Happy New Year 2008

To all my readers around the world, Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday and that the new year brings you a Texas-sized helping of joy and prosperity.  Now go eat you some black-eyed peas (it’s a Southern thing, y’all).

 

The new year is always a time of looking back and looking forward, so I can’t help but ask myself how we did in 2007 and how I think we will do in 2008. 

 

First, in retrospect, 2007 was a pretty darn good year.  Our business really took off and we delivered a number of large projects to customers on both sides of the pond.  Sean Skinner was joined by Kyle Bateman and Grace Li (who just had her first baby over the holidays – congrats, Grace) on the BinaryWave team.  And my good friend David Clegg took the reins of our UK operation and really made things hum in jolly ‘ol England.

 

I promised last year to blog more original content more often – over one hundred posts and more than 100,000 page views later I’d think that I managed that pretty well.  I also made a resolution last January to attend more community functions and events.  I’m now on the advisory committee of the D/FW SharePoint Community user group and made five of the nine (or was it ten?) SharePoint UK User Group meetings – not bad for having to travel 5,000 miles to get there!  I also attended the EMEA SharePoint Conference, TechEd US, SharePoint Connections (Las Vegas) and spoke at Tulsa TechFest. 

 

Somewhere during the year I managed to release an RSS Aggregator web part, get email updates working for our WSS blog sites, post some lengthy walkthroughs on WSS and Meeting Workspace site definitions, author a bunch of content for our Microsoft partner training courses, and still whip up a few thousand lines of code for our clients.  Whew.  I need a vacation!

 

Most importantly, 2007 was the year I received the MVP award for WSS.  This stands out in a year full of accomplishments not only for the recognition and accolades but also for the great comraderie with my fellow MVP’s.  They’re a great bunch of guys and gals and I look forward to joining in the annual paintball shoot ’em up at the MVP summit in April (note: I will not be wearing my hat but I will be in full camo so bring your A-game if you want a shot at me!).

 

Looking forward, what will 2008 bring?  First, I promise to continue to post original content that (hopefully) my readers will enjoy.  Second, we will be releasing some great new products throughout the year that are sorely needed within the SharePoint market.  Third, I will continue to make community events a top priority with even greater participation in the D/FW and UK user groups (perhaps even more cities if I can fit them in).  Finally, we will be attending and/or exhibiting at most of the major conferences, including the SharePoint Conference in Seattle, TechEd US, TechEd Europe, and more.  So keep you eye out for my cowboy hat and come say howdy!

 

Thanks to everyone for a truly great 2007.  Here’s to an even better 2008.  Happy New Year!