What is SharePoint? Part 6: In Which We Ponder the Effect of Conferences on SharePoint Community
Published 08/28 courtesy of Bamboo Solutions Community
As previously noted, the Best Practices Conference (BPC) took place from Monday through Wednesday this week. Some of us got things off to an early start at the "ShareFood" event hosted by the ever-gracious Dux Raymond Sy at his home not far from the conference site, and a grand time was had by all. I've written previously about the SharePoint having grown to the point where it now supports a number of worldwide conferences, and I've also discussed the nature of SharePoint community, but I haven't really touched on the concept of those conferences as community-enhancers. As such, I would contend that the SharePoint conference ecosystem (if you will) not only feeds directly into strengthening the community but, in so doing, that symbiotic relationship between conferences and community becomes a significant part of what makes SharePoint, well, SharePoint.
If I may digress briefly, I'd like to share the observation that the "satellite events" which occur at a SharePoint conference bear a remarkable resemblance to another niche community of which I'm a member in my personal life: the indie comic book scene. If that sounds crazy, bear with me for a few sentences. Comics folk tend to congregate in the nearest bar when they gather at shows. Numerous after-parties are held in hotel rooms at a convention hotel at night. Locals who are plugged into the scene will often host gatherings in their homes for visiting pros and fans, and these gatherings typically occur on the day before or the evening of the final day of a show. Guess what? All of the above also applies to SharePoint folks. SharePint gatherings are even semi-official now, and the BPC SharePoint occurred on Tuesday night this week at a bar near the conference site. There were after parties in the conference hotel after the bar closed. I've already mentioned the gathering that Dux hosted on Sunday, the day before the BPC began. See what I mean?
At one point on Sunday afternoon at Dux's, Ruven Gotz wondered aloud what it is about SharePoint that fosters such a tightly knit community. This is something I've wondered myself, and I was anxious to hear if others had arrived at an answer. After acknowledging that yes, it is an uncommon bond that seems to exist among the members of the SharePoint community, no one was able to pin down exactly why that might be. An initial response of, "because we're geeks" was considered and pretty much immediately discarded since there are geeks in every area of IT, but the SharePoint community in particular has clearly evolved into something much bigger than the sum of its parts.
I had the pleasure of making a number of new friends at the BPC, some of whom were folks I'd previously only interacted with either online or over the phone, and others of whom were entirely new to me. I'm already looking forward to seeing all of them again this October when we reconvene at the SharePoint Conference (which, to continue my comics analogy, is the San Diego Comic-Con of the SharePoint world) in Las Vegas. Hey, you know what just occurred to me? It's possible that the reason for all of the bonding, the shared laughter, the tightly knit community, the good times and the SharePints may be a simple one ... SharePoint folks are people you genuinely enjoy spending time with, having a beer with, breaking bread with, and just plain hanging out with. Could it be that it's simply the nature of the people involved with SharePoint that makes the growth and success of the SharePoint community almost a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Catch up on the entire "What is SharePoint?" series:
- What is SharePoint?
- What is SharePoint? Part 2: SharePoint is Large, It Contains Multitudes
- What is SharePoint? Part 3: In Which We Ruminate on Feedback, and the Definitions of Others
- What is SharePoint? Part 4: In Which We Pay Homage to the SharePoint Community
- What is SharePoint? Part 5: In Which We Consider SharePoint as a "Living" Environment of Sorts
- What is SharePoint? Part 6: In Which We Ponder the Effect of Conferences on SharePoint Community
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