Is there any real value in SharePoint Saturday?
I came home after SharePoint Saturday Boston a few weeks back and my wife questioned my participation in the “good ‘ole boys club” a couple weekends each month.
I opened my email around the same time and a colleague said he didn’t understand the value of going to SharePoint Saturdays.
This made me stop and think… hard: Why DO I participate in SharePoint Saturday? What is the real value of giving up one or two weekends a month?
From a Speaker’s Perspective
Let’s lay the ground work here from a speaker’s perspective.
SharePoint Saturday is a free, public event. There is no compensation for speaking at an event. The typical cost for me to come as a speaker is between $300 and $500, out of pocket expenses (taxi to airport, plane flight, car rental, hotel, SharePint, dinner, plane flight back, taxi to home). This can easily come to $5,000 to $10,000 a year, depending upon how far and how often I attend.
Looking at the list above, I could easily attend one, if not two a month. I’m already confirmed for SPS India (virtually), SPS Richmond, and if I know Susan Lennon – SPS Virginia Beach. This doesn’t even count not attending another one this month, October, because I already spoke at SPS Birmingham UK, SharePoint Techie User Group in Pakistan (virtually), SharePoint Day Portugal (virtually) and am on the way to SPTechCon in Boston next week, before leaving for Dubai the first week of November to speak at the Global 360 Partner Conference, and returning for the SharePoint Symposium in Washington DC.
Looking at that schedule, I do have to ask the question of myself, “What is the REAL value here? Is it just ego, wanting to get up in front of as many people as possible, or is it something else?”
As my wife would say, “Why are you giving up family time to do this? It sounds like nothing more than an ‘ole boys club that gets together for drinks on Friday and Saturday nights.”
The Anatomy of a SharePoint Saturday
After thinking for a while on what it takes to participate in a SharePoint Saturday, I layed out a basic event flow so I could get an idea of what I have to do, how I follow an event, what I do while attending and the follow up after the event. You might find this outline helpful if you plan on attending as a participant, as well as a speaker.
Pre-Event Connections
The information about a SharePoint Saturday event will come from two sources: SharePointSaturday.org and twitter. SharePointSaturday.org is the home base for all SharePoint Saturday events. It contains a historical archive of all previous events and announces new ones as they are created.
Most of the messaging up to the event comes on Twitter. Each event has a unique hashtag. Anytime someone is speaking about the event on twitter, they will include that hash to make the tweet visible to anyone following that specific event.
I can’t stress enough the importance of participating in the flow of conversation on twitter if you are going to be part of one of these events. The camaraderie around SharePoint Saturday is built around meeting people in person who you have exchanged messages with on Twitter. Some people go as far as wear their Twitter handle on their shirt to make them easily recognizable.
I use TweetDeck so that I can have a search panel for each event and track who is coming.
SharePoint Saturdays are free and open to the public, so you can ask your clients, and potential clients, to come.
The Speaker Dinner
The speaker dinner is a chance for the presenters and the dinner sponsor to meet. It is one of the most critical parts of a SharePoint Saturday for those of us who speak often.
Almost all of the speakers attend this dinner. It gives us a chance to have one-on-one conversation and catch up with the people regularly speaking as part of the SharePoint Community. I take this time to meet speakers local to the community and start developing personal relationships with them..
Anyone can be a speaker at SharePoint Saturday, including you. When an event is announced, put in your speaker submission, the sooner the better. Hardly anyone is ever turned down unless they run out of speaker slots. Speakers are allowed to talk on any SharePoint topic they want as long as it is vendor agnostic. It is seriously frowned upon if a presentation becomes a vendor product pitch.
Saturday – The Main Event
SharePoint Saturday starts at 8:00am and goes until 6:00pm. There are multiple tracks running concurrently all day. Expect attendance to be from 200 to 300 people for large events, 50 to 100 for small events.
The day begins with coffee and bagels from 8:00 to 8:30. The keynote begins at 8:30 and is used for greeting the attendees and laying out the ground rules. At the completion of the keynote, the sessions begin, 1 hour and 15 minutes each. There is a fifteen minute break between sessions.
