a leader in that space but they are not very Microsoft-oriented. I've been trying to change that and get SharePoint in the door there...well, I got past the door but right now I'm stuck under the stairs. Literally, in fact!

Tim O'Reilly coined the term "Web 2.0" and SharePoint lets people --not just programmers -- implement that vision. I've always thought (and said) SharePoint is an opportunity for O'Reilly. Tim, call my people, let's do lunch!

Earlier, you mentioned the SharePoint 2007 for Administrators course you wrote for AppDev, which was as a self-paced CD/DVD-ROM course. Tell us a little about your experiences training SharePoint prior to writing that course, and how that previous experience played into your approach to writing the course.

Training is probably 80% of what I do now. Even when I'm implementing something in SharePoint, I'm usually training the person who will maintain and improve it when my contract ends. I feel really good about that and the opportunity with AppDev was to scale out that one-on-one time. Doing a live voice-over for four days and then a video shoot was the hardest thing I've ever done. The sound booth guys were ready to kill me after the first day. By Thursday, I had settled down enough for them to laugh at my jokes, and by the video shoot on the last day we were having fun. I hope that comes across.

A couple years ago, I got to teach SharePoint in Mexico City and Sao Paulo. The audience both places really got SharePoint and loved it more than I've seen in this country. SharePoint is one of the few software projects I've been involved in where users are actually delighted. It's a good space to be a trainer in!

In your pre-SharePoint professional life, you began the writing aspect of your career by authoring several books for the developer audience, with several titles on Excel Visual Basic. Since you began your career as a member of the original Microsoft Visual Basic team, I'm compelled to ask what was it like working as a member of the Visual Basic team "back in the day"?

It was great! Visual Basic is the other software project I've seen that delighted folks. It's kind of similar to SharePoint really: make the easy stuff easy, without making the hard stuff impossible. That was our mantra back then and I see it in SharePoint now. When Microsoft hired me they had 3,000 employees and I sat two doors down from Bill Gates in building 4. It's obviously changed a lot since then, but I still get together with the original members of the Microsoft Flyfishers. We just got back from steelheading on the Deschutes: Jay and Matt landed fish; Tim and I got skunked. I feel lucky to know those guys.

You left Microsoft in 1994 to start your consulting business, Wombat Technology. I'm curious about your landing the wombat as "your animal" on your books for O'Reilly, as I'd been under the impression that authors didn't have any say in the animal that would appear on the covers of their books. Were you able to leverage the fact that your company featured an animal as the name to influence the decision of your "totem" animal at O'Reilly, or do I have the timeline wrong?

Uh, actually I threw a bit of a fit at the last minute when O'Reilly made my cover similar to another SharePoint book they were publishing that wasn't...how should I say...as good? They changed my cover to avoid confusion and that is how I won the wombat on the cover. This last edition, another publisher decided to re-use my title for their own book. That stinks and it hasn't worked in their favor, but that's publishing I guess.

With Wombat Technology, what do you find to be the most rewarding aspect of working as a consultant and trainer? I'd have to guess that since the writing life is a largely solitary one, the interaction with others in the industry must almost be reward in itself?

My wife would laugh at that. Back in Seattle, I sat in the basement for Wombat Tech's first 9 months and she would send my daughter down to see if I could come out and play. I like being with others as much as being alone now. What's rewarding (besides pay) is seeing folks pick up concepts and extend them on their own. What I absolutely need for my work is the set of problems my customers are trying to solve. Those concrete needs teach me how to do my job better and let me help more people through books, blogs, or whatever. That was the missing piece while I was at Microsoft - we tried to solve abstract problems, and so we missed the mark sometimes. Collect enough concrete problems until you can sort through them and find the common archetypes - that's a formula for success. Bamboo Solutions seems to take that approach as well, I like that.

Thanks. Taking a community-driven development process is key to our process, so seeking input from the folks who are using our products is essential. We were thrilled to receive feedback from you recently with your excellent use case submissions --Agreements Repository (using the List Plus Web Part) and the Spamminator (using the Alerts Plus Web Part)-- to our forums last month. I don't really have a question here, but I wanted to thank you for that participation in Bamboo Nation, and to also use it as an opportunity to tease the fact that we'll also be seeing a very interesting guest blog post from you very soon.

Again, thanks! I guess the big news is that I'll be guest-blogging directly in Bamboo Nation instead of through a feed, so I can put up free add-ins, samples, and other stuff. Check it out!

Speaking of Web Parts, in addition to offering samples of your books, you also used your Using SharePoint site to offer a few free Web Parts. Is Web Part development an area that you see yourself devoting more time in the future?

Absolutely. In fact, I'd like to announce Essential SharePoint PowerTools (ESP). Click on the link to get the trial. The package includes the set of tools I use over and over again that I haven't found from any other vendor. I look forward to feedback on these products.

I'd like to wrap up with a set of questions that I like to ask all of the SharePoint experts we speak with, starting with, what would you say is your single favorite feature/functionality of SharePoint?

