John's ODC 2008 Real World Track Blog

ODC 2008: Exciting Updates including OBA Solution of the Year!

JoGrah — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:54:50 GMT

We are getting very close to ODC 2008 – it's hard to believe it's almost here – I can't wait – we have two major announcements (more details below):

OBA Solution of the Year Contest update
Countdown to ODC 2008 – One Week AWAY – It's not too late to join us if you haven't already signed up

INAGURAL OBA SOLUTION OF THE YEAR CONTEST – ANNOUNCING 1^ST ROUND FINALISTS!

At the Microsoft Office System Developer Conference 2008, OBA Central will recognize the top 3 OBA solutions via a new OBA Solution of the Year Award Contest! For full details of the contest, click HERE.

Round One of this inaugural contest drew to a close at 11:59pm (Pacific Time) on January 31^st 2008. We are proud to announce the Round One OBA Solution of the Year Award finalists.

Congrats to our Round one finalists (listed in alphabetical order)

AgilePoint BPM Solution Suite
Bluespring BPM Suite 4.5
Cincom Acquire
Employee Performance Management
Epicor Information Worker
Excellent Estimating & Accounting
FirstPoint Enterprise Content Management
IntelliSafe Vault Desktop for Microsoft Office 2007
K2 blackpearl
Kayxo Insight 2.0
Knowledge Driven Solution Accelerator
ObjectRisk Enterprise Risk Management and Compliance Modular System
PharmaCM
Skelta SharePoint Accelerator 2007
SmartAsset ODC
Teamcenter Express
TRACS 4 Life
Visual KPI for Office 2007
XpertDoc Studio
Xpertdoc Studio 2007

Please join us in congratulating these OBA solutions!

On February 8, 2008 we will announce the ten finalists from Round Two, and at ODC 2008 in San Jose we will announce the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd Place Winners in the final Round.

COUNTDOWN TO ODC 2008 – JUST 1 WEEK AWAY!

The Microsoft Office System Developer Conference 2008 is just one week away, and we are looking forward to seeing many of you who have registered and made plans to attend. This will be THE premier event for Developers, Architects and even Executives to engage. Key topics will include Office development, SharePoint®, Silverlight®, Open XML and more! Highlights will include Keynote Addresses, Hands-on Labs, Executive Track, unconference, plus an extensive line-up of sessions and expert speakers.

If you have not yet registered, there's still time if you hurry. Just go to wwww.odc2008.com now to register so that you won't miss out on this great opportunity to learn, network and even showcase your solution!

Countdown to ODC 2008!

JoGrah — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:38:35 GMT

Hey everyone – we're less than two weeks away from ODC 2008. It's going to be a rocking, fun and nothing short of an awesome event. I spoke with Hugh MacLeod (creator of the Blue Monster) yesterday morning 7am (our time) for about 40 minutes about the event, and his participation. Hugh is an amazing person, and I'm certain you'll enjoy the opportunity to see him in action at ODC 2008. He's really fired up for the event and looking forward to meeting the attendees and doing some sketches/drawings and connecting with us.

Having alluded to some cool things I can talk about and some I can't that are happening at ODC 2008 – here's something I can talk about - a sneak peek at some of the many fun and cool things we have in store for you. If you're familiar with the Budweiser "heroes" commercials we've got some hilarious video and audio slots we're going to play in the general sessions. Here's a sneak listen to the first audio slot: VBA Developer Person . Here's to you!

The Blue Monster Creator, Hugh MacLeod will be at ODC 2008!!!

JoGrah — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 07:50:00 GMT

I recently mentioned some exciting things were brewing in the background for ODC 2008 and brewing they are….

I’m psyched to announce that Hugh MacCleod, Blue Monster creator, avid blogger (gapingvoid.com), artist, marketing thought leader and author will be attending ODC 2008.

By a strange series of serendipitous events, I was connected with someone who was working with Hugh and away we went. I can’t believe it. This comes full circle to my initial blog and what the Real World Track and Microsoft means to me. Hugh will be at ODC 2008!!!

