SharePoint Saturday UK Summary

This was my 1st SharePoint Saturday UK, it was terrific.  If you are involved in SharePoint I can't recommend it highly enough.  I amazed more people don't go to it.  I believe there is a good chance the next 1 will be in London.  I think the take up will be huge, well huger!

Highlights: great sessions, meeting old friends, putting faces to people who help out the SharePoint community, the interest in our new community book (The SharePoint 2010 Handbook), talking SharePoint - people volunteer such great info that would take weeks to find o the Internet; they filter what they are amazed at and tell you in their own words.

Lowlights: 6 hours of driving & I did not prepare for the day, it's hard finding sessions with 2 minutes notice.

No lights:  I won a prize RRV £1500 for 25 user software.  Not sure what is does and what use it is, I could of used an iPad2 or a Idera duck.

Spot lights:  Todd Klindt (@ToddKlindt) nice fella and good in both sessions, presents the way it should be done, simple and to the point while being engaging.

Anders Rask session(@AndersRask) : Developing with Custom Web Templates was out the top draw. Definately for me thinking of using Web Templates instead of Site definitions with feature stapling.
Paul Grimley - Deploying SharePoint 2010 Globally – The options, good session relevant to me at the moment.
Brian Culver - Did FAST Search.  Brian did this over loud speaker.  I've done a FAST project so it was not to useful to me but it was a very good place to be if you don't know F4SP (FAST).

Got to mention the guys that setup SharePoint Saturday Nottingham: Mark Macrae (@m_macrae), Anthony Pounder (Tony) & Brett Lonsdale.

Other people thoughts (starlights is the best I can come up with)
Nigel Price
Giles Hamson (Contributor to The SharePoint 2010 Handbook)