Templates. Users can create custom sites, lists, or libraries then save them as templates for reuse. That's essentially web programming with a drag-and-drop interface. Do you know how long we've tried to create a successful drag-and-drop programming tool? In my opinion, this is the first one that really works.

Conversely, what do you feel is SharePoint's biggest weakness/drawback?

Consistency. Joel Oleson said "SharePoint terminology is a mess." That's true, and so is the toolset: SharePoint Designer is probably the least consistent tool I've seen - it's not even compatible with MOSS publishing pages! The administration features are a lot better than they were in the previous version, but there's still a lot of "Where's Waldo?" going on.

What is your vision of collaborative computing five years from now?

In 5 years, I think most businesses will have implemented some form of collaborative computing as we understand it today with a browser interface and distributed administration. I think the editor or "Web librarian" role develops and you start to see folks with that title. There's already very little space left for client application development, except maybe for iPhones, so we programmers are all left targeting platforms rather than operating systems.

I also think email might be dead by then unless folks accept some general identity system. The anonymous nature of the public web results in huge abuses. We've got to solve that in a socially responsible way.

When you're not busy coding, writing about, or training SharePoint, how do you enjoy your downtime? You mentioned flyfishing earlier ... any other hobbies or interests you'd care to share with our readers?

I like to bike, surf, and travel with my wife and kids when we get a chance. My son and daughter are both in college now, so it's cool seeing what they embrace. Dorian has discovered he's a pretty good "community organizer." And Sophia has too many talents to list. They're gonna be great!

Update: Jeff dropped us a note following the publication of this piece to mention that he'd done a radio interview on Friday "related to the old days at Microsoft" that's now available via podcast. For a deep dive into Jeff's time as a member of the original Visual Basic team, check out the Hanselminutes podcast here.

Spotlight on Bob Fox, SharePoint Rock Star

2008-09-02T21:45:00Z

Bob Fox is a three-time SharePoint MVP, a consultant, a published author, a regular SharePoint blogger, and a valued member of Bamboo's Technical Advisory Board. Bob is also a pillar of the worldwide SharePoint community, evidenced most recently by his leadership in helping to form the recently launched International SharePoint Professionals Association (ISPA). In these early, post-launch days of the ISPA, that seemed a natural subject with which to begin our latest SharePoint Rock Star spotlight...

Let's start with your recent announcement of the formation of the International SharePoint Professionals Association (ISPA), which you were instrumental in getting off the ground. The notion of an international, community-run, not-for-profit organization designed as a resource by and for SharePoint professionals is inspired and most commendable. Would you mind providing a brief history of the ISPA, from conception to launch for our readers?

Sure, when the ISPA concept first came about it happened a little over two years ago in a simple instant message conversation with Darrin Bishop. We were both yammering on about what was missing in the community and what we could offer. At that point the idea of the ISPA was born. This organization is not the same as the one we thought up originally. The original ISPA board had 12 members (all very well known MVPs) but with a group like that, with strong opinions and busy workloads, we couldn't seem to get it past the concept stage. After we dissolved the original organization, we cut down the board to 5 members including myself, Spence Harbar and Darrin waving the MVP flag, and also Chris Regan of B&R Business Solutions, and Natalya Voskresenskaya, formerly of Conchango fame and now part of EMC.

We went live with the site on July 16, 2008, but in reality we were already out there in the world assisting groups worldwide. To facilitate this we formed an ISPA Regional Evangelist group and placed people based on their location into regional buckets to act as a support mechanism for any User Group both established and newly formed.

This was an area Microsoft was having problems supporting, so I always felt there was a strong need for the ISPA. Much thanks to Lawrence Liu who has been and always will be one of our top community leads, and a valuable resource to the ISPA.

Were there any particular hurdles you faced during the formation of the Association?

I'd love to say this has run like a well-oiled machine from the start, but I already have a few lightning bolts that are owed me, so I will avoid saying it. As far as hurdles go, the site will always be a major one .... branding and the tools we place on the site were things that kept me up at night. Luckily for branding, I found a great resource in Heather Waterman who did the logo and the ISPA branding. Publishing is ... not one of my stronger areas, but once the site went up it seemed to go static. Natalya and I enlisted our good friend Eric Shupps to come in and start working with the publishing offerings, and although we're just beginning to get this up, we should have some great content rolling out in the next few months.

One huge hurdle --and this is something we are going to address very soon-- is the fact that as an International Association based here in the United States, some were feeling this was not truly an international entity. I could go on and on about the holes in this thinking, mainly due to the work the Regional Evangelists are doing throughout the world under the ISPA flag, but one key area that was mentioned that is valid is the translation of languages within the ISPA. Our publishing is currently only catering to the English-speaking world ... what about the Spanish speakers? Or Italian, French, Russian ... the list goes on. We plan to address this issue with the use of different language variations, pulling in translators worldwide to work with us on the content.

How has the response been so far? I understand that there are already new user groups in the process of being formed in Vietnam and Russia as a direct result of the ISPA, so that's got to be incredibly fulfilling.

So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive. We have over 56 User Groups now listed worldwide and we are working with countries such as Vietnam, Hungary, Russia and most recently, Hong Kong, to start what is in some cases the first SharePoint User Groups in these countries. It's very exciting being a part of this.

