TechEd Africa is Microsoft South Africa’s premier technology event of the year and Africa's largest annual technology conference for IT Professionals, Developers and technology decision makers. The 4 day event was again held at the Durban International Convention Center with approximately 2000 delegates coming from South Africa, Africa and even Europe. It’s thee place to gain the expertise, connections, insights, and lessons from the field. New Microsoft products are also showcased via technical presentations, Chalk & Talk discussions as well as Hot Labs.

Many did not like the very technical opening keynote and it showed on twitter. Even though it was a well-run demo, two hours of it is for a break-out session, not a keynote. Keynotes are supposed to be a vibrant and lively thing with a big name presenting. Unfortunately the opening party was also not what people expected and Microsoft was slated on twitter. Again. So what was left was the sessions and the closing party. And Microsoft redeemed themselves. I did not attend the closing party but from what I heard, it rocked.

The speakers for the sessions came from far and wide with this year’s big international names being Christina Leo from PASS (Professional Association of SQL Server), Garth Luke (Senior Vice President of AvePoint) and Wally Mead (the most knowledgeable person from Microsoft on SCCM). Many of our local big-hitters were also there to present, with the likes of v-TSPs (Virtual Technology Service Provider) Troy Gerber of Intervate and Bradley Geldenhuys of GT Consult being the most popular in SharePoint sessions, while MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals). Rob Maclean and Rudi Grobler stole the Windows 8 & Windows Phone developers show. Naturally, Africa’s only Microsoft Exchange & Office 365 Certified Master, Nicolas Blank, was the main attraction for the Exchange and Lync talks.

I headed-up the Microsoft Community Hub, a lounge area in the exhibition hall where delegates could network and meet the Microsoft SA community leaders and MVPs. I would like to thank Felix Honigwachs and John Hormaechea of Microsoft as well as Garth Luke of AvePoint for their contribution of SWAG for the Community Hub. Thanks must also go to Mark Stacey, Christina Leo, Troy Gerber and Bradley Geldenhuys for their time spend at the Hub. I was pleased to see so many people enquiring about joining the community and wanting to learn and share more. Many did not even know about the community and the free events and meetings we run. This shows the amount of work we have to build the local Microsoft Community and we can only achieve this if we all, individuals and companies, provide some our time, effort and money freely without expectations. So let’s all pull together for the greater good.

Next up is our local SharePoint Saturdays:

SPSJHB 08 June – Blanford Manor, North Riding, Jhb.

SPSCPT (incorporating SQLSATCPT) 07 September – Sanlam Head Office, Bellville.

To be confirmed:

SPSDBN 14 September

SPSNairobi 21 September

Spread the word and let’s build the community!

And so the 2nd annual South African Share for Business Conference came to an end. This year @eventfulgroup again put on a fantastic event for us bringing in top-class international speakers such as @RHarbridge, @SarahHaase, @SusanHanley, @GarthLuke & @JWillie. Local speakers including me, @WillemBurger, @iBoota, @FHPienaar, @VeroniquePalmer, @PhillyMorin, @TheMossshow and others also made our way up to the stage to share our stories. There was really great sessions. The content was from the top shelf and organisation really good. I guess the air-conditioners failing was, “an act of Apple?” Nevertheless, it was well worth it to attend.

The @MicrosoftSA Immersion Room was kitted-out nicely with a lounge atmosphere where attendees could experience the real collaboration including mobile. There was also very knowledgeable Microsoft representatives at hand in the form of local Office 365 lead Michael O’Donovan and Olaf Hubel from Redmond. Olaf also did a great opening keynote. And let’s not forget the energy that Yammer brought to the “party”. Well done Yammer! The SharePoint Community knows how to do SharePint, and Yammer made it happen in style. Blue Yammertinis “surfacing” everywhere and a live band. 
 
I was really pleased to see that business are now starting to openly share with each other and I’m excited that they now wanting to be part of the SharePoint Community. It means we’re doing something right. This can only be good for Microsoft, the community and businesses. The more we share the better for everyone. I always say: “Having SharePoint does not give you a competitive advantage. It’s what you do with SharePoint that gives you an advantage.” So why keep things to yourself and paint yourself into a corner when you can share and achieve so much more?” 
 
