SharePoint Conferences, Best Practice Conferences, Connections, SPTechCon and Tech Eds Oh My!

If you’re looking at this next calendar year and trying to decide what conference to go to you’ve got a daunting task ahead of you.  Sooo many good choices!  I’ve had this post in draft and have been planning on putting out my calendar… Essentially after I saw Dave Pae put out conference list, I realized I had a lot of things on my calendar…  Here’s what I’m aware of, plus more.

I see the first official mention of a SharePoint Conference in 2009.  I also see the link to sign up to find out about the SharePoint Conference 2009 is on the mssharepointconference.com site.  I guess we can rule out that this conference will NOT be before Tech Ed.  I can’t speculate, but I do recommend getting on this email list.

SharePoint Related Conferences

SharePoint Technology Conference
January 27–29, 2009: Burlingame, CA
For three exciting days in January, you’ll be eating, drinking, sleeping, talking and living Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Windows SharePoint Services. The first day at SPTechCon is filled with intense full and half-day workshops, half in the morning, half in the afternoon. The next two days are filled with more than 50 break-out classes to choose from. Build your own custom program! This conference is hosted by BZ Media LLC. Line up includes Tom as keynote.  Speakers include many MVPs and leaders including Shane Young, Todd Klindt, and Nicola Young, John Ross, and Mike Watson.

SharePoint Best Practices Conference
February 2–4, 2009: San Diego, CA
The SharePoint Best Practices Conference eliminates design, deploy, organization and administration confusion, replacing disorder with Clarity, Direction and Confidence.  This conference is hosted by Mindsharp.  Keynote, Joel Oleson. This line up is MOST impressive: Ben Curry, Mike Watson, Bill English, Bob Fox, Bob Mixon…. I already did a post on this best practices conference.

2009 SharePoint .Org Conference

March 22-24: Baltimore, MD

For Associations and Not for Profit Organizations, SharePoint Conference for networking and education networking

Sharepoint Connections — Dev Connections Spring 2009

March 22-25, Orlando FL

Ritz Carlton & JW Marriott – Penton Media.  150+ Sessions from Microsoft, MVPs, and more.  I’ll be giving a couple sessions in the IT and Leadership track.

European SharePoint Best Practices Conference

April 6-8 2009:

London, UK. Hosted by Combined Knowledge.  This is sure to be the best SharePoint related Conference in Europe, this year. It already has an amazing speaker line up. This conference was just announced this week, and hey, I am Keynote! Woohoo!  Check out the killer line up of the SharePoint greats.  Steve Smith MVP, Spence MVP, Mike Watson (X MSFT), Todd Bleeker MVP, Andrew Connell MVP, Penny Coventry MVP, Bob Fox MVP, Andrew Woodward MVP, Natalya Voskresenskaya MVP (Blogger think Squirrel)

Montreal SharePoint Summit

April 6-8: Montreal, Canada

Centre-Mont-Royal

Third annual SharePoint summit.  Speakers include Errin O’Connor, Mike Fitzmaurice, and Bill English

Conferences that will have lots of SharePoint Sessions

Microsoft FASTforward ’09 (SEARCH+)
February 9–11, 2009: Las Vegas, NV
3 days of compelling discussion on the evolving business environment and how search is enabling companies to succeed.  This conference is hosted by Microsoft. (Text from SharePoint Team blog)

Microsoft MIX09 (WEB+)
March 18-20, 2009: Las Vegas, NV
Now in its fourth year, MIX is a unique technology conference that connects web professionals with industry thought leaders to explore the future of the Web together.  This conference is hosted by Microsoft.  There are usually a few SharePoint Conferences, but you’ll see a lot of other .NET and Social Networking sites.

Microsoft Tech·Ed North America 2009

May 11-15: Los Angeles,  Convention Center

"Seventeenth year as the best technical education and networking event in the industry." 

Tech Ed Global

You can navigate to the other Teched’s through the WW drop down in the corner.  My favorites are South East Asia, NZ, and Australia.

 

More SharePoint Details Coming soon… TEC – The Experts Conference (Exchange, AD and Identity, Las Vegas – Spring, Berlin – Fall)

Free Conferences SharePoint Saturday and Code Camps:

Virginia Beach SharePoint Saturday 

Jan 10:  Joel Oleson, Michael Lotter, Paul Galvin, Mark Miller (Free community event) – Yep I’ll be there.

NYC SharePoint in the Real World, Imagine Event (SharePoint Saturday)

Jan 21: NYC (Many partners)

Kansas City SharePoint Saturday

Feb 7 – Free event.  Still in the planning stages

South Florida Code Camp

Code Camp is a FREE one day GEEK FEST held on Saturday February 7, 2009

Boise Code Camp

March 28th, 2009

Twin Cities Code Camp

April 4, 2009

Where in the world is Joel?

 

Toronto SharePoint User Group

Dec 12 – Noon Community Luncheon: Spring Rolls on Yonge south of Bloor

Contact Eli for more details

Virginia Beach SharePoint Saturday

Jan 10

I’ll be doing a couple of sessions…

San Diego User Group

Jan ~21- More info TBD

One session likely on legacy migration

SharePoint Best Practices Conference

La Jolla, California – Best Practices US – La Jolla, CA
Feb 1 – Feb 4, 2009
Keynote + a session or two

Sharepoint Connections Spring 2009

Orlando, FL
Mar 22 – Mar 25, 2009

IT Leadership Governance session, plus migration and avoiding failed deployments

European SharePoint Best Practices Conference
London – London, United Kingdom
Apr 6 – Apr 9, 2009
Keynote + a session or two

Tech Ed US – Los Angeles, CA
May 11 – May 15, 2009
In process of submitting sessions.

Trip to the Hospital – Seattle, WA (Baby Due staying home for a few weeks)
May 25 – May 29, 2009

 

If you are asking if you have one conference you can go to what conference should you go to?  My favorite is Tech Ed for volume and cross coverage, but the new Best Practices Conference (California or Europe) outside of the main Microsoft SharePoint Conference is my recommended focused pick for this year.

If I was in Europe it would be the Best Practices Conference and ITForum/Europe.  In Asia, it would be Tech Ed. 

I plan/hope speak at Tech ED South East Asia 2009, Tech ED Hong Kong 2009, maybe Tech ED South Africa 2009.  Others???

The analysts themselves have many conferences, I’ve found those to be insightful as well.  Gartner’s AIIM, Burton’s, Forresters, IDC, etc…

The WPC is always a big crowd and often ISVs get a chance to do a who’s who and do some serious networking.  That’s usually in the middle of the summer.

 

Additional Resources:

More Code Camps

Moss Lover: More Free SharePoint Saturdays

User Groups around the world

As you can see there are SharePoint User Groups all over the world see ISPA SharePointPros.org for more info.  Also Culminis has a User Group search by country and language.