Let's back up a little in order to provide some additional context on your career. From your Linkedin page, I see that you spent four years as a Systems Engineer prior to making the switch to SharePoint. Are there any accomplishments from that phase of your career you recall with particular pride?

I'm not sure how up to date that page is but I got started in the IT industry IT back in ‘96 after changing careers as a Commercial Hard Hat Diver. I felt at the time that the IT field may be a bit safer. I worked as a Network / Systems Administrator for 5-7 years as my primary track. In that role, I maintained everything from Active Directory to SQL to IIS to DNS to user support. Jack of all, but master of none. All the while, I was working with SharePoint in its infancy when it was just a simple Digital Dashboard snapin for Outlook, and then to a full product in 2001. I guess I really got deeply involved with the product back in 2003 when I got thrown into a deployment for a company I was working for, and I had to do it alone. I was pretty much hooked from that point on. I soon transitioned to focusing exclusively on SharePoint Technologies. I would not trade what I learned from the other technologies - I feel this understanding is extremely valuable for an IT Pro / Architect going into engagements, but also when it comes time to troubleshoot and fix issues. I'm sticking with SharePoint until retirement.

Was there a specific "trigger event" that led to your changing gears to dedicate yourself to SharePoint or, for that matter, do you even see it as a changing of gears?

Like others, I would say that I have a very strong belief in this product. I have watched it grow into this platform that companies are all jumping on board to harness. I see the future of this product being a cash cow for me with the amount of work it will drive to me, but also it's just that whole collaboration aspect that SharePoint brings to an organization. Having in a past life dealt with DFS (distributed File Systems) Exchange Public Folders, and other collaborative technologies ... SharePoint surpasses them all and it's only going to get better.

Currently, your full-time role is as Technical Lead at B&R Business Solutions. Are you available for consulting gigs outside of your B&R capacity?

I'm pretty satisfied currently with my role at B&R. We have plenty of work that keeps me busy, and the group I work with includes some of the best people I have ever come across. I do on rare occasions do some side work, but for the most part I don't see myself leaving these guys for a while. We are one of the only companies in the U.S. Northeast that has two SharePoint MVPs (me and Jason Medero), and we have a great group of developers, such as Michael Lotter and Josh Carlisle to name just two. Plus Chris Regan is simply one of the nicest guys I have ever come across, so for me that makes all the difference when working with a company. We are small but growing and we have a solid footprint established as a Microsoft Gold Partner. We are 100% focused on delivering solid SharePoint consultation.

You were a contributing author to the O'Reilly Media book, SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide. How was the experience of collaborating on a multi-author SharePoint book?

I am not what you call a typical writer. Some people are really good at doing this and meeting deadlines, but I really don't enjoy it. If a really good topic is presented to me though, I can't pass it up. This book in particular was a very broad set of topics revolving around all things SharePoint, so I proposed we bring in a larger group of authors to help with the book. I was also originally one of the authors for the Real World SharePoint 2007 along with a large group of other MVPs. My chapter was on Knowledge Networks, and just before the book was to go to press, Microsoft pulled Knowledge Networks from its shelves so we decided it would be best to pull that chapter from the book. Maybe next time.

In addition to blogging SharePoint on your own site, you've written articles for several other sites. I'm curious how you go about determining which topics should be blog entries, and which should be more formal articles?

I guess it all depends on what I'm working on at the time, or if there is a current Microsoft release happening such as an SDK, Patch or whitepaper. Readership varies between the MVPs so someone like Andrew Connell, Rob Bogue, or Bill Simser ... although all are very popular bloggers, they are on the development side of the group. Then you have Todd Klindt, Jason Medero, myself and a few others, who are on the IT Pro / Admin /Architect side, so we get our readers. When something is released, we like to make sure the word goes out, so that is one reason why people who consume all of our blogs will see a lot of duplicated information out there at certain times.

In the past I have run into problems and liked to post on the solutions that fixed those problems, and I have also done a few product and book reviews along with an occasional screencast. These days I have really slacked off from the technical articles and have been very focused on community efforts that are happening with the ISPA. Once things start to normalize and slow down, I will be posting some more technical stuff.

Given your extensive involvement in SharePoint user groups, the ISPA, along with regular speaking engagements, and being a frequent blogger, even within the MVP community you're clearly one of the foremost evangelists for SharePoint. What's the most rewarding aspect of being such an active member of the SharePoint community?

Easiest question to answer thus far. Getting to know the people in this community, and build the friendships that I have made the past few years worldwide... that is the biggest reward I have gained here.

You'll be speaking at the SharePoint Best Practices conference in Washington, D.C. in a couple of weeks. Care to give our readers an exclusive sneak preview of the topic you'll be addressing?

There are two presentations I'm going to be a part of. One is an "Ask the Experts" panel which should be a free-for-all discussion, and I'm looking forward to the audience nailing us with questions. The second one is something I have wanted to do for years. I will be presenting with Bill English, who is someone I have looked up to for some time so I'm very excited. We will be presenting on Topology Best Practices.

