I’ll be leaving on Sunday for the 2011 SharePoint Conference in Anaheim, Calif.  I’m especially interested in the chance to review and learn new insights from the masters about infrastructural aspects of SharePoint.  In addition, I’m planning on attending some of the show-and-tell sessions to learn about what other businesses have been doing with SharePoint, since the business stories can be strategically valuable, and are often much less predictable.    With technical conferences, the preparations are standard for most people, and best practices are regularly circulated.  Nonetheless, I have a few to share below, few of which that I have come across elsewhere.  Maybe there will be something useful for you as well.

Things to bring:

  1. Moleskin.  Bring it and use it; this is the best prophylactic against blisters, which are all too common when you walk a couple miles a day back and forth between sessions.  A must.
  2. Business cards.  Bring them and trade them.
  3. Bring a power strip.  Outlets are invariably at a premium in the conference rooms, and you will make many friends if you have one of these.  Until you leave and take it with you, that is.
  4. Vendors and birds-of-a-feathers.  Since all breakout sessions are recorded and available on the website soon after taking place, these should not be the exclusive focus of your planning.  Consider the other non-recorded events as well, such as birds-of-a-feather sessions.  In addition, there are some great vendors in the SharePoint workspace; it is worth spending some time getting to know some of them and their products.  Make a point of
    collecting business cards.
  5. Labs. Usually I ignore these, but since I can download all the breakouts, I plan to give some of these a try.
  6. Loot. Maybe, like me, you have enough t-shirts to last a lifetime.  But your co-workers likely do not.  Conference swag is worth getting not just for
    yourself, but for the folks back home.  At least half of the swag I bring back will be distributed.
  7. Download. The sessions are available for three months or so.    After that, it’s either nothing or your favorite file-sharing service.  So make
    sure to download as much as you can, as soon as you can.

While on the subject of SPC11, I’d like to make an observation on its website (http://www.mssharepointconference.,com).  The site has no forums or newsfeeds; the only novelty and populist participation comes from a trickle of tweets and bleets, most of which are simple bursts of zeal.  How unlike the Tech-Ed site, which now has been able to enter year-round availability.  Rather than re-invent the wheel, it would make sense for SPC to leverage the clear success of the Tech-Ed site.