There is an hour long lunch break. This can be pretty hit or miss as food is concerned. If you have dietary restrictions, you definitely want to bring your own. Some organizers spend a great deal of money on lunch, such as Denver and Baltimore, while others go for pizza and soda.
The afternoon sessions are timed the same as the morning. At 5:00pm, everyone meets in the main room for prizes and drawings. These are usually pretty significant, like an Xbox or a laptop and tons of other stuff, so you’ll want to fill out an evaluation form and put your name in the bucket.
SharePoint Saturday is a way to get to know participants as well as vendors.
When sessions are in break, the sponsor area will be pretty crowded. This is not like a conference crowd. People who come to SharePoint Saturday have given up their weekend to learn more about SharePoint. They are much more likely to engage in conversation than at a conference. They will want to learn as much as they can while there.
SharePint
SharePint is an open call to have a beer or two at the closing of the day. In theory, there is no sponsor and everyone is on their own. This has changed a bit over the past couple months, but the idea is to meet over a beer before saying goodbye at the end of the day.
Don’t overlook this part of the event. It’s where all the speakers go afterward. Most participants don’t take advantage of it, so you’ll have a good chance of engaging and getting to know the presenters one last time.
This is when I start looking around for the people I’d like to have dinner with since there’s usually only bar food available.
Private Dinner
Dinner after SharePint is a chance to have one-on-one conversation with the businesses and SharePoint people in the region. I usually invite two or three people so that we can have a real conversation and start to build a deeper relationship. As an example, in Denver we had dinner with Tony Lanni from AvePoint and Clay Cobb who ran SharePoint Saturday Denver. At SharePoint Saturday UK, there were 12 of us, so it depends upon the situation.
So Where’s the Value?
All of that doesn’t say anything about the value, though. I had to go through that thought process for my own clarification before I could answer the question: Why do I attend? Where’s the value?
I spoke with my wife at length about it. It’s not just my time and money, but family time, too. During our discussion, we came to the “Ah HAH!” moment, where she finally got it.
SharePoint Saturday is a way to give back to the community. It sounds trite, but that’s really what it comes down to. I come home from these events completely exhausted. She thought it was from partying too hard. For those of you that have been with me at the speaker dinner, the event itself and SharePint, you know that can’t be true. She knew that too, but couldn’t figure out on her own what was going on.
The presenters at SharePoint Saturday give everything they have, physically and emotionally. It’s as much “pay back” as it is “pay forward”. Think of the other communities you belong to. Where is there a sincere chance to contribute, to add value to the community. That’s what SharePoint Saturday is.
Conclusion
SharePoint Saturday is the chance to be part of a community. It’s a chance to contribute to the community. It’s a chance to be part of something larger and more emotional than an online forum or blog.
It is not a closed community. Anyone can join in and participate just by showing up. Consider this your personal invitation. I sincerely look forward to seeing you, as do all the other presenters, at the next event.
Best Regards,
Mark Miller, Founder and Editor
EndUserSharePoint.com
If you have attended a SharePoint Saturday, would you mind leaving a comment below on the pros and cons of the event(s) you attended. This is critical for Michael Lotter, Susan Lennon and Eric Harlan, co-ordinators of SharePoint Saturday, as they continue to refine the process and make this one of the foundational pillars of the SharePoint Community.
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I know you put a lot of effort in to these events and I can see it is appreciated! Keep up the community contributions, Mark.
I attended SharePoint Saturday in Dallas about 18 months ago, when SPS was very much an infant. The sessions provided great value in thinking about how to provide solutions — even if the demos didn’t work as expected.
With that stated, I believe the greatest value in SPS is networking and meeting other professionals both in my area and in the SharePoint community at large. I guess I’m a little biased since networking lead to connections that provided an incredible job opportunity beyond the position I held at the time. Now, I get to work with many different implementations of SharePoint with a wide array of solutions — and perhaps one day, I too, will be presenting solutions and ideas at a SPS.
We always talk about the many benefits of attending a SPSUK event as a delegate – it’s great to hear the speaker perspective.
Thanks for all the hard work you (and all of the speakers) put in to these events.
Well said Mark! Timely article for me just before #SPSChicago here locally. I can’t wait to see the sessions and catch up with people.