In conclusion, I'd like to wrap up with a set of questions that we ask all the SharePoint experts we speak with, beginning with: What would you say is your single favorite feature/functionality of SharePoint?

Search. Search and more Search.

Conversely, what do you feel is SharePoint's biggest weakness/drawback?

GeoSynch capabilities. Hands down the biggest issue I come across. It's hopefully being addressed by the Product team, but I have no word on this

The other area is also a lack of a strong understanding on working with Kerberos in an environment. It's a weakness for both Microsoft support and people in the field. Better implementation documentation must be put out there, and no, I'm not volunteering.

What is your vision of collaborative computing five years from now?

Although touching a bit on collaboration as we know it today, I see that getting more enveloped into the whole Social Computing buzz that is going on right now. Back when MOSS 2007 was RTM'd there was a little add-in called Knowledge Networks which I was working with deeply. It was pulled from the shelves and never made it to RTM, but it was a great idea and I hope it returns in the next version. I see this type of product as a beginning for Microsoft's entry into the Social Computing realm.

On Linkedin, you list your non-technological interests as: Irish history and traditions, a good pint of Guinness, scuba, underwater archeology (shipwrecks), fishing, and boating. Sounds like you're quite the outdoorsman when you're not shackled to a computer. If you had to choose, which of those would you say is your favorite hobby or interest?

Ah, I got old ... I gotta update that Linkedin site it seems. For me now, a relaxing time is getting on the train and heading into NYC on my free time to explore the city. On occasion when at a conference you may find me splashing in a small fountain with Joel Oleson, Ted Pattison and Fitz. I enjoy having fun with the guys when we have the chance to get together.

Spotlight on Bob Mixon, SharePoint Rock Star

2008-08-18T12:48:00Z

With all due respect to James Brown, Bob Mixon may be bucking for the title of "the hardest working man in SharePoint." A three-time SharePoint MVP, Mixon is: the principal owner of Mixon Consulting; a much in-demand SharePoint consultant and speaker; managing editor of the SharePoint Beagle newsletter; and a member of Bamboo's Technical Advisory Board. Mixon generously took some time out of his busy schedule to sit for the debut interview in our Spotlighting the Rock Stars of SharePoint series.

You're a three-time SharePoint MVP. What's the most satisfying aspect of being a SharePoint consultant who bears the MVP title?

I thoroughly enjoy working with the community, traveling to SharePoint User Groups and speaking at conferences. There is a real sense of satisfaction when I am able to help someone with a business problem.

What's a "typical" SharePoint consulting job like for you? Do you work with both small and large organizations?

Absolutely, we do work with small and large organizations. There have been many SharePoint implementations that are in their 2^nd or 3^rd iteration. Some of these iterations are deliberate and others are as a result of companies not understanding what it takes to gain the greatest value for the business user. It's a complete paradigm shift for users to move from file shares and local drives to a document management system. Information lifecycle management, governance, security, scope and context are not something business users have had to think about in the past.

The typical SharePoint Implementation project we work on involves complete lifecycle management including strategy & planning, requirements, information assessment, enterprise information architecture, design, prototyping, development and education. This can be a monumental task for a company who has never truly implemented an Information Asset Management Solution. So, Mixon Consulting helps these companies streamline the complete implementation process and produce quick ROI.

Would you share with our readers your pre-SharePoint technical background?

Oh boy, now you're asking me to age myself! But here it goes... I have been in the technology industry for more than 25 years; starting as a developer, moving into project management then business ownership. My career started in the aerospace vertical, writing embedded system solutions for a division of NASA. Thoroughly enjoying automation, I then moved into robotics; of the industrial type. I spent about 10 years working in the automotive vertical, writing software for assembly-line robotics.

I then found my home in information management systems, building solutions of varying types -- everything from database solutions for finance/insurance management, to large Internet-facing sites. From there, I began to graduate into enterprise system architecture, design and project management. One of my notable accomplishments during this period was Monster.com, where I led the design, architecture and development team responsible for all back-end accounting systems.

Given your background, was there a particular trigger event that caused you to direct your attentions towards SharePoint?

Absolutely! I was involved in numerous solutions that were similar to what SharePoint offered using technologies such as ASP.NET, IBM WebSphere and so on. These solutions were complex, very expensive and just didn't deliver all of the features business users needed, i.e., decision support.

I started working with SharePoint in 2002, the very first version, and saw the potential right away. As with any new technology of this type, I knew it would take time to get it right but the pieces were there and it was being backed by Microsoft.

For years, long before SharePoint, we have been looking for ways of delivering feature-rich decision support systems where unstructured data played a key role. Microsoft SharePoint had that promise!

You formed Mixon Consulting a little over a year ago, and are the Principal Owner of the enterprise. Can you tell us a bit about how you came to form the company, your vision for the company, and a bit about your partners?

My vision for the company has never changed; we focus on enterprise-class information architecture and proven implementation techniques to deliver business value on the Microsoft SharePoint platform. I truly believe we have a unique model that is geared towards organizations who perceive information as an asset. We drive value by thoroughly understanding the business user's contextual needs, then implementing SharePoint solutions in such a way as to guide them into the "true" information future.

