In what has become an annual tradition for the Microsoft SharePoint community, technologists and business users alike will gather from September 16-19 for SPTechCon Boston 2014. Offering more than 80 classes, tutorials, and panels taught by SharePoint MVPs and expert speakers, the event offers attendees great opportunities to learn about the latest on the platform and gain insights to help plan their deployments.
AvePoint is a proud Diamond Sponsor of this year’s event. For those attending the show, we encourage you to meet with our team at booth 800, where we will be showcasing our latest products and solutions in the following areas:
- Infrastructure Management
- Compliance
- Data Governance
- Mobility & Productivity
- Online Services
Stop by, let us know about the SharePoint challenges you’re facing, and find out how we’re enabling enterprise collaboration for more than 13,000 organizations worldwide.
At 5:15pm on Thursday, September 18, AvePoint Public Sector Chief Technology Officer and SharePoint MVP Dux Raymond Sy will lead a keynote session entitled “Lead the Responsive Organization Revolution: How to Inspire, Transform, and Facilitate Business-Driven IT”. In advance of the event, we caught up with Dux to learn more about his presentation, his thoughts on SPTechCon, and what he recommends most in the city of Boston.
You’ve spoken at quite a few SPTechCon events over the years. What, in your opinion, sets these events apart from others in the industry?
Dux Raymond Sy: As an event, SPTechCon has always been very true to its nature. It’s very focused on not only SharePoint as a technology but also the maturity of the technology.
The event brings out a great community of people who participate and attend. It’s a technical conference at its core, but there is always a healthy presence of attendees that represent the business side and really want to learn and understand how to leverage SharePoint to drive business value, user adoption, and company-wide engagement. Then, of course, there are the pure technologists who want to learn how to maximize their SharePoint investments from the infrastructure management and development perspectives in addition to learning ways to integrate SharePoint with other technologies.
What can attendees look forward to during your keynote session?
Dux: My keynote will delve into SharePoint, but it’s also more of a higher level conversation around the changing nature of business today and how it, in effect, requires the role of IT to change.
First of all, today we’re challenged with doing more with less as an organization. Secondly, we’re seeing the reality of the consumerization of IT thanks to the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement and other new technologies. For example, if IT isn’t able to help a business unit do something they want to do with the tools available to the organization, the business unit now has the ability to find tools online to do it themselves. This is especially common for those who want to collaborate with others outside of the organization, and the results can sometimes become quite problematic.
Additionally, the ways we communicate both in and out of the organization have changed. Previously, we relied on fax machines and phones, but today there are various channels from email to enterprise social networking tools. I’ve even spoken to customers who use external social media such as LinkedIn and Facebook groups to collaborate. It may work, but it’s not necessarily ideal.
Finally, there is the movement around investing in the cloud. We’re currently at a tipping point where organizations are beginning to realize the value of the cloud even though they may not necessarily be jumping in 100 percent at this time. Some organizations are looking into hybrid models that combine cloud with on-premises deployments while other, smaller organizations may go all in with the cloud.
So throughout all of these changes, how does this impact our role as IT? The presentation will focus on changing role of IT from simply fixing servers and “keeping lights on” to a shift toward becoming a trusted advisor and taking on the role of helping the organization solve problems using business solutions.
What is one thing you would like attendees to walk away with after your session?
Dux: One takeaway that attendees will walk away with is guidance on this new role of IT. That will include key steps on how IT can adapt to the role as well as ways in which organizations can prepare for this whole new world of technology.
Aside from your presentation, what are you looking forward to most at the event?
Dux: I’m looking forward to catching up with colleagues in the industry. I’m also excited to speak with customers and find out what they’re doing with SharePoint and related investments. I want to learn what’s working well, what doesn’t, and what issues they’re facing not only from a technology perspective, but from business and compliance perspectives as well. In light of that, I look forward to providing recommendations and ideas based on my experience on how AvePoint can help them address those challenges.
As a seasoned traveler, what do you recommend people do in Boston while they’re not at the event?
Dux: Boston is a great town. It has a lot of great tourist sites, but I’m a big foodie. A restaurant I tried while in Boston and would like to go to again is Blue Ginger. I highly recommend it. It’s an interesting take on Eastern and Western fusion cuisine they serve everything tapas style. It’s great food in a quaint neighborhood that’s just outside of Boston.