Don’t miss this opportunity to see Hugh in action at ODC 2008 on Sunday, Feb 10^th, at the Registration and Reception party.

There will be other events at ODC 2008 where Hugh will be participating -- you’ll have to attend the conference to find out more details.

I can’t wait for ODC 2008 – if you haven’t registered what are you waiting for? This is going to be the coolest event ever

ODC 200: Let’s get ready to rock….OH YEAH – it’s almost here!!!

JoGrah — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 07:40:48 GMT

Happy New Years to everyone! Just a quick update.

Are you ready? Man, things are incredibly crazy busy; we're psyched for ODC 2008 and are looking forward to heading to Cali! There is going to be so much cool stuff - some things I can't talk about, some things I hope to share shortly; but let's just say it will be one of the coolest Microsoft events ever. I can't wait.

If you haven't signed up yet – what are you waiting for J?? For those that have – right on!

This will be one Microsoft event for the books that you don't want to miss. Talk with you soon!

ODC 2008 – Two cool announcements and contests!!!

JoGrah — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:53:10 GMT

Hi everyone!

For those who think things slow down this time of year IT DOESN'T J - here's a few cool announcements and contests – do you have what it takes? Do you want a shot for bragging rights? Then keep on reading!

OBA Solution of the Year Award – at ODC 2008!!!

We're proud to unveil the inaugural "OBA Solution of the Year" award contest sponsored by OBA Central at ODC 2008!

Details of the contest OBA Solution of the year are posted at OBA Central: https://www.obacentral.com/Pages/SolutionContest.aspx

If you have a great OBA solution or solutions and/or are a Systems Integrator/Consultant and are not listed it in OBA Central, this is a great opportunity to join the hundreds of partners who are actively taking advantage of OBA Central and it's free benefits, and visibility to potential customers, other partners and Microsoft; but also a shot at winning OBA Solution of the Year.

Sleepless – The Ultimate Office Dev Weekend is back and this time we're bringing the best of SharePoint, Office Development and Silverlight training to you for a chance at $100,000 in prizes, including an all-expense-paid trip to Microsoft's Office System Developer Conference in San Jose

CALLING ALL INSOMNIACS – AGAIN!
Three weekends, seven cities, $100,000 in prizes and round the clock SharePoint and Office training

It started in New York, (Watch a video of the 2007 Sleepless in NY event) but now Sleepless is back. And this time we're going on the road to bring the best of SharePoint, Office Development and Silverlight training to you.

The weekend features:

Training from SharePoint's Elite including Microsoft Product Team members and SharePoint MVP's
A Mystery Game-show
Overnight Developer competition
An all expenses trip for the winning team to San Jose for Microsoft Office System Developer Conference 2008!!!

Think you've got what it takes? Deadline for applications is January 6th, 2008.

Real World – Video – check it out!!! This is what it’s all about!!!

JoGrah — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 07:40:23 GMT

Hi everyone – we're cranking things up as we continue preparing for ODC 2008! Check out an impromptu video of my take on the Real World Track, ODC 2008 and what it means to me; I'm caught playing with lego like blocks, fire trucks, during the video receive a call from Bill Gates and blow him off.

Enjoy and check it out at http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=365213

Real World Track Update –

JoGrah — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 04:13:27 GMT

I am so stoked to share this update. My colleagues and I have finalized our respective ODC 2008 track sessions: Client, Server, Architecture, Real World and Services, and you'll find the final draft of my track below: THE REAL WORLD track!

Behind the scenes: our tracks are among the best line up I've seen at any conference. We set the bar very, very high. What you'll find yet another product of Microsoft's ongoing passion for excellence – I'm so fired up about our tracks and especially my tracks. These tracks are the result of many internal 'discussions' . . . well, OK, heated discussions as we conducted our review process over and over via emails, hallway conversations, closed door conversations (for obvious reasons) J, over the phone, IMs, etc but all in the spirit and the objective of excellence. No one got hurt, well, not too badly.

It's been a while so to refresh what the Real World Track is all about I've provided an overview, followed by the 10 Real World Sessions for ODC 2008!

