Rix Bits

Here we go again!

DogFood Conference 2013 is here! If you like geeking out over Microsoft technologies, and can make it to Columbus, Ohio in November, then this is the place to be.

I’ll be speaking on SharePoint this year – check out the details over at my SharePoint CowBell website:

I had a great time this week talking with the Cincinnati Blacks in Technology group, sharing my tips, tricks, and thoughts about how cloud computing can be leveraged.

I tried to keep this talk focused on the lighter side of cloud computing, and didn’t go quite as technically deep as I’ve done in other cloud talks. But it seems like everyone enjoyed themselves and learned a lot. One listener even admitted to me later that I’d convinced him to give the Cloud a try. Victory. : )

Here’s my slide deck, or you can find it on slideshare:

In Part 3 of our series, consider this: we’re all used to presenting our PowerPoints in a room from our laptops, connected to a projector. But what if our audience is on the other side of town? Or the other side of the world? PowerPoint solves this with its Present Online feature, which lets other viewers watch your presentation live as you flip through out it. It’s the same kind of experience that in the past we relied on web conference tools like Webex and Lync to provide. Here’s what it looks like as I begin the process of presenting my SharePoint slide deck to an online audience (notice the word “free”):

Spike Lee is the acclaimed director of such films as Do The Right Thing, Malcolm X, and Inside Man. To create these classics, I’m sure Spike used many different kinds of film editing technologies throughout the years. That being said, I’d still bet that PowerPoint is not one of the tools he ever thought about using.

But even though PowerPoint won’t necessarily give you the same cinematic skills to qualify your video as a Spike Lee Joint, we’ll see in Part 2 of our series that it does have the ability to do some pretty interesting things with videos that you might want to add to your presentation.

In the past, most people’s experience with Microsoft Office involved using it at their place of employment, because the price tag on the full suite of software was a bit hefty for personal home use. But the times, they are a-changing. : ) Microsoft has a handful of new options to help make Office available to home users. One of these is SkyDrive. That’s right, with your FREE SkyDrive account (which you get automatically when you sign up for a FREE Hotmail or Live email account), you’re now able to create, edit, view, and store Office documents in the browser for FREE (using what’s called Office Web Apps), including PowerPoint:

I’m sure you’ve heard of PowerPoint. It’s been around for decades, and it’s the de facto tool for creating a presentation. Whenever you sit in a meeting and someone stands up to give a prepared speech, you probably assume they’re going to use a PowerPoint presentation, and if they don’t you probably look at them funny. We’ve grown accustomed to learning things from others by watching a projector screen full of words fade in and out, and many times we’re even patient enough to allow the speaker to once again read the slides to us as if we’re not already Hooked On Phonics.

But there are a few things about the PowerPoint of today that you might not know about. Over the next few posts, I’ll talk about 5 PowerPoint factoids that may shock and amaze you. Specifically:

1. It’s free!
2. It’s a Spike Lee joint!
3. It likes it when you watch.
4. It’s the Wizard of Oz.
5. It’s mocking you.

Stay tuned for the upcoming posts where we’ll explore each of these topics! See ya soon!

Last month I represented Improving Enterprises (a Microsoft partner) as a speaker at the Microsoft Visual Studio Launch event in Columbus, OH. I spoke on the topic of what is commonly called DevOps. It could be described in one sense as the need within software development to maintain an effective relationship between the software-building phase of a project, and the push-to-production phase.

Clearly I’m a tablet PC fan. I appreciate the power of a PC in a tablet form.  I also appreciate the power of digital ink and true handwriting on my tablet. So I’m not easily impressed by all the Johnny-come-lately consumer tablets that are popular these days.

Right now I’m waiting to see how good the upcoming Surface RT Pro will be. Unlike the current Surface RT, it will contain a full version of Windows 8 Pro, as well as the inclusion of a pen for digital handwriting. In particular, I’m wondering if it’s worth upgrading from my HP Slate 500.

