Collab365 In Da House

I remember a few years back when someone suggested an online SharePoint Saturday event, and I thought “Well, you’re missing the point of these regional community events – its more about the networking than the content.” While some online SPS events have had mixed results, what began as SP24 and has evolved into Collab365 has been a resounding success – and I am thrilled to be able to spend some time with Jon, Fraser, Mark, Andy and team as they broadcast live from Microsoft in Redmond this week, with presenters and attendees dialing into this massive FREE event showcasing the latest news and learning about SharePoint, Office 365, and all relevant technologies.

While I did present once last year, I had a great time “anchoring” a couple fellow speakers, including Jeremy Thake’s 2015 keynote – so this year I signed up for more anchoring spots, and will be joining the Collab365 team on camera for a couple panels, as well. Plus, Beezy has signed on as the official social sponsor for the entire event….so you’ll notice our logo on every chat module throughout the site.

So much great content, and many friends presenting….but I picked out a few sessions that are relevant to Beezy and the work we are doing around the UX and extending SharePoint and Office 365 capabilities and use cases. I am not knocking the other sessions – these are simply the topics which I’ll personally be following this week:

Tuesday, May 10^th

• IT Pro Keynote: Making the Move to SharePoint 2016 – Bill Baer, Microsoft, 8am PDT
• OneDrive 4 Business panel – Erica Toelle, Valorem, 9:45am PDT
• Preparing for the move to Office 365 Expert Panel – Adam Levithan (Metalogix), Benjamin Niaulin (Sharegate), Jethro Seghers (Bit Titan), 11am PDT
• Office 365 Groups Live Demo – Christophe Fiessinger, Microsoft, 1pm PDT
• Deep Dive into the new team site features – Chris McNulty, Microsoft, 4:30pm PDT

Wednesday, May 11^th

• Dev Keynote – surprise speaker, 8am PDT
• Enhancements to the SharePoint Framework – Daniel Kogan, Microsoft, 10:45am PDT
• Microsoft Graph – Panel hosted by Yina Arenas, Microsoft, 1:30pm PDT
• Integrating Azure Machine Learning and Predictive Analytics with SharePoint – Bhakthi Liyanage, Bank of America, 2pm PDT
• "Future of SharePoint" Reaction – panel with Jeff Shuey, Owen Allen, and others, 2:30pm PDT

Thursday, May 12^th

• Business Keynote : The Modern Workplace: Evolution of SharePoint and Office 365 – Mark Kashman, Microsoft, 8am PDT
• Keynote reaction – panel with Kashman, Christian Buckley, Benjamin Niaulin, and Andy Talbot, 9am PDT
• Stories from the field on how to build an engaging intranet – Marwan Tarek, Hitachi Consulting, 11am PDT
• Future-proof Your Intranet by going “native” Office 365 and SharePoint – Darrell Trimble, SharePoint Marketplace, 12pm PDT
• What does Delve really reveal? – Tom Resing, Microsoft, 1pm PDT
• Understanding Delve & the Office Graph – Paul Olenick, AvePoint, 2pm PDT
• The Mobile and Intelligent Intranet – Mark Kashman, Microsoft, 3:45pm PDT

The event is happening live right now, and once again is entirely FREE. Check out the session listings, sign up, and get involved!