SharePoint and Exchange Forum 2008
Last week I was once again speaking on Outlook development at the SharePoint and Exchange Forum in Sweden. My thanks to Göran Husman and HumanData SE for having me over once again. The event is well organized and features some most excellent speakers:
- Scott Schnoll - Principal Technical Writer (Exchange), MS Redmond USA
- Mike Fitzmaurice - SharePoint guru , Nintex USA
- Steve Smith - SharePoint MVP, UK
- Todd O. Klindt - SharePoint MVP, USA
- Reza Alirezaei - SharePoint MVP, Canada
- Eric Schupps - SharePoint MVP, USA
- Penny Coventry - SharePoint MVP, UK
- Jay Gundotra - Principal Architect, Enow Inc., USA
- Pontus Haglund - Microsoft Sweden
- Göran Husman - SharePoint MVP, Humandata
- Marcus Murray - Windows Security MVP, Sweden
- Lasse Pettersson - Exchange MVP, Sweden
- Micke Nyström - Windows Server MVP, Sweden
- Michael Jansson - SharePoint expert, Sweden
- Rolf Granlund - SharePoint expert, Sweden
My sessions and the links to the PowerPoints:
- Building Professional Outlook Applications
- Designing and Deploying Outlook COM Add-Ins
The facilities this year at the Aronsborg Conference Hotel were top notch, I made some new friends, and saw even more of beautiful, historic Stockholm by boat. I even had a tour of the Royal Palace.
The event was tinged with sadness however. Patrick Tisseghem - SharePoint MVP and one of the speakers from last year, - unexpectedly passed away the week before. For the brief time I met him, he seemed like a very interesting person. I enjoyed his speaking style immensely, and he's helped me out of a few SharePoint programming conumdrums. My condolences to his family and friends. Here's a photo of Patrick I took last year:
(Left to Right: Scott Schnoll, Microsoft; Nick Swan, MVP; Patrick Tisseghem, MVP)
Some things I have now learned about Sweden after two trips there:
- They have the best store/business names EVER:
- Gooh!
- Bind
- Gysk
- Fluggen Farg
- SweNovaKok
- Swedish hotels:
- Disavow Kleenex and alarm clocks
- All have hair dryers that look like central vac hoses
- Have never heard of the concept of "vending machines"
- Get ALL of their room components from IKEA
- Have made millionaires out of the people who started the company that sells the mounted squeeze bottles that dispense hand soap and shampoo/conditioner
- Swedish plumbing is advanced because:
- Their shower taps have temperature indicators
- Their toilets have buttons instead of levers, and the flushing power is truly amazing (so much so that you take a few involuntary steps backwards as soon as you hear the jet engine calibre FAWOOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHH)
- There's a "fifth day" disorder that intercontinental travellers (or just me) develop that causes you to lie in bed sweating and 25% awake the entire night before you have a 20 hour travel day
- Having some kind of fish with caviar in the form of something that looks like cheesecake - and very much like dessert - for an "appetizer", is quite common for formal dinners
- Nearly everyone speaks English, but apparently the phrase "DON'T PUSH ANY BUTTONS!!!" isn't well understood, especially when you're trying to direct a group of newbies to successfully navigate the menus in Rock Band
- The Swedes really don't like the Finns, and everyone knows a good Finnish joke much like every Canadian knows a good Newfie joke
- Don't talk about the Danes (especially what happened in southern Sweden)