TechEd TechTalk – SharePoint Different Views

During TechEd 2008 North America, ASP.NET MVP and good friend David Walker asked me to join him in a recorded discussion on SharePoint and social networking. As many of you know, I’m not a huge fan of Social Networking implementations (to be clear, I support the concept just not the way it has been implemented thus far), so I thought it would be a good chance for us both to get our views out in the open. David and I sat in the ‘bubble’ for about twenty minutes, flipped on the cameras, and traded thoughts on Web 2.0, SharePoint enterprise development, Social Networking, and a few other topics. The results can be viewed here (lo-res) or here (hi-res).

I should point out that having seen the final cut it looks as if we prepared our questions and answers in advance and stuck to a script. Nothing could be further from the truth. David and I walked in, sat down with no prep, and just went for it. We didn’t know how much time we had, what we were going to say, or who might stumble in while we were talking. It was really distracting sitting in a Plexiglas box with TechEd going on all around us. And no, I didn’t wear my hat, because the lights were right above us and my face was totally obscured by the shadows (which, admittedly, some of you might have preferred). Catch the intro and outro – those were totally unscripted and the tech guy asked me how many interviews I had done before (that would be a grand total of zero). Ha! Score one for the Cowboy. Gotta work on that "news anchor stare" into the camera, though – too much eye shifting going on. That’s me, the Shifty SharePoint Guy!!!