Paul, welcome to Kiev! It’s a pleasure to speak with you. One of your titles is SharePoint Strategist. Please tell our audience what it means in details.
Paul: I like to use the title of SharePoint Strategist as often times I am helping clients develop a business strategy and a technical approach to implementing solutions built with SharePoint. In my experience the combination of business and technology skills are needed to be successful with this methodology. I refer to this as SharePoint strategy.
· SharePoint Channel: What are your key professional achievements?
Paul: While I developed several commercial applications which I am proud of it is the strong commitment to to technology communities around the world, assisting with user groups and conferences that I enjoy most. Helping to facilitate the first SharePoint Saturday in Palestine was a highlight in these community efforts.
· SharePoint Channel: How much is your SharePoint experience (years, number and difficulty of projects)?
Paul: I like to tell people I have been working with SharePoint since 1996. While SharePoint wasn’t yet a product at that time it was the year when Microsoft first introduced the _vti_bin directory and allowed developers access to extensions for web programming. The _vti_bin directory and security trimmed search features implemented in 1996 are still in SharePoint today.
· SharePoint Channel: It’s interesting to know about one of your largest SharePoint projects for a well-known customer you were involved in. Can you describe it in few words (customer’s name, number of users, goals, results)?
Paul: The largest client implementation I was involved in was for the Wal-Mart company. I participated in the implementation and the training strategy of the ECM features for over 50k users.
· SharePoint Channel: Tell us about the book “Professional SharePoint 2010 Development”: it’s goals, your role in writing it, target audience, pressrun, etc.
Paul: The book is provided as a broad overview on development topics for SharePoint developers. We just published the second edition last month and it remains a top seller.
· SharePoint Channel: What are key trends on SharePoint market in your opinion?
Paul: As a developer I am most interested in seeing improvements in the channels in which SharePoint applications are purchased and distributed. I’m also looking for companies creating compelling Windows Phone and Windows 8 solutions which integrate with SharePoint.
· SharePoint Channel: What are the most popular tasks companies solve using SharePoint in USA?
Paul: By far most organizations are using SharePoint for document management and collaboration solutions however we are noticing many more ECM and BI implementations in the past 12-18 months.
· SharePoint Channel: What are the most popular challenges companies are faced to while deploying Sharepoint?
Paul: Staffing for a deployment is always a challenge. I think if you have the right team the software makes the rest of the process easy.
· SharePoint Channel: We know you write about concepts of enterprise collaboration. Tell us about it.
Paul: I enjoy sharing about enterprise collaboration as I see many companies struggling to find a way to map business process to SharePoint. It is the strategy and focus on business as well as technology that interests me the most.
· SharePoint Channel: How often do you speak at conferences and for what audience?
Paul: I speak at about 15 events a year, primarily to developers however I recently have started to present topics on Business Intelligence.
· SharePoint Channel: What do you know about Ukraine?
Paul: About six months ago I visited Odessa and Kiev. I enjoyed the visit immensely. The culture, people and architecture is amazing. I am very much looking forward to this return visit and plan on spending extra days to see more of the sights. I’m also looking forward to meeting the people in the SharePoint community. Expect lots of pictures!
· SharePoint Channel: As far as we know you like extreme sports like snowboarding and sailing. Why do you choose these hobbies and what do you like in it?
Paul: I truly enjoy the outdoors aspect of sailing and snowboarding. I relish the silence and serenity that I experience when I am out on the water or surrounded by the woods and falling snow.
· SharePoint Channel: Paul, thank you for an interesting interview! We look forward to seeing you on 25 April at the SharePoint Conference Ukraine 2012.
Paul: It is my pleasure. Thank you dearly for the effort in organizing the event and hosting us. The Ukraine Conference is the event I have been looking forward to this year. It’s no secret there are many talented developers in the Ukraine and it will be an honor to spend the time at the conference. Cheers!
The interview was hold by SharePoint-Channel.com.
