SharePoint Saturday Chicago 2013 Follow Up

I can honestly say that I’m sure that everyone enjoyed SharePoint Saturday Chicago yesterday. From the location at the Hard Rock Chicago to the fantastic speaker line up (I snuck in) to the overall convivial atmosphere, it was an event to remember. Kudos go out to Kris Wagner (@SharePointKris), Doug Hemminger (@DougHemminger), Chris Geier (@chrisgeier), and Bryan Gulley (@UXJester) for all the hard work they put in to make it a special event. I know many others worked long and hard, too, but those names are not in my old brain. Thanks to all of you!

Dux Sy (@meetdux) kicked things off with his keynote “Lead the Enterprise Social Revolution”, where we learned that #shifthappens. Yuo can see Dux’s entire presentation in a live recording on UStream or review or download his slides on SlideShare.

There were some other sessions.

My session was about “Designing with SharePoint 2013”, wherein I attempted to describe some of the high level goals one should have in designing for the platform as well as to demonstrate the great capabilities in the new Design Manager.

We had a standing room only crowd in the truly small Firebird room, so we all got a bit more chummy by rubbing elbows and knees. I was able to assist my pal Marcy Kellar (@marcykellar) in welcoming SharePoint newcomer Cara Gail (@caragail) from Indianapolis.

This session will introduce you to the possibilities of design and customization in SharePoint 2013. Tour the newest interface features, learn best practices, and discover exciting new ways to interact with your SharePoint 2013 environment.

While we can still implement designs in SharePoint 2013 the “old way” we’re used to, there are new capabilities that can make the process easier for both designers who are very familiar with SharePoint and those designers who have never worked with SharePoint.

We’ll look at the new Design Manager capabilities and learn how to create and integrate Master pages, Display Templates, and Page Layouts.  Not only does the Design Manager make it easier to create new designs for SharePoint from scratch, it can also help you manage your existing designs after an upgrade. The Design Manager even allows designers to use the tools they know and love like Dreamweaver, Photoshop, or any other HTML editor.

I didn’t have any fancy-schmancy live video recording going on like Dux did, but you can see my slides on SlideShare.

After the formalities and a brief SharePint, a bunch of speakers and a few attendees decided to have dinner at The Signature Room at the 95th^® (“The Restaurant Chicago Looks Up To”, don’t you know?) You can see the crew in this photo: Lori Gowen (@LoriGowin), Doug Hemminger (one of our most excellent hosts for the event), Kim Frehe (@KimFrehe), Brittany Kwait (@BrittanyKwait), Michelle Caldwell (@shellecaldwell), Chris Johnson (@LoungeFlyZ), Ruven Gotz (@ruveng), and another SharePoint community newcomer Dan Moore. (Dan: Isn’t the SharePoint community awesome? How was the duck hash this morning?)

Finally, I had a little time to walk around this morning and made it to see a few things. Most impressive was “The Bean”, aka “Cloud City”. I’ve wanted to see this sculpture ever since it was first installed, and it did impress. (I really only went to see it to make Dave Coleman (@davecoleman146) jealous, and it worked.)