John's Track - Real World – Overview

You want the truth? How about no canned demos? No sales pitch? Sound interesting?

This track is all about demonstrating Office Development in the REAL WORLD. NO SALES PITCHES ALLOWED.

Learn about real world deployments best practices, lessons learned that are designed, developed, deployed and in production from MVPs, partners, customers, and Microsoft.

MVPs, partners, customers, and Microsoft will share their real world scenarios and deployments, WITHOUT a sales pitch – these sessions bridge Microsoft's promise of the art of the possible providing evidence to make even the strongest skeptic believe that the Office Developer Revolution is truly here.

Session Title	Speaker Name	Abstract
"Office System 2007 – Making Smart Design Choices – Navigating the Office System Extensibility Stack" - Notes from the Field, Microsoft Consulting Services (UK)	Paul Holdaway, Microsoft Consulting Services, UK	Since the launch of the 2007 Office System, developers have never had it so good in their choice of application and tool-set. However, with so many choices, how does a developer decide what to add to an Information Worker solution design? What informs that decision? SharePoint sits as the collaborative hub of the Office System – but what is the best interface for the business and for the users? Is it the browser or the desktop applications? Would an Office Business Applications (OBA) implementation suit better? If the business wants to work offline, is the choice Outlook or Groove – or Access? The MCS UK team shares their experiences in the Information Worker space, with recent projects and deployments in major UK companies. The talk will draw ideas and discussion on the strengths and caveats of using different products in a variety of project scenarios, with details on what worked well - and what didn't... (Warning: the phrase, "It depends..." , may appear more than once during this session.)
A Structured & Repeatable Approach to Building Microsoft Office SharePoint Solutions	Andrew Connell - MVP, author, consultant, Andrew Connell, Inc.	"SharePoint doesn't support source control." "SharePoint doesn't follow good SDL or change control processes." "Developers have to use SharePoint Designer to create Publishing sites." Heard these before? Guess what? All these myths are completely untrue. Many traditional SharePoint projects frequently must follow an organization's change control process, software development lifecycle processes and integration within source control. Not only is it possible to follow all of these common development guidelines in SharePoint, it is a lot easier than you may think. In this session we'll take a look at how this is possible by obtaining a better grasp of the inner workings of the SharePoint architecture such as Features, customized and uncustomized files and solutions. Finally you will learn some tips and tricks in how to adopt this process in your development team.
Building High Performance Solutions on MIcrosoft Office Server 2007	Andrew Connell - MVP, author, consultant, Andrew Connell, Inc.	Performance should be one of the top areas of focus on everyone's mind when embarking on a Internet facing Microsoft Office Server 2007 site. In this session we'll look at the built-in caching capabilities added to the latest release of the SharePoint platform, including disk-based and page output caching. In addition we'll take a look at various hot-button issues developers should be aware of when developing components for a public site built on MOSS 2007. Topics include object model techniques, how to properly manage memory to avoid the dreaded OutOfMemory exception, key sizing numbers to keep in mind when architecting your implementation and minimizing the page payload to speed up those page load times. After this session, you'll be armed with the power to create high performance and scalable solutions in MOSS 2007.
Connecting back end iSeries, AS/400 and IBM mainframes to Office	Marcus Dee, President, looksoftware; Nick Hampson, Product Specialist, looksoftware UK	Overview: This session takes a practical look at how IBM based Line of Business applications can be connected to Office 2007. Examples of connecting back-end ERP applications like Oracle World and custom RPG and COBOL applications to Outlook, Excel and Word will be demonstrated. Techniques to connect back-end monolithic applications to Office products as UI components and web services will be discussed and demonstrated and will include. .. • Improving host application's User Experience with Outlook and Excel • Streamlining workflow by integrating back-end processes with Office 2007. • Component level access to legacy applications from Office 2007
MOSS Interoperability with SAP – "Connecting LOB Platforms to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to Drive Business Value"	Drew Naukam, VP, Microsoft Strategic Service Line, and Ryan Clay and Sean Jones, Enterprise Architects, Hitachi Consulting	This presentation and demo will show the audience how to build composite applications in MOSS that require bi-directional interaction with SAP data. The presentation includes demos of solutions developed for Ticketmaster and Tyson Foods, and discuss the business scenarios that drove each project.
