SharePoint Saturday New York logo. Bamboo has been an enthusiastic supporter of SharePoint Saturday from the get-go, sponsoring, promoting, and presenting sessions in the past, but today’s event at the Microsoft Technology Center in New York marked the first SharePoint Saturday that I’ve been able to attend personally.  If you work with SharePoint in any capacity, from end-user to developer to administrator, and you haven’t made it to a SharePoint Saturday yet, you owe it to yourself to find a way to get to one.  Oh, and did I mention that admittance to SharePoint Saturdays the world over is always free?  Keep an eye on the SharePoint Saturday home page (or the SharePoint Events listings in our own SharePoint Daily blog) for a regularly updated listing of upcoming SharePoint Saturdays.

I ran into Dux Raymond Sy and Mike Taylor from Innovative-e within seconds of walking in the door this morning and immediately felt right at home as a result.  Innovative-e was one of the sponsors of today’s event, and Dux was also presenting a session on How to Effectively Utilize MS Project 2010 with SharePoint 2010.  Since I’d caught an early version of this session when Dux joined Bamboo’s own Julie Auletta and Daisy Anand for our Partner-led Future of SharePoint Project Management session at the SharePoint Conference back in October, I figured I’d attend another session in that particular timeslot and free up a seat in the room for someone else. Dux’s reputation precedes him so he tends to present to packed houses whenever he speaks, so freeing up a seat for another attendee was the gentlemanly thing to do.

Michael Lotter; After breakfast, the day officially began with genial introductory welcome remarks were given by SharePoint Saturday founder Michael Lotter, who thanked Microsoft for donating the space for the event, along with thanking the various sponsors, volunteers, and session speakers, all of whom were generously donating their time (and/or money) for the cause in the community-driven spirit of SharePoint Saturday.  I had the opportunity to introduce myself to Michael between the morning sessions, and we were able to speak for a few minutes between his fielding of questions from various attendees, during which he expertly offered guidance on which sessions would be most suitable for a given attendee’s level of SharePoint expertise.  Later in the afternoon, I attended Michael’s own session in which he presented a SharePoint Workflow Overview with Visio and SharePoint Designer.

In all, there were three sessions competing for the attention of attendees in each of the five timeslots throughout the day, and in addition to Michael’s session, I was also fortunate to attend: Paul Swider’s session on The “Humanizing” of SharePoint 2010, in which he presented on the blending of enterprise computing with social computing that SharePoint 2010 represents; Peter Serzo’s At the Movies with PerformancePoint Services, the goal of which was to “demystify what PerformancePoint Services is”; an Ask the Experts panel that offered a fast-paced Q&A session between the audience and a handful of the day’s presenters; and the highlight of the day for me, my friend Mark Miller of EndUserSharePoint and his jam-packed-with-cool-stuff presentation on Enhancing the SharePoint Interface with jQuery Solutions.

Stay tuned for daily dispatches from me in which I’ll be detailing all five of the abovementioned sessions I attended at SharePoint Saturday New York, beginning Monday right here on the Bamboo Team Blog.  That’s right, it’s going to be “SharePoint Saturday Week” at Bamboo Nation!

Before I go, I can’t help but share that during the lunch break as I was beginning to write this blog, I met a Bamboo customer who, upon seeing my Bamboo t-shirt, struck up a conversation and volunteered how much he loves our products, and how much he’s looking forward to getting a chance to play with our SharePoint Video Library.  I’m also happy to report that more than a few Bamboo Nation readers introduced themselves throughout the day, and were kind enough to share similar words of praise for our community.  It was great to meet all of you, and I hope to see you again further on up the SharePoint road!

Read the entire SharePoint Saturday New York series:

• Greetings from SharePoint Saturday New York!
• Paul J. Swider on “The Humanizing of SharePoint” in 2010
• Peter Serzo’s “At the Movies with PerformancePoint Services”
• Michael Lotter’s “SharePoint 2010 Workflow Overview with Visio and SharePoint Designer”
• “Ask the SharePoint Experts” Session with Michael Lotter, Bob Fox, Geoff Varosky and Tony Lanni
• Mark Miller on “Enhancing the SharePoint Interface with jQuery Solutions”