Thanks to everyone who attended my session, Baby Steps – Each One Teach One. And a big thank you to my colleague @ValdaVD for her content, and @Intervate and @brettlonsdale who sponsored the prizes for my session. 

Well done everyone! I look forward to next year’s event. Next up….@Teched_Africa. And yes! The SharePoint Community will be there in full force!

It’s 2013 and the year’s conferences are coming along thick and fast. The South African Community events started already with the monthly Information Worker nights in Cape Town, Joburg and Durban. SharePoint Saturdays in Cape Town and Joburg are being planned, March 11-13 is when the Share 2013 SharePoint Business Conference takes place and April 16-19 is Microsoft Tech-ed Africa in Durban. And then there’s a long list of International SharePoint Conferences.
 

Having been Microsoft’s BIG Annual SharePoint Conference (SPC) in Las Vegas recently, I thought about the value of attending events and conferences. Why is it that locally so few of us make a concerted effort to attend? Is the cost? Is
it the speakers? Is it the content? Or do people just not have the time? 

I’ve attended many events and continue to do so. I appears that cost is always the number one factor. Businesses somehow are reluctant to pay for their employees to attend events but take this stance at their own peril. So much can be learned, shared and networked at these events. Speakers and content are carefully selected and lots of time and effort goes into producing an event whether it’s a free or paid event. Inevitably, attendees take their new-found
knowledge back to the office where the business benefits.

On the flip side, locally there seems to be a culture of not investing in oneself. We want our employer to fund it. Why? Invest in yourself. Not every event is a paid event. There are community events which are free. Some monthly, some annually. Why not attend these? And make an effort to pay your own way to a paid event.

So come on! Invest in yourself this year! I’ll see you at an event!

Finding champions for a new technology can be quite a challenge.
Especially in a corporate where users are set in their ways and have been
spoon-fed by the HR and Training Departments for years. Since it is costly to train each and every user on the capabilities of SharePoint, an internal user community makes sense. So today we launched our organisation’s internal SharePoint User Group.

Whilst business still has the option of sending their users for
formal training offered by external training companies, the knowledge sharing at a user group speaks volumes.

Put some SharePoint Site Administrators and Power Users in a room and see how the tips & tricks, best practices, wins and challenges flow. And these are users from the business. Not techies. These guys and gals are the champions you’re looking for. They will spread the philosophy of “Each One Teach One”. Guided by the business and technology leads, practical governance and supported by an internal SharePoint Community Site where they can post questions and answers, and the public SharePoint Community, these users will evangelise in the business and amongst themselves.

In a corporate it is not easy to get users to attend an after-hours session. Enter SharePoint Lunch & Learn. A one hour session focused on a pre-determined topic at least once per month. Starting the educating and sharing process in
bite-sized chucks is important. SharePoint is a beast. So presentations and discussions at a user group ought to focus on one to two features per session or an information overload will occur and people will not return. The importance in
realising the dream of “Each One Teach Once” is “Baby Steps”. Don’t try to be the hero or force-feed them. Guide them and they will grow and eventually you’ll have loads of internal champions flying your flag for you.

In this session Willem Burger, Lead SharePoint Consultant at Shoprite tells the story of what they doing with Knowledge Management and SharePoint. Willem will share experiences of the Store Portal, Head Office and Learning Portal as well as talk about Pervasive Knowledge Management in SharePoint and the cultural and adoption issues.



Session Level: 100 (Novice & Non-technical)
Date: 25/10/2012
Time: 5-7pm
Venue: Microsoft Cape Town, Golf Park, Mowbray.
Register closer to the date at Information Worker

In summary if you apply KB 2677070 and your SQL, SharePoint, Cluster , Windows Server is not connected to the Internet, some Services may fail to start.

What you should know: 
Users who have disconnected systems can install this update. But those users do not receive a benefit from the update. In fact, installing this update may result in service start-up failures immediately after the server is restarted. Services that perform certificate validation tasks during service start-up may experience an increased delay while network retrieval of the trusted and untrusted CTLs from Windows Update is tried. 
 