Inside Microsoft – How Microsoft IT used Excel Services to Create an Office Business Application that Supports Microsoft's Top Executives	Sergei Gundorov, Senior Software Developer, Microsoft and Mike Reese, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft	Learn how Microsoft IT moved MS Excel 2007 based Executive Reporting UI that supports top level corporate executives decision making process to the web leveraging Excel Services. Find out how Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 makes it easy to connect Microsoft SQL 2005 databases and Analysis Services with Excel Web Access. Learn about integration of InfoPath forms with automation and encrypted data connection to collect user inputs for commentary and collaboration. Discover how Office Open XML file format allows developers to manipulate server side workbooks to provide end users with secure scorecard viewing experience in the browser and not sacrifice MS Excel 2007 rich client functionality while meeting the requirement of no client side code install.
Real World examples and case studies: Building dynamic business applications which integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, InfoPath and SAP.	Dave Marcus, VP of Alliances, K2	This session will include examples of how K2 extended Microsoft products and technologies at more than 1500 companies in 45 countries helping customers to address real-world business challenges at companies including: Del Monte, Eidos (creator of Tomb Raider – Lara Croft), and Pfizer. Leveraging Internet Explorer, Visio, SharePoint, and Visual Studio, K2 blackpearl facilitates collaborative application assembly. This session will further discuss automation of business processes and creating composite applications collaboratively between IT and the business units. Using visual tooling and out-of-box integration with Microsoft technologies such as BizTalk, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, and Office, the K2 platform is built and runs on .NET 3.0, demonstrating the power of WF to deliver comprehensive solutions which span line of business systems.
Building a next Generation Travel Booking Portal using Microsoft services	Mehul Shah, Solutions Architect, BLUE STAR INFOTECH	This sample Travel Booking Portal for a Travel Tour Operator will demonstrate how various services can be consumed within SharePoint environment. User Interface will be a Silverlight web part. When the user enters his travel origin and destination, it will consume Microsoft Virtual Earth services to draw the map and plot various route options. It will then consume Microsoft Live Services to help the user with directions, knowing areas of interest at the destination etc to enhance the travel planning and booking experience. For travel reservation, it will consume services exposed by BizTalk server. BizTalk server is used to abstract out connections to various reservations services provided by either any of the GDS's (Global Distribution System like Worldspan, Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre) or invidual suppliers like airlines, hotels etc. This will be SharePoint based portal levaraging: SharePoint Content Management System - allowing Tour Operators to update their tour products catalogues from time-to-time SharePoint portal features - like User Management, Personalization, Surveys etc SharePoint Web 2.0 features - like Blogs, Wikis to build user community
Office Business Applications SharePoint and Dynamics - case studies	TBD - Anthony Cross working with John Graham	Dynamics, Office Development integration case studies (actively in progress)
Case Study - Accelerating Development of SharePoint 2007 Solutions: Building a case management solution using the Microsoft Office SharePoint platform	Dan Barkley, Solutions Architect, Open Text; Paul Jenson, Solutions Developer, Open Text	Learn how Open Text worked with customer requirements to develop an extensions toolkit for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Using the example of a Legal Information Management solution, Open Text created a packaged framework to extend upon the SharePoint development platform for easier and more rapid solutions development. In this technical presentation, Open Text will discuss how to deeply integrate and extend SharePoint to facilitate the SharePoint centric management of content with central classification and long term storage. Open Text will demonstrate a series of key features such as; how to create a solution with automatic configuration and deployment of a large number of SharePoint sites for a Case Management scenario, managing inheritance, unique document numbering and extending the security model. Extending those capabilities to Microsoft Office, Open Text will discuss its strategy for implementing SharePoint centric solutions within additional Office Applications such as Outlook, Explorer and Microsoft Word.

