Alan Richards was selected as ‘MVP Takeover’ for the month of December. Alan tells the European SharePoint Community about himself and what content and information he found or finds useful. Read on to find out more!
Alan Richards
Alan has been working with SharePoint since 2005 and in that time has deployed in a number of education establishments in the UK and also in some large multinational organisations.
Alan started out in the world of IT at a School in the UK and over the subsequent years became regarding as a leading light in the education IT world, speaking at many education conferences as well as SharePoint conferences and community events. Alan’s expertise has been widely used by Microsoft in the education field and both Alan himself and the Schools he has worked for have been the subject of quite a few Microsoft case studies. All of his eBooks and videos are available from his blog.
Alan has also produced a number of eBooks and YouTube videos as resources for the community on various aspects of IT implementation, ranging from installing Windows 7, Virtualising your organisation to his eBook on installing SharePoint 2013 and associated services. Alan has been a SharePoint MVP since 2011.
Recently Alan has been working for Foundation SP as Senior Consultant. Foundation SP are a consultancy and IT services business based in the UK and were awarded the Microsoft Partner of the year for 2012.
Top 5 Twitter Accounts they would recommend the community to follow
1. @microsofteduk Microsoft Education UK provides news from the Microsoft UK Education. Given my history with education and the friendships that have built up over the years I had to include this one.
2. @Alex_Pearce Alex has a wealth of knowledge in the education market around SharePoint and in particular Office 365. He is also a great friend.
3. @WonderLaura When I first started out using SharePoint in anger, I was concentrating on using InfoPath to fulfill a vision my organisation had for a paperless School. Laura Rogers has some great insight into SharePoint and her tweets are always excellent.
4. @wictor Wictor Wilen is a font of knowledge when it comes to SharePoint and the fact he is an MCA & MCM proves it in my books. Definitely one to follow.
5. @Nellymo Neil is another MCM and also works for Microsoft. Again a wealth of knowlegde around both SharePoint and other Microsoft products and always free with his help and guidance.
Featured eBook – an eBook that they have found to be beneficial
I’m going to be a little bit selfish at this point and mention my own SharePoint 2013 eBook. I still get lots of requests around the book and it’s also been turned into a movie (well a webcast anyway). It took quite a while to write to make sure it was accurate at the time and I also have to thank my good friend Alex Pearce for his patience when I kept asking him to check the technicals.
The book is simple in its format but leads users step by step through installing SharePoint 2013, Office Web Apps & Workflow Manager. Download Now>>
Featured Video – A SharePoint video that you believe would be of interest to the European SharePoint Community
I would say any of the webcasts on the European SharePoint Community site. All of the webcasts are produced by community leaders and are a great help to anyone starting out on their SharePoint journey or even as a resource of knowledge for the battle hardened Share Pointer
Top 5 SharePoint Articles
1. First and probably because of my education background I always make a point of keeping up to date with the Microsoft UK Education blog it brings together some great technology stories based around education and is always a good read.
2. The next one I always keep an eye on is the MVP Program blog, this is a great source of information and it has the benefit of being written by MVP’s.
3. Again this blog is education based but it has a wealth of resources around Office 365. Its written by Alex Pearce who is a fellow MVP.
4. Another blog that is pinned to my favourites is the SharePoint IT Pro blog. A great resource for up to date information and inside knowledge.
5. My final one in this list of 5 is Laura Rogers blog. It is a great resource of information and helpful guidance.
Highlight a cool SharePoint tool
A tool I really like is one from LightningTools. It’s a permissions tool, which doesn’t sound very exciting, but its simplicity is what I like about it. It allows you to report on permissions and also effectively manage permissions.
Guest MVP’s choice of content to highlight
For me personally the content that I would like to highlight is all of the content on the European SharePoint Community site. It’s not just about the conference but for me it has eBooks, webcasts & articles from some of the leading SharePoint community members.
The resources covert all sorts of topics and gaining access to the community resources is free.
Of course I may be slightly biased being as some of the content is mine but in all seriousness the community resources should not be missed.
Do you have feedback or a question for Alan? If so, please leave a comment below.
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