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It is a very special day for me today – ClearPeople has just approved my trip to attend the SharePoint Conference 2014 (#SPC14). Thank you thank you thank you!

Each time the conference comes around I’d try to make a business case or as in recent weeks, plead to attend but for various reasons, it has never been possible. This year however the answer was yes!

It’s been a long wait but I think this is for the better – I have now far more experience with SharePoint than ever and feel that the company and I will gain more by attending this time around. My focus has shifted and I will no longer be attending the conference with just SharePoint in mind but instead with SharePoint, Cloud & Windows Azure, Office 365 & SharePoint Online and Yammer to think about!

A few highlights I am looking forward to:-

• Meeting some of my peers who I have followed online for so long (Todd Klindt, Bill Baer, Wictor Wilén and Spencer Harbar to name a few)
• Attending some of the outstanding sessions I’m sure the following speakers will be delivering such as Shane Young, Laura Rogers, Fabian Williams, Jennifer Mason, Andrew Connell and Joel Oleson
• Sessions such as Office 365 identity federation using Windows Azure and Windows Azure Active Directory; Best practices for Information Architecture and Enterprise Search and Real-world SharePoint architecture decisions
• Networking with other like-minded people
• Obtaining the invaluable material that I will have access to through attending the conference
• Learning more about what is or will become available to those who were wanting to pursue this certification now that the Microsoft Certified Solutions Master (MCSM) programme is no more
• Discovering what the next big thing for SharePoint might be?

I will be blogging about the conference no doubt before, during and after the event – you can follow all of this content with this tag #SPC14. The fun of organising this trip now begins!