As the new year approaches... Wait! Is it 2008 yet? So much is happening - so fast! Do you ever get that feeling that you'll never catch up? I sure do. Time flies...

For the past few weeks, I've been busy writing chapters for a new book (more on that later), developing and experimenting with new toys and project ideas (lots to talk about) and getting ready for my ODC2008 sessions.

I'll be delivering three sessions this year. One in Karthik Ravindran's architecture track, one in Steve Fox's client track and one in Jerome Thiebaud's server track.

• ARC303 - Building Collaborative BPM Solutions

This session will cover best practices for leveraging the Microsoft BPM platform offerings (Windows Workflow Foundation, BizTalk, SharePoint Workflow, and Windows Communications Foundation) to integrate comprehensive Business Process Management (BPM) capabilities into Business Solutions built on the Microsoft Office Platform/System. This session will help the audience gain a broad perspective of the BPM scenarios targeted by each component and will offer prescriptive guidance on choosing the right option(s) to address common solution requirements. This session will also show how the various components can interplay and add value to Office Business Applications.

• CLI307 - Generating Enterprise Content using InfoPath 2007, SharePoint and the Microsoft SDK for Office Open XML Formats

This session will introduce the Microsoft SDK for Open XML formats and show how developers can use the SDK and InfoPath 2007 to generate Microsoft Office documents on the server from data stored in SharePoint form libraries.

• SER401 - Building Document Management Solutions using Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Content Types

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 introduces a new concept call "Content Types" that will dramatically alter the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) landscape. On the surface, Content Types make it easier to encapsulate metadata, but there is a lot more going on under the covers. In this session, we'll take a deep dive into the world of content types and see how to declare them using XML and how to create them programmatically. Then we'll use content types to create a real-world document management solution with custom policies that we'll use to control every stage of the document lifecycle. At the end of this session, you will have a thorough understanding of what content types are with a deeper appreciation of the vale they bring to document management solution development.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to present these sessions (thanks to Karthik, Steve and Jerome), and it looks like this is shaping up to be a great Conference. I'll be arriving early with my friend Andrew Connell if you want to just hang out. Otherwise, I'll look forward to seeing you at the Conference!