But I’m also wondering if anything will match the smooth performance of my Windows XP (yes, XP) Toshiba hybrid tablet from 2005. I still pull that out every now and then – not when I want to be mobile (it’s big & heavy) but when I want a large screen and good writing experience at my desk. The pen on that thing is flawless. If it wasn’t for it being so bulky, I’d still prefer the WinXP tablet over an iPad to this day.

I’ll let you know if the Windows Surface RT Pro seems powerful enough to become my new tablet. Let’s wait and see.

Just when you thought all the great local conferences were done for this year, suddenly you realize that the Dog Food Conference is coming up on November 8-9, 2012 at the Columbus Microsoft Office.  Dogfooding is all about using the very tools that you produce, and this year Microsoft will show once again how they make use of many of the products that they sale to us. Whether it be Windows 8, SharePoint (my favorite) or the Cloud, the Dog Food Conference this year will showcase many of them with over 40 topics presented over 2 days by community IT professionals.

Registration will open soon, but until then here are some useful links you’ll want to use:

• Topic Submission Link – use the Suggestions button to submit a topic suggestion
• Call for Speakers – use the Submit process to submit a talk for this year’s conference
• The main website will be updated soon.

Based on previous articles in this series, it’s clear to me now that Hollywood has all the answers we need to guide our professional lives. : ) From consulting skills to self-promotion tips, movies provide more wisdom about our day-to-day lives than a box of chocolates. And for guidance on career planning, we don’t have to look any further than the digital drama known as The Matrix. Here are a few rules we can learn from the saga of these hackers-turned-heroes. But remember, as we all know, some of these rules can be bent… others can be broken.

I got a great response to my previous article, “Everything I Know About Consulting…”, and it made me realize that there are even more things to be learned from classic 80’s cinema. While good consulting techniques are certainly important to help us land our next client, they’re not the total package.  We have to also use certain skills after we’ve landed the project to show that we were indeed the right person to pick for the job, and worthy of even more projects. This falls into the category of self-promotion – our ability to display our expertise, ability, and confidence to those around us, so that we’re seen as the very subject matter expert we claim to be.  And what better piece of work to illustrate these techniques than that classic movie “The Princess Bride”*. Let’s take a look at what this movie has to tell us about how to promote ourselves:

Being a consultant can be challenging, and although there have been many books and articles written on the subject of how to be a good consultant (or even how to be a BAD one), much of what we learn about consulting comes from hands-on experience and trial-and-error. Fortunately, in the 1980’s there was another body of work produced on the subject of consulting that has been particularly useful for me. It was a film called “The Ghostbusters”*, and for me, it was an enlightening look at several areas of consulting that we’ve all had to deal with from time to time. Here are some of the subjects that this ground-breaking piece of work helped to make clear for me:

On Tuesday, April 3rd at 7pm EST, I’ll be delivering an online webinar for the Atlanta chapter of the BDPA as part of their Tech Talks series. I’ve got 90-minutes to give a crash course to attendees on everything that is the wonderful world of SharePoint… [read more here]

[my article originally posted at ITMartini]

As IT professionals, we spend many years developing our crafts, and investing in our careers. Along the way, we have all probably been fortunate enough to get help from many sources, including colleagues and mentors who decided to take the time to share their knowledge and experience with us. As a result, we grow in our profession, and for most of us we inevitably ask the question – what can I do to give back, and make the same investment in others that someone made in me? Fortunately, there are many ways in which we can ‘return the favor’ in the IT community, and by doing so, make a positive impact on our industry.

Talk

For some, the thought of public speaking is frightening. Ironically, the best way to get over that fear is to do more of it. And if you can overcome your hesitations about public speaking, you’ll find that it’s both a great way to share what you know with others, as well as demonstrate your own level of expertise. You can speak at local events relevant to your field, and talk about topics that you’ve dealt with on your job which might resonate with others in your line of work. In addition to sharing your expertise, you can also share your experience. There are many local organizations who would love to have someone come speak to their group about the positive and negative aspects of your career or industry. You could speak to high school groups with students who are considering going into the IT field. Or speak to members of non-profit organizations interested in facilitating knowledge-share session on IT topics. Perhaps even your own religious or social groups would be interested in having you speak on a topic.

