Author Archives: Ruven Gotz

About Ruven Gotz

Ruven Gotz is a Senior Consultant & SharePoint MVP with Navantis, a Microsoft Gold Partner based in Toronto, Canada. With over 20 years of IT industry experience, Ruven has spent the past seven years delivering award-winning SharePoint solutions for a wide range of clients. Working as a Business Analyst and Information Architect, Ruven is able to apply his eclectic education and varied experience in Psychology, Computer Science, Economics, Software Development and Training to get to the heart of complex problems. Ruven is a great communicator who is able to discuss technology concepts in language that is relevant to his audience, whether they are from IT or business. He has become a leader in the use of visual tools to help his clients and team members achieve shared understanding of problems and goals and shared commitment towards implementing a successful solution. Ruven helps his clients understand that strong technical teams are necessary but not sufficient to deliver a successful result. A successful SharePoint project requires excellent planning, a good understanding of the client’s corporate culture, and thoughtful change management. When he wants to get away from computers, you’ll find Ruven at the week-night races on Lake Ontario, sailing his keelboat, “In the Groove”. You can follow him on Twitter at @RuvenG.

Greenlight! My book is out.

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Ruven Gotz

Update: To buy this book (Book/Kindle/Other), please see the links in the side bar over there → If you are responsible for any of the business side of implementing SharePoint, then I think you will find material in this book that … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

The Happiest Place on Earth

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Ruven Gotz

(Thanks to Marcy Keller for the JumpShot at Disney) I’ve just returned from the SharePoint Conference in Anaheim. This conference was a great experience, even though there is no way it could live up to the previous conference when SharePoint … Continue reading →

Posted in Training/Conferences | 3 Comments

Can you read that at the back of the room?

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Ruven Gotz

How a couple of books have radically changed my PowerPoint presentations. I do a fair number of presentations. I speak to our internal teams, to our clients, and to attendees at conferences. While I feel that I have pretty good … Continue reading →

Posted in Training/Conferences | 1 Comment

The report of the community’s death was exaggerated

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Ruven Gotz

The title of this post paraphrases Mark Twain who wrote this when his obituary was published in the paper. Today, Mark Rackley (the SharePoint Hillbilly) wrote a post asking: Is the SharePoint Community Past Its Prime? In my reply below … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

SPTechCon: Sing(apore) for your supper

Posted on June 4, 2011 by Ruven Gotz

Ok, that title is a bit of stretch. Here’s the explanation: Richard Harbridge and I gave a full-day workshop on Information Architecture that included over 400 slides in 8.5 hours. If that’s not ‘singing for your supper’, I don’t know … Continue reading →

Posted in Training/Conferences | 2 Comments

A Sense of Insecurity

Posted on November 2, 2010 by Ruven Gotz

Scott Jamison posted a blog follow-up to a session I recently presented at SPTechCon in Boston. I explained how you can drop a document into a document library, at which point the content organizer takes over and moves the document … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

SPTechCon Recap (and download links)

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Ruven Gotz

I’m back home after a wonderful and exhausting SharePoint Technical Conference. I go to these conferences for three main reasons: To learn (there’s no better way to avoid pain than learning from the hard-won knowledge of others) To speak (giving … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Best Practice: Attend the Best Practices Conference

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Ruven Gotz

Sometimes, when I am a few weeks away from speaking at a conference, a friend in the town where I’m going may write to me to say: What times are you speaking? Maybe we can meet up right after your … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Hi-Fi? Lo-Fi? WTFi?

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Ruven Gotz

Erik Swenson has published a post showing his phenomenal collection of wireframes for SharePoint 2010. I remember when he showed me his SharePoint 2007 wireframes in Montreal last year and being blown away. Erik’s approach is to go super Hi-Fi. By … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

SharePoint 2010 – Decks, Highs and Videotape

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Ruven Gotz

It’s been a couple of weeks since the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas wrapped up and I’ve had some time to recover from the #ShareFlu and think a bit about what I saw and heard. Microsoft used SPC09 to take … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments