Sad news ... No Jared at NACS 2019

Hello readers. I know I have not kept this blog up recently but things have been very busy on my personal front lately. I have moved out of my current residence to a new place as I sell my home of the last 12 years. I had built my timeline based on my attending the North American Collaboration Summit 2019 in Branson, MO.

This is an event I was looking forward to attending and speaking at. I have heard nothing but praise from my fellow speakers about the event Mark Rackley puts on and wanted to see it for myself. Alas, this was not the year. My moving and sales preparation plans were thwarted by Mother Nature in a couple of ways.

I hope to get the opportunity to speak in future years but I do hope those of you attending and speaking have a blast and learn a lot.

Cheers!

SharePoint Saturday Utah 2019

I want to convey a big thank you to the folks at SharePoint Saturday Utah for inviting me out again for another year. SharePoint Saturday Utah is one of my favorite events and I love attending every year for the past 4 years. This year was no exception even with the fun of a cancelled flight home extending my stay another night. Got to love February weather in the Rockies!

I had a blast talking with attendees and other speakers about Cloud, Office 365, SharePoint and Power Platform. My talk, The Power of the Cloud: Working with Flow and PowerApps, went quite well. On top of that, I filled in some space with a talk about my Journey to the Cloud. If you wanted a copy of either deck, click the following button.

I am sorry that it took a long time to post these. It has been a busy year and I forgot to do it. Should have done it on the extra night in Salt Lake City.

SharePoint Saturday Utah 2019

As always, SharePoint Saturday Utah is one of my favorite events of the year. The engagement with other speakers and attendees make it an event I look forward to every year. I am also going to be presenting the day before at a Microsoft 365 event. Use this button to register on Meetup for that Friday event.

For SharePoint Saturday, I am presenting The Power of the Cloud: Working with Flow and PowerApps. SharePoint can get help from Azure Services as we move into the new future of SharePoint, both for on-prem SharePoint farms and SharePoint Online. This session will show you how PowerApps and Flow can help you modernize your usage of SharePoint, from forms and workflows to full business solutions. All of this can be accomplished by someone who has an understanding of Excel Formulas.

Join us for SharePoint Saturday Utah on Feburary 9, 2019 at the Karen G. Miller Conference Center in Sandy, Utah. The day starts with registration and breakfast at 8:00 am. Click on the button below for more details.

Bringing Myself and a Follower Joy

How many of you have seen the Marie Kondo series on Netflix or read her book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tyding Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing? (Amazon - Amazon via My Affiliate - Audible) There is a wave of people that are talking about "Spark Joy". There's even an article in Time Online about how "Thrift Stores Can't Keep Up With All the Junk and They're Saying the Signs Lead to Marie Kondo"

How does this matter to you Jared? Well, if you have not seen it on some of social media, I am selling my Condo and moving into an apartment. I might talk about my future plans but for now, let's just suffice that I want out of my current arrangements. My current plan is to move into an apartment by the first week of March, before the North American Collaboration Summit in Branson. This does not give me a lot of time once I reviewed my project plan.

Thanks to the help of a family friend, I have started going through my place and packing it up. At the same time, I am sorting through the items and getting rid of items that no longer "spark joy"... clothing that doesn't fit, electronics I no longer need, furniture that I do not want to have anymore ... The list goes on. I have looked at many items that I have not touched in years and no longer desire to keep those items with me.

Now, you might ask yourself, why are you talking about it and how can it bring me joy? Well, as I have gone through my "stuff", one thing I have found is bags and backpacks; loads of them. Many of the backpacks are from conferences or events. My hope is to bring you joy if you are 'missing' bags from your collection and clear out items so I don't have to move them.

So, here's the deal... I am using this blog post to show the items I have available. You need to fill out the form below to request one of the items. If it is still available, I will contact you via the address you put into the form and work on shipping you the item. In return for me shipping this to you for free (no cost for the bag nor shipping), I would love if you donated to one of the local shelters in your area. All of the bags that do not get sent out by February 15th, 2019, my plan is to donate them to local Seattle-area shelters with school supplies already inside.

So, let's get some joy for children in tough situations and help each other out. Here are the bags available:

Office 365 Connect 2018

I want to send a large thank you to NC Communications and Nigel Clapham and Spencer Harbar in specific for inviting me to speak at the Office 365 and SharePoint Connect 2018 conference in Haarlem, Netherlands. This is the second time I have spoken at the Philharmonie in Haarlem and enjoyed it just like the last time.

Arriving later on Tuesday, I got to see some fellow speakers in the evening at a local user group meeting. With this conference in town, the local user group gets to have some incredible speakers for their meeting this month. I sat in on some of the discussions and the start of a panel discussion. Unfortunately, my stomach growled so loud it interrupted, or so I felt it was. Dinner was at a place I enjoyed a lot last summer, Thrill Grill, and was as good as I remembered it.

Wednesday started with some errands for my trip in the Netherlands so I missed the Keynote. I did get to the Philmarmonie in time to catch Eric Shupps session on Introduction to Azure Web Applications for Office and SharePoint Developers. The developer in me thanks Eric for some understandings of how to setup Web Apps to work with Azure AD. I had some good conversations with presenters and attendees around many.

In the afternoon, my first session of the conference was an oldie but goodie, Migrating SharePoint from On-Prem to Office 365 - Lessons Learned by Microsoft IT. One of the things I find is that many conferences like this session because so many businesses are still looking at a move from on-prem to the cloud. This is still popular and Office 365 Connect 2018 wanted me to present it. I got some really good interaction and had a great time presenting it. I want to thank all of the folks who attended and made the session a good one.

On Thursday, my second session of the conference was a "Lightning Session". I presented my SharePoint on Azure - Tips and Tricks session. Normally, this is a 60 minute session but I had to cut it down to 20 minutes. I felt bad for the presenter after me as I didn't make the 20 minutes but ended at 25. Another good session with great attendees wrapped up my Office 365 Connect for 2018.

Again, I can't thank the NC Communications team and Nigel Clapham for the opportunity to come speak at their conference and hope to return for more in the future.

Cheers!