It looks like they know how to throw a conference in Australia’s ‘other’ state (just kidding, Kiwis).

I will be speaking at the New Zealand Community SharePoint Conference in July 2009 and I’m really looking forward to it. This will be the New Zealand conference to learn about SharePoint 2007 with a whole bunch of expert local and international speakers. Some big international names are joining in the fun, including Joel “Governance Man” Oleson himself so we can continue our buzzword battles in the flesh! But to whet your appetite, we have Ben Curry, Erica Toelle, Michael Sampson, Paul Stork, Steve Smith and Adam Cogan, to name a few.

There are a wide variety of topics that are on offer, and the session that I am most looking forward to is Erica Toelle’s session entitled “SharePoint User Adoption: Fostering Shared Understanding throughout your Company”. Unfortunately, with the current schedule, it clashes with mine, but I hope that it gets rearranged as I know there are some great synergies there. Here is her synopsis

SharePoint projects usually involve some kind of organizational change related to culture, process, or structure.  The change process is something that must be carefully managed, approached methodically and tailored to your organization’s culture.
In this session you will learn how to ensure your SharePoint project’s success by using frameworks to manage the change process, resulting in higher user adoption of the end solution.  This is done by gaining leadership and stakeholder commitment, creating a strategic communication plan and planning a learning strategy.  You will walk away with templates and checklists to help you with your SharePoint project.

I am also especially looking forward to Pete Sayers’ talk on South Taranaki District Council as an EDRMS solution as I work with local government here in Perth myself and sometimes have to grapple with the conflicting requirements of the state records act, the web team hating the records management team, and the IT team hating them both :-).

Also looking tempting is Lulu Pachuau’s Information Architecture session, and Patrick van Rinsvelt’s session on organisational cultural considerations for SharePoint deployments. I think I’ll also go deep (level 300), and listen to Chandima Kulathilake dive into the depths of SQL Server administration for SharePoint as well as sit in on Joel’s Infrastructure and Administration Fundamentals just to heckle 😉 .

It all happens in Wellington, 2nd and 3rd July, 2009. I’ve never been to New Zealand before, but have heard that it’s picturesque, so I am really looking forward to it.

See you there!

Paul Culmsee

www.sevensigma.com.au

p.s I could make some Lord of the Rings inspired comment, but for me the pinnacle of New Zealand film making was Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead!