Author Archives: Ruven Gotz

About Ruven Gotz

Ruven Gotz is a Director with Avanade, Microsoft’s Global Partner. As a Microsoft SharePoint MVP with over 20 years of IT industry experience, Ruven has spent the past nine 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 recently authored “Practical SharePoint 2010 Information Architecture” (Apress) Ruven lives in Toronto, Canada. On Tuesday nights in the summer, you’ll find him racing his 24’ sailboat ‘In the Groove’ (NOTE: Ideas and opinions on this blog are my own: I am not representing my employer.)

Give and Take: Who loses, who gains?

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Ruven Gotz

I met a friend for a drink the other day, and we were discussing how we share our presentation materials. I said “I just send people my whole presentation – or make it available on Slideshare.org.” I do this because … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Intrigued about Dialogue Mapping? Check these videos

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Ruven Gotz

People who have seen me speak, or read my blog before know how much emphasis I place on visual tools for reaching shared understanding. The evolution of my practice with visual tools, from mind mapping to Dialogue Mapping was prompted … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Using MindManager for IBIS Dialogue Mapping

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Ruven Gotz

If you don’t know what Dialogue Mapping is, you have a bit of reading to do. I’d recommend Paul Culmsee’s excellent series of blog posts on the topic. Or, go back to the originator, Jeff Conklin and his Cognexus Institute. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

In the trenches with Windows Phone 8

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Ruven Gotz

I’m writing this post on the plane, flying home from the SPC12 conference in Las Vegas. When I used “in the trenches” in the title, I mean that particular bit of hell we’ve all been in: Crammed between the window … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Access-Ability? Waiting for insight at SPC12

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Ruven Gotz

My history with building business solutions goes way back to MS-Access 1.0 (“Cirrus”). Although it was meant to be a PowerUser tool, I found that I could employ it to build powerful (but not large-scale) business solutions relatively inexpensively. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

A New Chapter Begins…

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Ruven Gotz

Hi friends and followers, today I want to tell you about a new chapter in my life: I am changing jobs once again. I never expected to be writing this only a year and a half after joining Navantis and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Greenlight! My book is out.

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Ruven Gotz

Update 2: People looking to download the files mentioned in the book can find them here: http://bit.ly/sps-sample-files 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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 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