One of the biggest strengths of Microsoft's SharePoint is its flexibility, but, for many companies, that's also one of the platform's biggest challenges.
Often, companies don't know what they don't know about SharePoint, leaving productivity and collaboration benefits on the table. That's why community is such an important part of the SharePoint platform--learning from those who have been there, done that, and can share what works and what doesn't on SharePoint, strategies for extending the platform, development guidance, and so on. This kind of deep, unbiased and practical insight is not easy to find, which makes SharePoint Saturday events some of the most valuable you can mark on your calendar.
SharePoint Saturday Events, or SPS Events, are one-day, face-to-face opportunities held in different cities around the world. The events, which are free, feature sessions from influential and experienced SharePoint professionals. The first SharePoint Saturday was held in 2009, and evolved from SharePoint discussions at Code Camps and SQL Saturdays.
"The SPS Events organization continues to collect lessons from SharePoint Saturday events in an effort to continually improve the event model and encourage more events to take place all over the world," states the SPS Events website. "They also maintain and support the SPS Events website with resources that reduce the time and effort required to plan and execute an event."
Here's a list of upcoming events through the rest of the year:
- Aug. 22 Lima, Peru
- Sept. 12 Cambridge, UK
- Sept. 19 Charlotte, N.C.
- Sept. 19 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Sept. 26 Barcelona, Spain
- Oct. 3 Bryanston, Johannesburg
- Oct. 3 Reston, Va.
- Oct. 10 Cape Town
- Oct. 10 Cincinnati
- Oct. 10 East Hartford, Conn.
- Oct. 10 Munich
- Oct. 17 Durban, South Africa
- Oct. 17 Oslo, Norway
- Oct. 17 Phoenix, Ariz.
- Oct. 24 Nashua, NH
- Oct. 25 Redmond, Wash.
- Nov. 7 Sacramento, Calif.
- Nov. 21 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