Even more recently than the formation of Mixon Consulting, you launched the Mastering SharePoint site. How does Mastering SharePoint fit into Mixon Consulting?

Our Mastering SharePoint community site is an integral part of our business model for both training and consulting services. This community differs primarily because we focus on strategy, planning, enterprise information architecture and design; which are unique in the industry. We do have administration, operations and development forums; however, these aren't areas where companies and individuals are encountering the greatest problems. It takes years of effort to truly master enterprise information architecture and the art and science of findability. This is where our community shines!

We have delivered our Mastering SharePoint series training to hundreds and hundreds of people around the world this year and we want to make sure they have a place to come when business and implementation questions arise. The same holds true for our consulting engagements - we want a place for individuals to come for answers.

Our community is monitored by all Mixon Consulting staff, and industry experts.

You recently kicked off a series of free webinars on findability in SharePoint, the first installment of which I was happy to attend. How has the feedback been so far?

It is interesting to watch the industry as the paradigm begins to shift. We have almost 300 people registered for this series from around the world and the feedback varies depending on each individual's need and perspective. If the expectation is to deliver a simple document management solution without consideration for scope, context, quality, sustainability and security, then what you learn in this webinar series may seem like overkill. However, if one values their information as an asset and truly wishes to change the way their organization uses that information for decision support, then this is definitely for you!

We have had some attendees come back and tell us, "you are out of your mind," meaning, there is no way they can take the time necessary to gain this level of information value. On the other hand, we have many others coming back and saying this is what they are really seeking.

Another interesting observation I have had is the number of companies who have already invested significant sums of budget on the technologies, rolled it out to the business and it failed. And, by failed, I mean the user (information consumer) had needs and expectations far beyond what was delivered. I refer to this as the gaping expectation chasm between what technology delivers and what the business really needs. If you are interested in more on this topic, I wrote an article last month titled Findability: Tools and Technology Alone is not the Answer - Part 1.

Do you anticipate the findability series to be the first in a series of these free webinar offerings? If so, can you share some of the topic ideas under consideration?

Yes, we now have the infrastructure and ability to deliver free webinars on a very regular basis; our initial thoughts being 2 times each month. Our primary focus is on helping organizations truly understand information as an asset, and what it takes to get there. We will be focusing on governance, functional business requirements, information consumption within the scope and context of business user needs, enterprise search and more! The best place for individuals to learn of our webinar schedule is on MixonConsulting.com.

Also, since we are on the topic of free webinars, I wanted to let you know about another series we will be starting next month. K2 will soon be releasing a new BPM/workflow product specifically targeted to "no-code" workflow on the SharePoint platform. This product is named K2 blackpoint and is available for beta download here. If you look towards the bottom of the K2 blackpoint site, you will see that Mixon Consulting has been named the premier partner for delivering K2 blackpoint training. Part of this training model will include free bimonthly webinars. You will also find this event schedule on MixonConsulting.com.

This week you're kicking off your first Mastering SharePoint Virtually Live workshops, a comprehensive four-day workshop on SharePoint planning, architecture and design. Tell us a little about this inaugural series, and about future topics for the Virtually Live workshops.

Actually, this next week (August 12^th through 15^th) will be the second time we are delivering our Mastering SharePoint: Planning, Architecture and Design workshop online. Isn't it fantastic to have the technology that allows us to deliver this using a model that allows individuals to attend from anywhere in world they wish? During the past 18 months, we have only been delivering this workshop in a public training facility setting and our customers told us some couldn't do it. So we listened, and now deliver it both ways, i.e., live and virtually live.

Backing up a little, let's talk about the SharePoint Beagle newsletter. How did that come about, and how did you go about seeking out your regular contributors?

The SharePoint Beagle newsletter came about as the result of my wanting to share with the community in another way that lends itself to certain needs. The industry has taught me people have different needs. Meaning, some like to surf the Web and others like to have information delivered to their doorstep.

Another concern I had when I started the Beagle was the amount of pure e-mail spam individuals were receiving. I wanted to deliver a newsletter that was informative and of value to the SharePoint community. We try our best to deliver "value-add" SharePoint-specific articles and information in every issue. To be honest, that model has been very successful; we publish the newsletter once or twice each month to thousands and thousands around the world.

The second part of your questions was "how do I come about contributors"? For the most part, people come to me with articles. There are many out there in SharePoint-land that have a lot to say and want it published; the SharePoint Beagle is a great medium for that. So, here is my shameless SharePoint Beagle sales-pitch for the day; if you would like to be published, shoot me an e-mail and let's talk about it; I'd love to hear from you... Bob@MixonConsulting.com.

Let's wrap up with a few questions that we like to ask of all SharePoint experts that we talk to, beginning with what's your favorite feature/functionality of SharePoint?

I like working with the new version of SharePoint, MOSS 2007, because it is a platform for building scalable, feature rich, information asset management solutions. There isn't another platform on the market that we can deliver such rich functionality to small, medium and large organizations alike.

