Best Practices Conference Follow Up August 2010

MCM Keynote – I talked on Business Connectivity Services

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I returned early to San Antonio from DC, but I really enjoyed the SharePoint Best Practices Conference while I was there. The keynote “What Microsoft Certified Masters think about SharePoint 2010” increased awareness of the MCM program. I received a lot of questions from attendees who are interested in pursuing the certification.

There is a nice write up on the keynote by John Anderson on the Bamboo Community Site.

Thanks Mom!

During my BCS portion of the keynote, I thanked my mom for all she’s done for me. I got a lot of feedback about that. For example:

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MCM Answers

Program fee: US$18,500 (includes the price of all three attempts of all required exams, including the final lab exam)

  • You can save US$3,550 on any Microsoft Certified Master completed by December 31, 2010

Upcoming Rotations for Microsoft Certified Master: Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

  • October 11 – 30
  • January 24 – February 12
  • April 25 – May 14

The People

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The best part of a conference like this is the people. Rick Taylor, who spoke at SharePoint Saturday San Antonio last fall, sported an “I am the Best Practice” T-Shirt and great smile in the speaker lounge. I was flattered to have “Wonder Laura”, “The SharePoint Ninja”, Asif Rehmani and 2 other speakers attend my Mapping Mashups in SharePoint Designer Presentation. Asif’s name rhymes with Awesome and he gave away DVD’s from Sharepoint-Videos.com for correct answers to SharePoint Designer Trivia while my laptop rebooted 3 times before my first breakout session.
I learned that Cathy Dew runs 3 User Groups and has been a part of 19 SharePoint Saturday Events. I also learned that Michael Doyle, aka SharePoint Ninja, had written a great follow up article to my mapping mashups series. He also attended our SharePoint Saturday last year.

 

2 Comments
  1. Hi Tom

    Great to see the MCM getting such good publicity and awareness! It is still a little unknown for many people.

    In terms of value for money, it’s the best value you will get per dollar spent on education in my experience.

    Regards,

    Rob Silver [MCM DS]

  2. Rob,

    Thanks for the comment! BPC was the best public display of the MCM program I’ve heard of to date.

    I totally agree on the value of the program. Great to get feedback from someone who went through one of the other content rotations.

    -Tom

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