It’s Official. I’m working for Salient6

I’ve dropped a couple of small hints over the last few weeks, but for the most part I think it stayed secret.  Then again the SharePoint Community is tight and word travels fast.  Did you already know? 

Who is Salient6?

Salient6 is a SharePoint Consulting firm that’s about 5 years old, but the average SharePoint tenure for the company is around 10 years per employee.  There are currently about 20 employees, but I expect that to double in the next year as we take things to the next level.  The unique focus of the company is about helping customers get real business value out of their existing SharePoint deployment.  This strategy is on working with the business to unlock the real potential in SharePoint and coordinating with IT.  That message really resonates with me as someone who has tried to create bridges in helping focus on business needs through business value planning for a well governed SharePoint platform. In addition, I was happy to discover that the SharePoint Social app shown at the SharePoint Conference by Badgeville was developed at Salient6.  Pretty cool.

You can see recent accomplishments with 8 recent SharePoint case studies http://www.salient6.com/work

Travel Less or More?

More, but it will be strategic.  Well, I’m happy to say I will be speaking at more conferences, as they are strategic, and part of what I do.  Keeping balance is still #1 priority with home life.  The domestic travel I do will be limited to shorter focused trips.  I’ve already committed to SPTechCon Boston, you’ll hear more about that later.  I’ll be in Quebec next week.  I’ve also got 3 big international trips planned for later this year.  I’m excited about a So Cal user group tour I’ll be doing at the end of June as well.

What is a Managing Director?

Managing directors often work as heads of individual business units within a company rather than heading up the company.  They have broad responsibilities heading up teams of employees and organizing efforts to meet certain internal and external goals.

With me the focus will be broad.  You’ll see me working on product strategy, solution delivery, marketing, pre-sales, marketing and social strategies and hopefully strategic direction amongst business development.  I definitely hope to raise the profile of the company and help others understand the good work we are doing and share in the successes.

Utah or Seattle?

I made a deal with my wife before joining up with Salient6.  I’ll be located in the greater Salt Lake City area until our oldest son graduates from high school (secondary school for foreigners), which will be about 3 years.  Following that, no restrictions… the world is open.  So reality is I’ll be in Seattle every 3-4 weeks for 2 or 3 days to keep the connections with the Salient6 team strong.  On a daily basis I’ll be stressing Lync and SharePoint Online in Office365 as Salient6 is a big advocate and user of cloud technologies.  I hope to coordinate my travel to the emerald city around the user group meetings and events going on in Seattle/Redmond to take advantage of community and Microsoft events.

Will you actually travel onsite to customers?

Yes! I will be spending time with important customers and doing the meet and greets.  I’m definitely interested as well in digging into business problems and helping customers figure out strategies to overcome them.  I’m currently working on a framework around many of the best practices I have used, as well as are many of the top players in our industry who are now working for Salient6 including Bill Pitts, Ted Green, Richard Sturman, Matt Shaffer and more.  I’ll also be delivering “The Art of the Possible” a business focused presentation that helps them imagine what is possible based on SharePoint Design and Development work that we have done in the past. 

I know I’ve had to turn away many opportunities in the past or try to do things in my spare time, but now is definitely the time where I can finally get my hands dirty.  Helping customers figure out their key enterprise strategies.  That’s exciting. 

Is there room?

There are 5 open positions.  We are looking for a Senior Developer, SharePoint Architect located in Bellevue, WA and more.

 

Thanks for the congratulations.  This is a great opportunity. 

Get to know Salient6 more by visiting their site at http://www.salient6.com