Very nice write-up, Mark. I think you captured the true essence of SharePoint Saturdays (as I’ve experienced them, anyway) very well. You’re right in that the end-to-end experience is quite a sprint, and I know that I feel equally worn out by the end of it all. The worn-out feeling is of a good nature, though.
I participate in as many SharePoint Saturdays as I can in order to give back to the community. SharePoint is unique in that its extended community is so diverse, and being able to interact with attendees really helps keep me motivated. Each event is unique, but they’re all great in that they facilitate discussions that leave everyone feeling a bit better than when they went in. Attendees come away with plenty of new knowledge they can take to work on Monday, and speakers come away feeling like they made some connections and shared some of their experience (and experiences). Net effect: a win-win.
Thanks for taking the time to share your story. I enjoyed reading it :-)
- Sean
The top 3 benefits (value props) I think SharePoint Saturday has had on me personally:
1. I learn many new things.
This isn’t like a typical training scenario or something along those lines. It’s not the optimization I am talking about it’s learning something totally new. Often it’s not even SharePoint related.
It could be how to better deal with a specific situation around improving User Adoption or Buy In etc.
It could be how to do XYZ in SharePoint.
It could be why not to do ZYX.
It could be awareness that a product or suite of products I never knew existed were available for free, or for a good deal.
It could be awareness of a community resource or site I didn’t know existed.
It could be learning about a Microsoft program, resource (web or channel), or support opportunity that I wasn’t aware of.
This is my personal favorite reason for going to ANY conference and meeting new people (or clients).
2. You build REAL relationships.
Because this is a FREE event and people have to use their Saturday they clearly like, care, or are interested enough in SharePoint that you have not only a common interest but a common goal of learning and sharing more. The people that are most helpful to me when stuck in a bind, or struggling with some bizarre undocumented issue in SharePoint are the people who attend SharePoint Saturdays (or speak at them).
3. You have REAL conversations.
What’s more I love the real conversations you can have. For the non technical business side of things it’s much harder to get a ‘whole story’ online due to the effort, and difficulty in communicating so much. In person you can really dig into what fascinates you, or what you really want to know much faster from a SME or someone who works in a similar industry.
Another aspect that comes into play here is that since it’s a community event you represent yourself (most of the time) and not your business – so it’s more personable by nature and more open. That leads to ‘better’ conversations depending on your objective.
Just wanted to chime in. I can think of many more around recruiting, personal brand, lead gen etc but those top 3 are still the most important in my mind.
I will continue going to many many SharePoint Saturdays per year and spend tons of my own time and money because I think it is well worth it! Hope to see you there!
I was fortunate to attend SharePoint Cleveland about a year or so ago. I live in Youngstown, OH so any SharePoint event is a distance from me so I drove an hour and half to attend, and it was worth EVERY minute of the drive!
I thought SharePoint Saturday in Cleveland was very well executed, and the sessions were timely and informative. I couldn’t even attend all of them that peaked my interest. Although I was particularly excited when I saw that Callahan was presenting a Frugal Admin session! She uses all out of the box, no code solutions that are great and so easy to implement. I went back to work on Monday and used so much of what I had learned.
I learned so much, and made some invaluable contacts. I know that being a speaker costs more than just the time and money, but it is so appreciated by those of us who attend. The SharePoint community in general, and EUSP in particular is like no other community I have participated in.
Thank you for your time, effort, sacrifices.
I attended SharePoint Saturday in Denver, Colorado and it was well worth my day and time. The set up was good and everything was easy to find and things run ‘smooth’ as far as I can tell. Great job Clay and COSPUG it was a good turn out and fun. The best part for me was getting to finally meet the people I ‘communicate’ online. In particular you Mark, because of all the workshops I attended and online questions I ask. I was able to ask a lot of questions since I work for military hospital. The sessions I attended were very informative and the only problem I had was, “Which session to attend?” because there were two or three sessions running at the same time I would have like to attended. I plan on attending as many SharePoint Saturdays as possible. I know it is a lot of personnel time and money from the speakers but PLEASE keep up the great work you do. I get a lot of great information from EUSP, STP SharePoint Saturday and SharePoint conferences.
Mark any more online workshops?