Conversely, what do you feel is SharePoint's biggest weakness/drawback?

That would have to be the limited social features such as content ratings, personal tagging and commenting.

What is your vision of collaborative computing five years from now?

I believe we are seeing a completely new way of working with information; truly viewing it as an asset. Maybe even the most important asset an organization has. The future brings to the consumer, the ability to make informed, intelligent, accurate and proactive business decisions based on a holistic view of both structured and unstructured information.

On your Linkedin page, you list your interests as: Development, SharePoint, New Technology, Strategic Planning, Architecture, Information Architecture, Taxonomy, Harley-Davidson, management. One of these things is not like the others ... other than Harleys, what hobbies or interests do you enjoy indulging in when you're not immersed in the SharePoint ecosystem?

Well, I must say, jumping on my scooter and riding is the best way for me to forget about computers and get back in touch with my freedom and Mother Nature! When I'm not working or riding, I thoroughly enjoy travel and music. I am an avid guitar player, started when I was 5 years old, and love music of all types.

One thing many don't know about me is my love for aviation. Since I have never been able to afford a real airplane, I fly radio-controlled airplanes. I started flying when I was very young and have advanced to what is called Pylon Racing. The intricate details, new compound materials, engines and fuel systems rocket the racers 200+ MPH and it's a blast to be a part of!

Spotlight on Dux Raymond Sy, SharePoint Rock Star

2008-08-15T20:04:00Z

Dux (yup, it's pronounced "ducks") Raymond Sy boasts over 15 years of IT and Project Management experience. Dux has been working with SharePoint since 2001, and has been writing and conducting SharePoint training since 2004 for organizations the world over. With his forthcoming book, SharePoint for Project Management due this fall, Dux was the natural choice to approach as the "resident expert" to host our SharePoint for Project Management topic area. We're honored to be working with Dux, and to be able to share the benefit of his years of experience with Bamboo Nation ... so without further ado, let's meet Dux!

You've been involved with IT and Project Management for over 15 years now ... when did you begin working with SharePoint?

I still remember when I first laid my eyes on SharePoint. It was late 2001, I was working on a Web development project with a geographically dispersed project team. Just like most project teams back then (even today for that matter), e-mail was the primary tool we used to collaborate and share project information. As we all know, this is not the most efficient nor effective way. With frustration brewing, I investigated other collaborative tools available that would benefit us. Web sites, FTP, WebDav came up ... however, No Más!

While researching, I came across SharePoint Team Services (STS). It was a a free add-on to Office 2000 called SharePoint Team Services (STS) that provided Web-based team collaboration features. It wasn't the silver bullet that I was looking for but it was easy to use, specially for the less technical individuals in my project team. It provided the central repository that we needed to store project files.

Three years later, one of my government clients found out that I was using SharePoint on a regular basis (at this point I was using Windows SharePoint Services 2.0), so they engaged me to develop a customized hands-on, in-house training program on implementing, maintaining and using SharePoint Portal Server 2003. This opportunity further piqued my interest in SharePoint and, more importantly, I saw the potential in how this tool can address various business challenges.

At what point did you recognize the value that SharePoint offers as a project management tool specifically?

The eureka moment came about in late 2006 when I was working on a three-month project that I needed more time for (who doesn't, right?). Since the client didn't give me the extra time I asked for, I decided to find out if I could gain more time by reducing inefficiencies within the project team (which included myself). I monitored and analyzed a few individuals for a period of a week and I was amazed at what I discovered:

On an average 8-hour workday, an individual spends 45 minutes a day looking for project information. For example, when asked by a client to retrieve a specific status report, the project coordinator had to look for it on the network share, her e-mail inbox, on the project folder of her computer, and she even had to call up another colleague to help her find it. This typical mode of searching took up time which could have been spent on something more productive. According to the article "Time Wasted? Perhaps It's Well Spent" published by the New York Times on May 31, 2007, a Microsoft study found that American workers, on average, spend 45 hours a week at work, with 16 of these hours described as "unproductive".

45 minutes may not sound like a lot to you, but when I looked at the bigger picture, it essentially meant that a team of 20 people wastes 900 minutes a day. In a 3-month project, that is 54,000 minutes or roughly 38 person days. How much does this cost the project and the organization? Well, depending on who you're considering, 45 minutes/day might cost $50/day for a project coordinator or $250/day for a technical contractor.

Bottom line is, time and money is not well spent. What if my team can regain just 20 of those 45 minutes wasted each day? So with that in mind, I customized the use of SharePoint applying formal project management processes and trained the project team I was working on how to use SharePoint according to our project management standard.

As the team got familiar with and used SharePoint as the project management information system for subsequent projects, we did regain the wasted time, and project communication, status reporting, accountability, and traceability also improved.

With your book "SharePoint for Project Management" coming out from O'Reilly Media this fall, can you tell us a little about some of the plans surrounding the marketing of the book?

