Why I participate in SharePoint Saturday
Guest Author: Chris Geier
K2
I had an interesting conversation this weekend at SharePoint Saturday Indy (for more on that experience see my blog here). The conversation was about me being a “vendor” and actually delivering a presentation that was not vendor focused in nature.
Having been a vendor for quite a while and also having a good understanding of the community in general i understand where the question comes from. But I think the idea may be worth taking a few minutes to explain my thought process in the hopes that maybe others could benefit.
I am out there building presentations and submitting them for approval just like everyone else because I love to get out and talk to people, I also love the idea of teaching. (I think one day i will actually do that) I have a good perspective on technology and love to try and help others see what i see. I like to help people and love to talk technology, business value and process.
As it so happens I work for a company that makes a BPM/Workflow software based on the Microsoft platform. Primarily SharePoint, WF, and .Net. As such I have been afforded a great opportunity to not only have early access to a number of Microsoft products. I also have the privilege of working with many smart people that help me understand these new products. This puts me in a great position to take that knowledge and share it with others.
In addition to this I am passionate about workflow, I believe WF, Process automation, BPM, can be a HUGE benefit, and can truly be a difference make. I want to educate people on WF, how awesome it is, what are the benefits and drawbacks for each area etc.
Many vendors out there see these types of conferences, events, seminars as a way to get in thinly veiled product demos or sessions that constantly refer you back to their offering some how. To me that is missing the whole point on many levels.
- Pushing your own agenda and message does not fit into a good community relationship.
- People are giving up a Saturday to come learn, you are there to help them. I would imagine most are not there to hear a sales pitch.
- Your job is to create content that will
- Engage
- Educate
- Entertain
I believe that if you are vendor and you believe you solve some problem, and you believe that you are the best out there then educate people on the topic and have confidence they will make that conclusion for themselves. If we do a great job helping people do WF, BPM, and are the best WF/BPM vendor on the MS platform. I am not so biased that i believe K2 is the right product for anyone every time. I just believe that we do a great job at what we do, and if you have needs, environment, and or skills that match our strengths that we rock.
Microsoft does a good job in helping people in certain situations to better use and take advantage of workflow. So i want to help people understand:
- Why workflow and BPM can be good for them
- What is there for them
- What is not
- What can they be doing to better plan for and take advantage of the Microsoft platform.
If you have someone from K2 that really wants to help educate you to the point where you feel more comfortable going out and starting to build it all out yourself and don’t like it, or have issues you can’t overcome then we may be the one you come back and talk to and that is just plain good.
Guest Author: Chris Geier
K2
Chris Geier is a 15 year veteran of the IT industry, specializing in security and Microsoft product lines. For the past 4 years he has been working in the workflow and BPM space, at K2. He also has been dabbling in community development and Social Media.
Follow Chris Geier on Twitter @ChrisGeier
Having that disconnect is good. I’ve found that some of the folks from the Bamboo staff tailor their presentations at the weaknesses of Sharepoint and show how it can be fixed with their products. That really turned me off and makes me leary of vendor presentations.
I like this article by Chris and I agree strongly with his sentiments. Having attended dozens of SharePoint shows and events, I’ve always been much more interested and engaged in presentations by individuals who are genuinely trying to teach and share… not just hawk their wares.
As a member of the team at Bamboo, I was thoroughly bummed out to hear Eric suggest that we aren’t living up to these values. We are very proud of the fact that many Bamboo products provide essential functionality not offered by SharePoint out of the box, and in most cases people seem delighted to find a company that has dug in to help fill the gaps. That being said, the majority of our presentations over the past few years have been on subjects (e.g. Code Access Security) completely unrelated to the functionality of our products.
In any case. I apologize if you caught us on an off day. I promise that we will take this feedback to heart and continue to work hard to simply contribute to the SharePoint community in the way that Chris describes… that’s really what we’re all about.