On Saturday 2nd October 2010 the first ‘SharePoint Saturday’ event comes to the UK! It’s based in Birmingham at the NEC (details here), it’s all day and guess what? It’s free, so before you carry on reading – sign up now! or you can find out more by visiting the SharePoint Saturday UK site.

What is SharePoint Saturday?

SharePoint Saturday is a free SharePoint conference, set on a Saturday, that offers its attendees a range of different 1hour sessions ranging from development & design all the way through to product showcase & architecture best practices. The sessions are presented by all ranges of SharePoint professionals from MVPs to first timers – like me.

UK’s first SharePoint Saturday has been organised by Intelligent Decisioning’s – Tony Pounder, Mark Macrae and Lightning Tools’ very own Brett Lonsdale, free of charge and in their spare time so be sure to thank them for there inevitable hard work that will be put in on the day and that is currently being put in getting it ready – thanks guys.

What am I talking about?

I will be demonstrating how a keen eye for design coupled with careful use of SharePoint designer can make your SharePoint site your own!  This session will include 15 mins worth of quick fire questions and live, improv branding!

Get your questions ready now or if you’re not attending send them through with a chance of getting them answered live!

This is a branding, design, look & feel, lick of paint type of session for people that are interested in seeing how relatively small changes can give your SharePoint site a bit of ownership.

What else is there?

The sessions are still to be officially announced but here are the confirmed speakers (session details to follow) with links to their blogs.

See you all there!!

The user group kicks off with Penny Coventry who will kicking off with “Branding SharePoint Sites: Using the browser and SharePoint Designer 2007/2010″, which will cover what is possible with 2007 in terms of design and a little sneak peek into SharePoint Design 2010.

After myself I will be followed by Nikki Ashington on Accessbility.

Also here a little bit of trivia for you. Nikki was who got me into SharePoint design when she was on site at my previous employment  as a design consultant – so she is to blame

UPDATE – here is the write up of the event, really good feedback for the event – http://macraem.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/suguk-nottingham-14th-january-2010/

Just a reminder that the Learning Gateway Conference is on the 15th July at The Belfrey in Birmingham. The conference is being held by Richard Willis and Alex Pearce and is design for people using innovative technologies within the education sector. I am not primarily based in the education sector but I do have a keen interest in getting students on board and I love testing out my ideas on them!

I hope you all take a look look at the SharePoint’y style logo I designed for them

If you want more information on the event then check out Alex Pearce’s blog – http://vspug.com/ajp/2009/06/22/but-i-m-a-business-why-should-i-attend-the-learning-gateway-conference/

Hope to see you there!