A while back, a friend pointed out to me that certain web sites could be searched in Google Chrome using the syntax <ur> query in the address bar. For example, once I have been to youtube.com, I can later type in youtube to initiate a search query. As someone that does a lot of work with SharePoint Enterprise Search, this got me thinking.

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to attend a Windows Azure Boot Camp. So this post today is for those of you who haven’t been keeping up and want to know about some of the basics.

Enterprise Search is one of my favorite SharePoint topics to speak about. Often in my talks, I use various keyword queries to display results that people often end up asking me about. Today, I thought it would be useful to show you some of the most useful built-in keywords that you can use to troubleshoot search results or even build custom scopes with.

I travel frequently.  Sometimes too much, but the one thing that I look forward to is my time on the plane.  I catch up on items that have not received enough attention during the week, spend time strategizing, work on my Japanese, and my most favorite past time – reading the Wall Street Journal.  There is something soothing about reading The Journal cover to cover, being informed and leveraging ideas from others’ successes or failures.

I recently read an article about a new CEO’s “embarrassing problem.” It seems this CEO discovered there was no easy way for him to get a picture of what was happening in his company, no way for him to get the right information – the "single version of the truth" – he needs to accurately gauge the company’s true performance.

In troubled economic times, a PMO can become a competitive differentiator to ensure that the project dollars and resources invested will provide the maximum possible return. The PMO serves as an advocate for the business and for IT, with the common good of the company as its primary objective. It also addresses how to better manage and prevent one of the most common causes for project failure: scope creep.