cazmockett.com

I’m finding this a really difficult post to write. But I hope those involved will take it as an honest account of my experiences rather than any sort of flame. It’s certainly not intended as such.

I have just been to BarCampBrighton4, and I have to say I found some aspects of it quite disappointing. I know I’m not the only one, and so that is why I’m sticking my head above the parapet with this post.

Having been on the organising committee for BarCampLondon6 and now 7, I know how much hard work is involved in running a BarCamp. And I can appreciate how dispiriting it can be to have people complaining about things when you have put so much effort into getting the thing off the ground. I do not wish to detract in any way from the achievements of the Brighton organisers, not least because of the necessity for a last-minute change of venue – a BarCamp organiser’s worst nightmare!

But I’m afraid it’s the venue which really did take the shine off things for me this time around. As a daytime session space, I thought it worked pretty well with areas spread across three floors. Some adjacent pitches were a little noisy and hard to hear the speakers, but there’s not a lot you can do about that. Where it really fell down was as an overnight venue. With no permanent lights or toilets, I personally didn’t feel it was a suitable overnight space. And I’m not just being picky, there are plenty of practicalities to take into account.

At one point in the afternoon, I was seriously considering going home early. And that’s never happened to me at a BarCamp before. I really really did not feel comfortable about staying in that building for the night. Fortunately, @vickyjo came to the rescue and very kindly agreed to our late-afternoon appeal to let myself, @tnash and @carolynlyn have some floor space at her flat, even though she was already accommodating @NeilCrosby and @alistair. So huge thanks to her for putting up with us at the last minute!

As a veteran of numerous overnight BarCamps, I’m not averse to sleeping on the floor. But it was very noticeable how many BarCamp regulars did not stay at the venue but made alternative arrangements. I wonder how many of those who I heard saying the venue was “awesome” actually had to stay there overnight themselves? Quite a few did not, but went home to the comfort of their own beds and flushing loos. And some other regulars who did stay over told me the next day that I was very wise to have gone elsewhere!

I think the main point I’m making about the venue is that the lack of basic facilities weren’t made obvious to campers before they arrived. The 3rd Sept blog post certainly made no mention of the situation with lights and portaloos. If it had (or even earlier would have been preferable), it would have been much easier for us to make up our own minds and then make alternative arrangements in good time if we felt so inclined.

Having said all that, there were plenty of good things happening during the event, and I particularly enjoyed sessions by @tobestobs (CSS3 Browser Support), @edent (Star Wars Wedding on a Budget) and the one on High Altitude Balloons – which seemed to give rather a lot of those listening some worrying ideas!!

I liked the idea of using recycled bags as schwagbags – which lead to some rather amusing images of geeks wandering around with the most inappropriate hand luggage! [see Cristiano right] And the technology swaps table also attracted some interest throughout the event. I hope there wasn’t too much old tat left at the end which the organisers had to dispose of!
[Alistair checks out a "Crap Soldering Iron" below].

After last-minute sponsors came forward, the event was also fully catered and the food was plentiful and pretty tasty. I confess I wasn’t around for the pizza on Saturday evening, so I can’t comment on that. There was an urn to make tea and coffee and self-service cold drinks. Even a couple of days before the event it was looking like we might have to buy our own lunches – which actually would not have worried me too much. But it was nice not to have to do that.

There was a good mix of old and new faces in attendance. I hope the newbies enjoyed their first BarCamp experience. And I heard lots of the regulars did enjoy themselves and had a great time. Would I go to another one at this venue? Probably, but I would make sure I had alternative accommodation arranged well in advance!

No, not the slogan from the Marketing Division of Sirius Cybernetics Corp…

I was at a Microsoft SharePoint 2007 demo today. We were treated to lots of glossy PowerPoint slides and a stand-alone demo, but it all flashed by pretty quickly. The product seems to be very versatile with inifinite possibilities, but I think it will sink or swim depending on the amount of time given to proper configuration. Much business analysis would also need to be done to accurately guague what features are appropriate for your particular setup, and how best they may be implemented.

As an Enterprise Content Management system, it seems (at first look) quite comprehensive. It has native Web Content Management capabilities out of the box (my particular sphere of interest), as well as tons of other integration with the Office 2007 suite of apps.

Architecture
The system is held together by the Plaform Services which handles things such as workspace, security, topology and the site model. Around this links the six main functional sections:

• Collaboration – enables wikis, blogs, calendars, tasks and other Outlook integration
• Portal – the Enterprise Portal, tailored content for users and their MySites area
• Search – scalable search with tabbed contextual results – such as data (documents), people, business.
• Content Management – integrates the document and records management functions, retention policies, workflow etc
• Business Forms – allows rich XML web forms to gather data for workflows etc
• Business Intelligence – allowing server-based Excel analysis, reporting of KPIs, data visualisation etc

Technologies
The system runs ASP.NET 2.0 with SQL Server; MasterPages provide templates for content (in the portal itself or for web publishing); there are also database services (for interaction with other external databases), search services, and workflow services. Unlike the 2003 implementation, the 2007 release is fully customisable in terms of layout, branding etc.

Making It Look Nice
The overlayed CSS skins can be edited with the SharePointDesigner package. This is apparently an “upgrade” to FrontPage (which the Microsoft man admitted was “crap” – tell us something we don’t know!). The CSS works in conjuction with the ASP.NET Master Pages. Content and presentation layers are fully separated, such that the XML services (Web Parts play a Big Part) are consumed by the ASP.NET Master Pages, which are then styled with the required CSS.

Content Types
Each content type can be configured at setup to require (or not) additional meta data to be saved with the file, by defining a document template. Out of the box, there are also a number of built-in behaviours associated with each content/document type (these were not elaborated on further).

Easy Peasy
Designing a customised web page within the portal is as easy as dragging and dropping the Web Parts onto a page – provided you have the correct permissions to do so. The system will also integrate with other document management systems such as Documentum. Offline integration with Outlook enables a user to take documents (or even whole websites) offline to work on (they can be checked out or just copied), then when they are back in connectivity with the server, they will be updated as appropriate. Last Saved Wins! (if the file was not checked out) Although, there is a facility in Word 2007 which will highlight the changes made between versions of a document to aid comparisons.

Accessibility
I asked how accessible the system was – and the reply was “it depends how you implement it”. Microsoft nicely passing the buck to those looking after the system! Also, the more freedom you give to local editors of content (devloved content provision being the point of it all, really) potentially the more problems you may have with accessibility, if these editors do not know what’s required.

Is Anyone There?
Presence is the term given to a system of icons (whether it be against a Word document or person in a search result) which let you know if the author/person is currently online, or out at a meeting (it interrogates their Outlook calendar) etc. Right-clicking the icon will get you access for initiating an IM conversation, or VoIP call (if you have the software installed), or looking at their MySpace page (personalised page which gives details of their interests, specialisms etc). Microsoft intranet users find this very helpful in communicating amongst themselves, without having to leave the SharePoint application to launch IM, for instance.

What now?
That was a whistle-stop tour of some features, from their standard demo. I will write more if I get involved in implementing an instance of SharePoint in the future (it’s a distinct possibility).