Teach

Giving away your knowledge may seem counter-intuitive, but it’s actually a great way to gain a relevant perspective on what you’ve learned over the years, and helps foster your own credibility as an expert in your field. Not only that, but studies show that your own understanding on a subject increases when you attempt to teach it to someone else. In addition to these benefits, there are many opportunities to teach what you know to others in your local community. Many schools are looking for technical professionals to serve as an instructor for their students, whether in the classroom or online. And youth organizations like TechCorps or BDPA HSCC are always looking for volunteers to teach youth computer skills that they can use to pursue careers in technology.

Text

No, I don’t mean pull out your phone and mentor someone via SMS. But I do suggest that by sharing our expertise and experience through writing, we can find another avenue in which to give back. In today’s world, one of the easiest ways to do this is by starting a blog. This can come in many forms. You may find that you simply want to keep an online ‘journal’ of your saga as an IT professional. Or you may take the more technical route and share technology-specific information about problems you’ve solved, and how you did it. Both have value to others who may find your blog, and you may soon find your writings being followed by others who are interested in your perspectives. Writing can also come by way of social media – learn to stay involved in social forums like Twitter, LinkedIn Groups, or any other online platform where other IT professionals come together to discuss issues and challenges in your industry. Not only can you learn from these forums, but your participation and contributions can be helpful to others following a career path similar to your own.

There’s no limit to the number of creative ways you can find for giving back to the IT community. Pick any one and get started – you’ll find that it not only gives you a better perspective on your own experiences, but helps strengthen and grow our IT community as well.

-Graphic art courtesy of http://gilbertyoungart.com/

The results are in! As we close out the 33rd Annual BDPA National Conference and High School Computer Competition, I’m proud to announce that the BDPA Columbus high school team scored THIRD PLACE this year out of 19 participating teams! 

This achievement earned each team member a $500 scholarship award, as well as a plaque and special recognition at the BDPA Awards Gala. This is the first time that the Columbus team has placed among the Top 5 teams, and is an improvement from last year’s 12th place prize (out of 24 teams).  I should also point out that, in the Programming category (which specifically represents the ASP.NET website development work the team did as part of the competition), they scored the 2nd highest score of 509, missing the 1st place ranking in that category by only six points!

We’re all extremely proud of this year’s team! More details to come.

I recently had an article published at IT Martini where I discuss the upcoming release of Office 365, Microsoft’s latest cloud-based services offering, and the value that the SharePoint component of that offering has for entrepreneurs and businesses trying to make use of SharePoint for collaboration.

I just finished giving a presentation via Live Meeting for an event based out of India.  Start time: 3:30AM EST.  I’m so glad that someone invented coffee :)

I think it’s very kool, tho, to have lived long enough to see a world where people all over the planet

Today I’m in Cincinnati at the Midwest Regional Mock Competition for HSCC, supporting our high school student team, and helping to serve as one of the judges during the competition.  Regional competitions are a great way for our students to begin to get a feel for what they can expect in the actual national competition in August. 

Aside from a slightly abbreviated time schedule and fewer teams to compete against, the regional mock competition offers a pretty accurate representation of the real thing.  The Cincinnati chapter of BDPA put a

In addition to being a big geek, I’m also a SharePoint dude. I blog on all things SharePoint in my other blog site, but every now and then some of my blog posts go viral. :)  It turns out that one of my articles has been published in a well-known SharePoint website for end-users, admins, and developers called NothingButSharePoint.com.  The article is based on a challenge I had at one my client sites, where definitions about key corporate artifacts like ‘documents’ and ‘forms’ had to be agreed on in order to make the project successful.  Since then, I’ve learned that with any client, whether you’re implementing a SharePoint solution or not, agreeing on key terms as early as possible is always helpful for project success.

Take a look a the article and let me know what you think.  And if you’re on Twitter, feel free to retweet me.  Thanx!

Recently, Wired Magazine (UK) posted an article regarding a malware attack on the Mac OS X platform.  I couldn’t resist commenting on this article, since as many know I've been known to bad mouth Apple products from time to time. :)  But this one was particularly interesting because it reminded of a post I wrote about three years ago.

My favorite part of the article says: