Last July I was honoured to be awarded the Microsoft MVP Award for SharePoint Server. I was invited to attend the MVP Summit 2011 in Seattle, WA last week.
It was a whirlwind trip leaving on Saturday in Australia and arriving before I left due to 14 hour time zone difference!
Sunday was a Paintball day with 30 other SharePoint MVPs sponsored by Microsoft which was awesome, albiet a little bit cold! Top work to Rob Foster and the Microsoft team for organising the day!
Monday through Wednesday there were sessions with the Product Team to discuss futures of SharePoint along with taking feedback from all the MVPs. It was great to hear all the different points of view from MVPs all over the World.
Monday night was the welcome night in the Hyatt Ballroom. It was an awesome time meeting all the SharePoint MVPs again!
Tuesday night was bowling night for the SharePoint MVPs which was a great laugh.
Wednesday night we went to Safeco Field which is the home of the Seattle Mariners Baseball team. We got to get pitched at and pitch the baseball along with walking around the bases on the field. It was a great experience!
On Thursday a group of us (Waldek Mastykarz, Cartsen Keutmann, Tom Stegeman, Christian Glessner, Ruven Gotz and I) went to the Boeing Factory. All I can say is if you are ever in Seattle you NEED to go see this. It was simply amazing to see the moving, yes MOVING, production line as they built the 747's etc. and new 787 Dreamliner!
We also visited the new Microsoft Store in Bellevue which in my opinion is far superior to the Apple Store, so great work Microsoft!
I left Seattle on Friday and arrived in Sydney early Sunday morning. In preparation for this weeks Australian SharePoint Conference where I will be presenting.
It was a great opportunity to network with all the other SharePoint MVPs that I have met before at the Las Vegas SPC 2009 and those I hadn't met before such as Wictor Wilen, Tom Stegeman, Arno Nell, Liam Cleary, Alex Pearce, Marc Anderson, Dan Attis, Brendon Schwartz, Corey Roth, Christian Glessner and other great SharePoint MVPs.
It's such a shame that we are all so spread across the World and don't catch up more often. The social technology helps keep us close such as Twitter, Facebook and our Blogs which is better than nothing!