I think you make all the right points, Mark. Having presented at a dozen SPS events, and hosted the two California events last month, I’ve had a similar conversation with my wife, and some members of my company.
While it’s great to be able to point to deals made, opportunities identified, leads captured, business cards collected — that’s not the point of these events. It’s about supporting the SharePoint community, paying it forward, sharing my experiences, and learning from others. Coming from Seattle, my flights are a bit more expensive than yours (which is why I wanted to launch some events on the West Coast), but you still cannot beat the educational and long-term business value of attending these events. I learn so much every time I meet up with this crowd, and am developing relationships that will benefit me and my business years down the road.
Plus – there’s all those speaker shirts that I am collecting. In the short-term, they make up my business casual wardrobe. In the future, I plan to make a quilt, adding yet another long-term benefit to my SPS participation.
As soon as I saw the tweet for this I knew I had to check it out. As a SharePoint Noob (am I still allowed to call myself that?), I cannot tell the you amount of value I’ve gotten from attending SharePoint Saturdays. And- I’ve made the switch from attendee to full on volunteer, a switch that has reaped immeasurable benefits.
There isn’t much I can say about the benefits that hasn’t been said already (some of the key ones for me that I’ll echo are your comment about giving back to the community and Richard’s comments about REAL relationships and conversations)- but what I can add is what a sense of empowerment one gets from attending these events. You see real people doing real things in SharePoint. It gives you the confidence that just reading a blog post or watching a webinar just can’t IMHO.
(Thanks again to all of the speakers as well- without you none of this could happen! )
~Tasha
PS- on Susan’s behalf I’ll say, “You’d better believe it!” about SPSVB!! ;-D
I have attended two SPS events so far, and for me the PROS are
1. The ability to confer with knowledgeable people about SharePoint topics
2. Learning new ‘things”, sometimes they are how-to, other times they are features I didn’t know were there
3. Making connections with people. The SharePoint community is willing to help each other out when they run into a problem. Meeting more of these folks helps you to have more resources when you need help – and allows you to return the favor by helping others out.
The CONS are:
1. Employers hesitance to send staff, apparently because they don’t see the value. Such a low cost event, from my perspective, should energize employers to send any staff willing to be engaged enough to give up their own weekend to attend. Travel is not so costly that it should prohibit attendance to regional events like this. (excuse the rant).
One note on the vendors participation. The way I look at the vendor/sponsors when I am at an SPS is that it provides me the chance to learn about “what is out there” and be better prepared in the future when a need arises. When there isn’t an immediate need the BEST option for me is to find those vendors during a SPS. I can gain understanding of the product(s), let them know why I am investigating and not waste their time chasing a false lead. When the time comes I know which vendors to contact so I can shorten my search and comparison phase and get on with the solution.
If I have a need now, meeting vendors at SPS allows me to actively learn the details I need to move the process along. This makes vendor participation a value to attendees, not only because the event couldn’t happen without them, but also because of the information they share.
Is there any real value in SharePoint Saturday (SPS)? This is a question that many in the goods and services side of SharePoint have been asking themselves and others for a while. I know more than a few believe the answer is No, not for them. The crux of the problem is that SPS costs money (lots of money) and is only made possible by the sponsors, but sponsors often see no direct benefit from their investment. This disparity I’m afraid will impact the longevity of SPS.
That said SPS isn’t about making money. SPS is about the community. You can rest assured that if it wasn’t for the closeness of the SharePoint community, SharePoint the product wouldn’t be closing in on $2 billion in licensing revenue. (Note: While $2 billion sounds like a lot of money, I’m not suggesting that Microsoft has even made a profit yet on SharePoint) This is why I think the sponsorship burden should shift to the main beneficiary of this movement, Microsoft. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening now that SharePoint has its own momentum and Microsoft no longer needs to grease the skids.
What happens when SPS goes away? What happens with SharePoint starts losing its community aspect and we all go back to our individual corners working on our individual things? I’m afraid the answer is eventually demise. While the demise of SharePoint is probably inevitable and perhaps even necessary to usher in the next age of digital collaboration, I don’t think we should hasten it.