ODC 2008 Real World Session Tracks ready for review – (a work in progress)

JoGrah — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:02:24 GMT

Here is my current list of sessions I am proposing. This list is still a working on progress so there could be a few changes. The purpose of me posting this early view is to give you an idea as to the sessions and topics we will be covering in the ODC REAL WORLD Track. If you have any feedback please let me know.

Session Title	Speaker (s)	Abstract
"Office System 2007 – Making Smart Design Choices – Navigating the Office System Extensibility Stack" - Notes from the Field, Microsoft Consulting Services (UK)	Paul Holdaway, Paul Robinson (MCS UK)	Since the launch of the 2007 Office System, developers have never had it so good in their choice of application and tool-set. However, with so many choices, how does a developer decide what to add to an Information Worker solution design? What informs that decision? SharePoint sits as the collaborative hub of the Office System – but what is the best interface for the business and for the users? Is it the browser or the desktop applications? Would an Office Business Applications (OBA) implementation suit better? If the business wants to work offline, is the choice Outlook or Groove – or Access? The MCS UK team shares their experiences in the Information Worker space, with recent projects and deployments in major UK companies. The talk will draw ideas and discussion on the strengths and caveats of using different products in a variety of project scenarios, with details on what worked well - and what didn't... (Warning: the phrase, "It depends..." , may appear more than once during this session.)
"From Day #1 to Launch: End-to-End Design & Architecture for a SharePoint Server 2007 Solution" - A Discussion on considerations for leading a SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 deployment for your organisation - Notes from the Field, Microsoft Consulting Serv	Paul Holdaway, Martin Kearn, Brian Wilson	Many SharePoint deployments rely on one or two key people, within an organisation, who have been asked to take ownership of the project from its earliest inception, through to user-acceptance testing and full deployment. Partners or consultants may be employed to assist with technical aspects of the deployment - but the the project-owners require a broad knowledge of what the platform they are deploying. The more you know about SharePoint, the better you'll be able to decide: What to configure What to customise What to Extend What to Develop What to Add-In To fully develop and exploit your software-investment. This talk is aimed at such people. There's much ground to cover - and much to discuss - but the MCS UK team will use the Microsoft online planning documentation as a baseline for the session and talk through the deisgn decisions to be considered, including these topics: Portal and Site logical architecture Farm and SSP deisgn Physical design: avaliability and scalability Search and Indexing My site and personalistaion Excel and Forms Sevices Customisations: features, solutions Graphics: master pages and style sheets Testing Strategies Training Phased deployment Operational guidelines (administration, back-up, monitoring) Warning: the phrase, "It depends..." , may appear more than once during this session
Debunking the Myth: SharePoint is a Fantastic Application Development Platform!	Andrew Connell (MVP) and SharePoint Developer champion	When embarking on the development of a custom application developers face the same things over and over: you need a navigation solution, a security model, a search offering and an easy way to add update / functionality. More advanced applications want a plug in model, a way for site owners and even users to snap in new functionality without a major overhaul to the application. Other applications need to provide auditing capabilities, even alerting mechanisms as well as ways to create scheduled tasks. Before building all of this from scratch, check out Windows SharePoint Services v3! All of this is provided out of the box! Rapidly create new applications leveraging the existing functionality included OOTB in WSS v3. Better yet, don't like how something works? This platform is incredibly extensible… come see how you can turn it on its head
The Structured and Secure Approach to Building MOSS 2007 Solutions	Andrew Connell – (MVP) and SharePoint Developer champion	"SharePoint doesn't support source control." "SharePoint doesn't follow good SDL or change control processes." "Developers have to use SharePoint Designer to create Publishing sites." Heard these before? Guess what? All these myths are completely untrue. Unlike many traditional SharePoint projects, Publishing sites frequently require following an organizations change control process, software development lifecycle processes and integration within source control. Not only is it possible to follow all of these common development guidelines in SharePoint, it is a lot easier than you may think. In this session we'll take a look at how this is possible by obtaining a better grasp of the inner workings of SharePoint, how you can make sure your development team leverages this, as well as some tips and tricks in how to achieve it. Finally, developers will understand what it takes to build secure solutions in SharePoint leveraging Code Access Security (CAS) custom policies.
Building High Performance Solutions on MOSS 2007	Andrew Connell - MVP and SharePoint Development Champion	Performance should be one of the top areas of focus on everyone's mind when embarking on a Internet facing MOSS 2007 site. In this session we'll look at the built-in caching capabilities added to the latest release of the SharePoint platform, including disk-based and page output caching. In addition we'll take a look at various hot-button issues developers should be aware of when developing components for a public site built on MOSS 2007. Topics include object model techniques, how to properly manage memory to avoid the dreaded OutOfMemory exception, key sizing numbers to keep in mind when architecting your implementation and minimizing the page payload to speed up those page load times. After this session, you'll be armed with the power to create high performance and scalable solutions in MOSS 2007.