O'Reilly is on top of the game with how they market their products. First and foremost, they have hands-down the best web 2.0 marketing platform that I have worked with so far. Not to go into technical details, but let's just say that whenever I update my blog, personal profile, and speaking events, not only does it show up in their own website, it also reaches various web sites, blogs and user group postings. Simply amazing.

Also, I am planning to do a book launch event during the PMI Global Congress (it's like the TechEd of Project Management) in Denver, Colorado from October 18-21, 2008. This is around the time when my book will be coming out.

Lastly, I would welcome any marketing ideas from the Bamboo Nation community =)

You've been a SharePoint trainer now for how long?

I have authored and taught SharePoint training courses since 2004.

I understand you've conducted SharePoint training for companies and organizations both large and small, and in some pretty far-flung locations. Is there any one occasion that really stands out as a particularly memorable experience?

Not one event stands out, however, what amazes me is that almost always, a student would come up to me and say things like:

"Man, if I only knew that we didn't need MOSS 2007. We could have saved a lot money ..."

"We just spent $850,000 to roll out SharePoint for our organization with 3000 users and nobody wants to use it!"

"Really? To provide a basic document management and collaborative platform is free as long as we have the proper Windows licenses?"

This goes to show how misunderstood the technology is. Given that it is a relatively new technology, decision makers rarely sit down and take a hard look at what organizational pains that SharePoint can address. If this is done correctly, identifying which component of SharePoint (WSS or MOSS) is needed can be achieved easily.

Second, what is quite apparent in a lot of SharePoint implementation today is that there is a lack of sound business analysis, user requirements gathering, governance and adoption strategy planning. No disrespect to SharePoint consultants out there, but a lot of them are wannabes and poseurs (see my blog post, Will the Real SharePoint Consultant Please Stand Up?). They come in, pop the MOSS installation CD, hook it up to AD, Exchange, etc. and then walk away.

Lastly, at the end of the day, rolling out SharePoint requires commitment from the upper echelons of management and IT to leverage the tool as a means to empower the greater community of users. Not as another platform to serve as a bottleneck for organizational efficiency and productivity.

What's a "typical" week like in the life of a SharePoint consultant? (With the understanding that there is probably no such thing as a "typical" week, of course!)

I wake up 5 am everyday and go to bed at around 11pm daily. Here's what my calendar looked like in the last two weeks:

- July 6, 2008: Taken to the ER for what it turns out to be stress related chest muscle spasms

- July 7-8, 2008: In Boca Raton, FL for a 2-Day SharePoint project kick-off meeting

- July 9, 2008: Conducted a 2 hour executive briefing about SharePoint to movers and shakers of a top Washington, D.C. consultancy firm

- July 10, 2008: In Chambersburg, PA for one day to assess the SharePoint environment of a client and provide recommendations for better adoption

- July 15-18, 2008: In Alexandria, VA and conducted a 4-day training course on SharePoint Designer

- July 16, 2008: Initiated a partnership agreement with a leading third party SharePoint solution provider for project management

- July 7-18, 2008: Involved in various meetings and conference calls to architect, design and market SharePoint solutions to new and existing clients

Let's wrap up with a few questions that we like to ask of all SharePoint experts that we talk to, beginning with, what's your favorite feature/functionality of SharePoint?

Being able to connect Web Parts is on top of my list.

Conversely, what do you feel is SharePoint's biggest weakness/drawback?

Usability, navigation and the general user interface has greatly improved since the last version. However, it is quite challenging to customize the branding and user interface of SharePoint. I always tell my clients that with SharePoint, the world is upside down - it is easier to implement complex functionalities than customizing the look and feel.

What is your vision of collaborative computing five years from now?

Here's what my typical day in July 2013 would look like:

5:00AM: Wake up to my iPhone/Android smartphone buzzing

5:10AM: Smartphone displays my schedule for the day and Twitter updates

7:00AM: On my way to work and my GPS-enabled vehicle is updating my real-time location to brightkite and a mapping Web Part on a SharePoint site so my colleagues will know where I am

9:00AM: Conducting a systems integration design meeting and prototyping with my team based in Colombo, Sri Lanka and Manila, Philippines using Second Life on a touch screen smart board

11:45AM: I get an MMS message suggesting restaurants around the 5 mile radius in my current location and the suggestions are based on the food preference of the majority of the 3 people I am meeting with.

2:00PM: Stuck in traffic (some things never change) en route to a client meeting. From my Apple-based car computer, I get an IM alert from a SharePoint document library describing the changes of a proposal document that was edited by two of my colleagues.

5:00PM: Time to go home, not! I am updating a project schedule on a SharePoint PMIS which will update and synchronize all the task assignments of my project team displayed on their calendars stored on their computers and mobile devices.

8:00PM: While having dinner, my Microsoft Surface dinner table plays video clips of my son's fencing tournament that day. By the way, I am able to change the camera perspective from different angles and even zoom in to see if he has the right stance and form.

And finally, when you're not actively engaging with SharePoint, what hobbies and/or interests do you enjoy in your downtime?

I enjoy spending my time with my family, fusion cooking and mindlessly watching YouTube on my hacked Apple TV.

