This past weekend I had the privilege of participating in the largest SharePoint Saturday event to date!  The event took place in Annandale, VA which is just south of our nation's capital (hence the event name - SPSDC).  There were over 900 attendees and 90 speakers not to mention numerous sponsors, volunteers, and of course organizers.  The event was pulled off very smoothly with no real noticeable mishaps which for this size of event is quite impressive especially when you consider that it was not planned out by folks that do event planning for a living!  Kudos to the organizing committee and all of the volunteers that kept all of the logistical issues at bay!

My session was in the last slot of the day, and I presenting my 75 minute version of "Building a Kickin' Public Facing Blog with the CKS:EBE". While I don't particularly like this time slot, you get what you get, and really this is probably a good end of the day session as it's mostly fun and doesn't require too much brain stretching.  With 13 other high quality sessions going on as well, my audience was a bit smaller than normal, but they were very much engaged in the content, so I couldn't ask for more!  For those that attended, looking for the mindmap, you can grab it by clicking on the thumbnail below.  I've also sent it over to the SPSDC Site to be posted with all the other session slide decks as well.  Don't forget to also browse the kickboard tag on this blog site for more in depth screencast versions on the same topic but more focused on specific design and development tasks.

As I've come to expect at these events delivering a presentation (sharing my art) and attending others presentations (learning and accepting the gift of their art) are quite sufficient reasons to participate.  However, what truly makes it worth driving (or in this case flying) across the country, being away from the family, etc... is the interactions I get to have with the community outside of the seminar rooms.  Because of the sheer size of this event there are way too many of these to call out here-- I did truly enjoy meeting a ton of new folks and catching up with a lot of old friends.  There were a few special moments though that stand out though (funny that most of them involve food or drink):

• Lunch on Friday with Dan Usher, Scott Singleton, and Mark Rackley
• Sitting between Michael Lotter and Becky Isserman (Ma and Pa SPS) and meeting about 30 new people at the speaker dinner
• Hanging out with Eric Harlan, Mark Miller, Ruven Gotz, Cathy Dew, and a bunch of others Friday night
• Getting logo design advice from Cathy Dew and Marcy Kellar while they psychoanalyzed my speech patterns
• A huge SharePint (at least 50-60 people at peak I think) and having dinner with SandyU, Janis Hall and Dan Lewis
• Chatting late into the night at the after-SharePint SharePint with Brian Jackett, Dan Usher (how were you still awake!), Geoff Varosky, Cathy Dew, Ruven Gotz, Monica Rosenberg, Joy Earles, Janis Hall, Dan Lewis and bout 10 others
• And finally, folks that I seemed to run into all weekend long and just fire up conversations with: Fabian Williams, Christina Wheeler, and Christian Buckley

So that about wraps it up.. special thanks to Dux, Jennifer, Dan, and Gino for pulling off an awesome event.  Hope to see lots of you all again at other events this year.  Next stops for me will be Indy Tech Fest and then SPS Ozarks!