Connecting back end iSeries, AS/400 and IBM mainframes to Office	Marcus Dee - Look Software -	Overview: This session takes a practical look at how IBM based Line of Business applications can be connected to Office 2007. Examples of connecting back-end ERP applications like Oracle World and custom RPG and COBOL applications to Outlook, Excel and Word will be demonstrated. Techniques to connect back-end monolithic applications to Office products as UI components and web services will be discussed and demonstrated and will include. .. • Improving host application's User Experience with Outlook and Excel • Streamlining workflow by integrating back-end processes with Office 2007. • Component level access to legacy applications from Office 2007
Enabling a Better SharePoint Solution SDLC	Jack Nichols & TJ Merrill, Resolute	Today's SharePoint deployments are growing increasingly larger and more complex as solution implementers use SharePoint as a complete platform for content management, applications, business intelligence, and more. Despite the power that SharePoint offers, deployment, migration, and change management remain huge challenges with many hours and dollars wasted performing or troubleshooting deployments. The dynamic nature of how SharePoint solutions are built and enhanced within production environments makes it very difficult to implement good SDLC controls to alleviate these problems. In this session, we will present a new technology that addresses these issues and enables good practices for deployment, migration, and change management. We will explore how we can apply this technology to a typical SharePoint solution and reduce the amount of time and complexity required to deploy and manage the solution
Case Studies: The Power of Microsoft Office Excel Services and Excel in Financial Applications	Mehul Shah, Blue Star	Real world case studies using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Excel Services. A real life scenario of how Excel Services can be leveraged by a financial portal. It will re-use all the complex business logic that is available in already prepared Excel sheets. The portal will have dashboards, KPI's, Stock Price forecasting, Trends Analyses for registered users. Real time feeds will be integrated with Stock Exchange. The users will be provided support in real-time using Live Communication Server. The user can participate in various surveys on the portal. All of the functionalities will be developed using Out-of-box features of SharePoint Server absence of which would require custom development or multiple third-party products.MyMoney - Retail Portfolio Manager using Excel: This is a retail portfolio manager to manage personal finance. It provides a single interface to comunicate with various financial institutions. An Excel-addin provides the ability for general users to connect to their banks/financial institutions and download statements/bills/view stock and mutual fund status and get their net worth at a single place. This is on the lines of Microsoft Money. This is being developed with Microsoft India and we will need to have their permission to showcase. Again, this should not be an issue. Currently, the plan is to develop a regular smart client, later followed by Excel based app. If selected, we will develop this for Excel in time for ODC 2008
MOSS Interoperability with SAP – "Connecting LOB Platforms to MOSS to Drive Business Value	Drew Naukam, VP, Microsoft Strategic Service Line, and Ryan Clay and Sean Jones, Enterprise Architects, Hitachi Consulting	This presentation and demo will show the audience how to build composite applications in MOSS that require bi-directional interaction with SAP data. The presentation includes demos of solutions developed for Ticketmaster and Tyson Foods, and discuss the business scenarios that drove each project.
Inside Microsoft – How Microsoft IT used Excel Services to Create an Office Business Application that Supports Microsoft's Top Executives	Sergei Gundorov and Mike Reese (Microsoft)	Learn how Microsoft IT moved MS Excel 2007 based Executive Reporting UI that supports top level corporate executives decision making process to the web leveraging Excel Services. Find out how Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 makes it easy to connect Microsoft SQL 2005 databases and Analysis Services with Excel Web Access. Learn about integration of InfoPath forms with automation and encrypted data connection to collect user inputs for commentary and collaboration. Discover how Office Open XML file format allows developers to manipulate server side workbooks to provide end users with secure scorecard viewing experience in the browser and not sacrifice MS Excel 2007 rich client functionality while meeting the requirement of no client side code install.
Building dynamic business applications that integrate seamlessly with MOSS, InfoPath and SAP.	Technical - Anthony Petro or Business – Dave Marcus	Discuss the automation of business processes and creating composite applications collaboratively between IT and the business with Microsoft and K2. K2 blackpearl facilitates collaborative application assembly using Microsoft tools including the Internet Explorer, Visio, SharePoint, and Visual Studio. Applications can be built that span line of business systems using visual tooling and out-of-box integration with technologies such as BizTalk, MOSS, Office and SAP. The platform is built and runs on .NET 3.0, demonstrating the power of WF, K2 and the Microsoft stack of technologies to deliver comprehensive platform wins. This session will include examples of how K2 has extended Microsoft products and technologies at more than 1500 companies in 45 countries by helping customers to address real-world business challenges at companies like Del Monte, Eidos (creator of Tomb Raider – Lara Croft), and Pfizer.