If the system does not have access to Windows Update, either because  the system is not connected to the Internet or Windows Update is blocked by firewall rules, the network retrieval will time out before the service can continue its start-up procedure. In some cases, this network retrieval time-out may exceed the service start-up time-out of 30 seconds. If a service cannot report that start-up has completed after 30 seconds, the Service Control Manager (SCM) stops the service.

Microsoft says there are almost 200 SRs quoting KB 2677070 and several SO/KBs:
 
KB 2743284 Services time-out after applying Windows Update KB 2677070

KB 2756815 SharePoint Administration Service (SPAdminv4) does not start on servers with no internet access
after KB 2677070 is applied

KB 2745448 You cannot start SQL Server Reporting Services after you apply the update that is discussed in KB 2677070
 
KB 2764109  Windows 2008 R2 Cluster Live Migration fails

SharePoint 2013, along with Office, Exchange & Lync 2013 will RTM mid-November. Everyone's expecting this to be done at SPC12, the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas. And I'll be there. Yippee!

Anyway, according to the Office News Blog, Volume Licensing customers with Software Assurance will be able to download the Office 2013 applications as well as other Office products including SharePoint 2013, Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013 through the Volume Licensing  Service Center by mid-November. The products will be available on the Volume Licensing price list on December 1st. IT professionals and developers will be able to download the final version via their TechNet or MSDN subscriptions by mid-November.

Martin is the Programme Manager for Santam’s e-Biz Programme and is accountable for the successful delivery of the solutions to business. Think scope, budget, timelines and business case - this is what he has to manage. He’s been doing this type of work for more than 15 years and still gets excited on the day of Go-Live. In this session Martin shares Santam’s experiences of the various stages of implementing their new SharePoint 2010 Corporate Intranet.

Session Level: 100 (Novice & Non-technical)
Date: 27/09/2012
Time: 5-7pm
Venue: SBWCPT - Microsoft Cape Town, Golf Park, Mowbray.
                               Register closer to the date at IW

Yes! It's almost that time again. Time for all you SharePointers to register for The BIG SharePoint Saturday Cape Town, the mother city's Premier SharePoint Technology and  Enterprise Content Management Community Event featuring local and internationally acclaimed speakers. So go register now to avoid disappointment as seats are limited.

What is SharePoint Saturday?
SharePoint Saturday is an educational, informative and lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of topics focused on Microsoft SharePoint technologies. Following the globally successful SharePoint Saturday initiative, www.sharepointsaturday.org, the Cape Town chapter is hosting this year's SharePoint Saturday event on  8th September 2012 at it's home, the Sanlam Head Office. The event will feature multiple tracks, including a first for Cape Town - A HackPoint. Join your fellow SharePoint architects, developers, and other professionals that work with SharePoint Technologies for Cape Town's SharePoint Saturday event. 

What is Shareing The Point?
A group of highly respected SharePoint Evangelists who travel the world sharing their knowledge and experiences about SharePoint will be touring Africa starting off at SharePoint Saturday Cape Town and ending at SharePoint Saturday Nairobi in Kenya before heading-off again to some other places. Recently they visisted Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and then held a special Sharing the Point Antarctica. Yes! Antarctica!

Tour Dates & Locations:

08-SEP-2012  (SAT) SPS/STP SOUTH AFRICA in Cape Town
10-SEP-2012  (MON) STP SOUTH AFRICA in Johannesburg
12-SEP-2012  (WED) STP RWANDA in Kigali
13-SEP-2012  (THU) STP TANZANIA in Dar es Salaam 
15-SEP-2012  (SAT) SPS/STP KENYA in Nairobi

Speakers: (Note this list is in flux, but most of these are confirmed...)

Joel Oleson
Michael Noel
Mark Miller
Paul Swider
Eric Harlan
Fabian Williams
Jim Bob
Alistair Pugin

 * Not all speakers will be at all events*
John Anderson, their press and blogger mate will be capturing the details... 
Find out more on their Site and Follow them on http://www.sharingthepoint.org