Do you have questions or comments on this article, or questions of your own for Dux? Please visit our Project Management forum and share your thoughts with Bamboo Nation!

Spotlight on Jonas Nilsson, SharePoint Rock Star

2008-08-15T20:01:00Z

Jonas Nilsson is the principal architect of MashPoint, and has been with Bamboo for over 8 years. Prior to moving to the U.S. and joining Bamboo, Jonas studied Computer Science at the Institute of Technology in Linkoping, Sweden, in which country he also worked as a software consultant for several years.

On the occasion of the release of MashPoint, we thought it was a perfect opportunity to introduce you to the man behind the code. Since Jonas was good enough to take a short break from coding to submit to our questions, we're pleased to be able to present you with the following interview. Enjoy!

Jonas, before we get to MashPoint, I'd like to ask a few questions about your history with Bamboo. Given that you've been with the company for over 8 years, you were on board when the decision was made to chart the company's course towards developing exclusively for the SharePoint ecosystem. I understand that was a controversial decision at the time, and one which ruffled more than a few feathers amongst staff members.

That's true, and I think I was one of the loudest people "against" it at the time. It wasn't because of SharePoint though ... it was because I felt that we lost our focus. In hindsight, it was the best decision the company ever made.

What was the transition to developing for SharePoint like for you?

We had developed our own Document Management product, so a lot of things in SharePoint were very familiar, but finding information when you are doing anything outside the "mainstream" development areas is painful. Documentation is still the biggest problem since SharePoint is huge.

What was the biggest challenge you encountered when beginning to develop for SharePoint?

Once you realize that you are now developing on a platform, and you have to play by its rules --and this takes some time for people to realize, though I think I got it pretty quickly-- the biggest challenge is to find documentation. It's getting better, but in a lot of places the only documentation on MSDN is just the same info as I get from staring at the method signature.

What do you most enjoy about developing for SharePoint, and/or what's your favorite aspect of SharePoint as a tool/platform?

It's the platform aspect. You get all this infrastructure for free when developing for SharePoint. That's also what makes it a little hard for people to switch from ASP.NET development to SharePoint development. It's time to realize that you don't save your settings in web.config or in a file on the file system. You have storage in the platform; if you are developing a Web Part you have Web Part properties. If it's application pages, you can store settings using hierarchical storage, and so on. When Bamboo developed WD3, we spent all this time on infrastructure instead of the real business value. With SharePoint, you can focus on the business value.

When did you first realize the benefit of creating a MashPoint-type product? Was there an "ah ha!" moment, or was it more of a gradual, organic process that led you to what ultimately became MashPoint?

If you talk to my colleagues here at Bamboo they will probably say that Jonas "doesn't like lists." That is in part true; I have never believed that you can look at the lists in SharePoint as database tables. If you have relational data, you shouldn't put it in lists because there's no referential integrity. Lists are great for "simpler" non-relational data.

At Bamboo, we are creating a lot of Web Parts and most of them have the ability to consume data from many different sources: SharePoint lists; Databases; Web Services; and List Rollup. It was pretty obvious for us that we had to consolidate this functionality somehow instead of repeating it in every Web Part. If you run MOSS Enterprise, you have the BDC and with the BDC you get an abstraction of the data in the Entity. But our Web Parts can't have a dependency on the BDC since it will greatly reduce the number of potential customers. So we knew we had to create something similar to the BDC, but I really didn't want to come up with Yet Another BDC API. The "ah ha" moment was when we decided to use the BDC API's and emulate the BDC. This way, the developer doesn't have to learn a new set of API's, and we can extend the API with MashPoint-specific features.

So it's been a gradual process that concluded in a small "ah ha" moment.

I've got to ask about your "little hack" to run WSS (and MOSS) on Vista. Was that application something you approached purely to satisfy your own curiosity as to whether or not it could be done?

I'm a pretty impatient guy. I have a powerful desktop computer, a Quad core with 4GB (not enough) memory. I felt that my development experience was suffering because I was developing in a VPC running Win2003 with the whole development environment. So to do something about it (before installing Windows Server 2008 on my desktop), I decided to try to install WSS on my Vista since I know that IIS7 in Vista and Windows 2008 is almost identical. So I took a Monday and put this install together, and now we are sharing it with other SharePoint developers out there.

I want to emphasize one thing: I still use all my 12 VPC images. The local development environment lets you develop and, most importantly, debug without much friction. But you still have to do your final testing in a supported environment, so keep your VPC images around. Nothing beats "Enable Undo disks."

Given that your SharePoint on Vista tool was released into the wild just a few weeks ago, and we're now releasing MashPoint to the development community, can you give us a hint as to what we might be seeing from you next?

All I can say is that we will have a lot of new things coming out related to MashPoint, and to keep up with this and to INFLUENCE development, you should join Bamboo Nation and take part in Bamboo Labs. We are committed to producing community-driven products.

When you're not working tirelessly to improve the SharePoint ecosystem for developers and end users, how do you enjoy your downtime?

I enjoy time with my family, I have two daughters 2 and 5 and they require my full attention when I'm at home, so I don't have any downtime ;)