Thanks and I'm looking forward to your feedback!!! –JG

EMEA TechED – Friday, last day of two weeks – thank you partners, friends and attendees! Hope to see you at ODC 2008 if not sooner!!!

JoGrah — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:35:34 GMT

Hi everyone – just wrapping up my 2^nd week here in Barcelona, Spain at TechED IT Forum. What a great set of events (Developers event last week and IT Forum this week). I've got Office Developers Conference 2008 (ODC 2008) on the brain – many people are very excited that we're taking this event 'public' for the first time. This week I spent a lot of time talking about (ODC 2008) meeting with Office Business Applications (OBA Central) partners and ODC 2008 partners. Additionally I also had the wonderful opportunity to meet existing, and new friends and partners; some were OBA Central launch partners and others who were learning more about OBA Central and ODC 2008 it ran the full spectrum.

Further, I had the great opportunity to hear some great stories how OBA Central continues to grow as a community and a great networking site – I heard a number of examples of partners using OBA Central to find other partners and connect to come together as partners providing our customers and partners with a great ecosystem.

I envision ODC 2008 as a extension of IT Forum as a revolutionary opportunity to network and build relationships and share our mutual passion, spend time with partners/friends, celebrate existing friendships/partnerships and building new ones. I continue to be excited about this event. I can't wait – how about you???

I'm headed for holiday with my wife shortly – and am excited to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Best wishes – and stay tuned!!!

ODC – Barcelona, Spain - PASSION

JoGrah — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:33:09 GMT

Hi everyone – sorry for the delayed blog update - I'm here at TechED Barcelona, Spain (Developers this past week) and IT Forum next week, and spending the following week with my wife on vacation.

I hope you are all doing well - I am so fired up for ODC 2008 – we have great partners, speakers, and attendees - all providing overwhelming positive feedback thus far. Are you fired up? If so, why? If not, why not? Give us feedback!

ODC 2008, like with any successful Revolution, the theme is real; we need to press ourselves – step outside of the box with me and take a risk. If you want opportunity, take a challenge – it is self perpetuating. I look forward to taking this journey together. Please let me (us) know how we can better and further team up.

Thank you to those who are sponsors/presenters, and if you haven't already, please consider attending Office Developers Conference 2008.

Stop by the MSFT EMEA IT Forum Office booth if you can!

The Blue Monster t-shirt was and is a discussion topic at EMEA Developers conference – it got people talking – everyone had a visceral response to it – the majority of the people thought it was really cool and knew about the Blue Monster already, since the artist is from the UK.

Net: it wasn't yet another giveaway –something people with which emotionally connected as do I – even many MSFTies wanted a shirt and some want more.