Mark, I feel your post missed the mark. (no pun intended, ok maybe slightly intended :) Not that it was in any way wrong in concept or fact. Yes, SPS is a wonderful way to give back to the community, but that doesn’t mean anything to the majority of attendees who come to learn from experts, collaborate, socialize, and connect. The attendees want to validate their ideas, problems, and expand their minds and SPS is a great way to do this.
Let’s face it. SharePoint is hard work. It seems no matter what SharePoint does well, there’s always something else we need it to do, some other purpose or business requirement to meet. It can be daunting to push SharePoint in these new directions. For attendees, SharePoint Saturday offers a cheap way to conceptualize, validate, and plan these projects or overcome the problems that inevitably result from pushing SharePoint in these new directions. For those attendees who depart with the knowledge necessary to get to the next step in the SharePoint process, the real value of SharePoint Saturday is priceless.
I have to wonder if this isn’t because the people who attend SharePoint Saturday are those of us who work in the SharePoint trenches, and may not have the authority to make purchasing decisions.
We can take the information back to our organizations and make recommendations, but often don’t get to make the actual decision. I am not sure what the fix would be for this but maybe if we can identify ways to give vendors a return on their investment even if it isn’t an immediate or short term return.
Maybe provide literature that is geared towards the beancounters so to speak to show how the products or services could inprove the bottom line. Often the person making the decision doesn’t know much about how SharePoint works, and don’t care, they only see what the product or service costs. Then those of us who attend SPS can have something to take back and give to higher ups to aid in the purchasing decision
Just a thought of the top of my head..
Mark-
My “Ah hah” moment came when I heard a few attendees at SharePoint Saturday Boston grouse about a bit about preferring “SharePoint Wednesday” and was underscored by your post. As difficult as it is to take time on a Saturday away from our families, this is precisely the weeding out that makes these events most worthwhile. Connecting with the people who are there because of their passion and skill around SharePoint, and their willingness to contribute to the community, is what makes SharePoint Saturday worth it for me (as a sponsor, supporter of colleagues and friends presenting, and attendee).
I am going to ask a really silly question now, but what the hell.
Why do them on a Saturday?
If they are so useful and beneficial why not make them more available. Mark himself mentions how it takes away ‘Family Time’ and I myself missed the first UK one because the Villa were playing at Tottenham.
It appears it is not really the general public that attend but people who have a role in their company in SharePoint. So why not hold it on a normal working day?
Work -life balance is more important now than ever, but maybe I am just not getting it. But providing it is a Saturday when the Villa aren’t playing I will be at the next SharePoint Saturday in the UK. You have to get your priorities right.
Thanks for the write-up, Mark. And thanks to everyone else for your comments.
I haven’t had the pleasure of attending an SPS, yet. The closest one to me was in San Antonio, but I wasn’t able to make it because of family issues. The next “closest” will be the Online SPS India, where I am confirmed to speak. I’m looking forward to it.
Thanks, Mark, for all you do for the SharePoint community. Indeed, it IS a community largely because of your efforts.
Blessings,
Jim Bob
Jim Bob,
Don’t forget about the upcoming SPS Dallas next month. There will be another SPS San Antonio soon, so I hope you can make it this time.
-Tom
I’ve attended 2 SPSBOS and the EMEA Virtual SPS and they were all outstanding!!!
I think the SharePoint Saturdays are priceless. In this economy, many of us (or our companies) are not able to put out 2-5k for a 2-5 day conference. This group provides an excellent place to learn, network, share our experiences, and make friends.
Nothing really replaces the face to face interaction and i want to thank you Mark, and the many other dedicated people and, lets not forget the many sponsors, who keep this going….and growing around the world.
Great post. Well said.
For an attendee, there is tremendous value in SharePoint Saturdays. I attended one in Virginia Beach earlier this year and have already registered for the upcoming event in January. It is well worth your time, if you do anything in SharePoint:
1. You learn about new and interesting technologies related to SharePoint
2. You learn how to do new things and solve business problems using SharePoint
3. You meet some very interesting new people – attendees, speakers, vendors in a relaxed, fun environment.
4. You run into people you know and haven’t seen in a while – a fabulous networking opportunity.
There is no question (in my mind anyway) of the value and benefits to SharePoint Saturday. I’m looking forward to the next one.