Top 25 European SharePoint Influencers for 2014 Announced

BARCELONA, SPAIN–(Marketwired – May 7, 2014) – EUROPEAN SHAREPOINT CONFERENCE, BOOTH #44 — Microsoft SharePoint and Office 365 have been at the center of most collaboration initiatives in today’s increasingly mobile enterprise. harmon.ie, an enterprise mobile collaboration leader, today announced its annual list of the top 25 European SharePoint influencers — the go-to resources whose advice and thought leadership enable millions of people around the world to extract the maximum benefits from using SharePoint. Join the harmon.ie team at the European SharePoint Conference in Barcelona, Booth #44 to celebrate the 2014 #EUtop25sp winners.

“In the SharePoint community there has been talk about how as a brand, you’re hearing the word SharePoint less. But as a platform it’s actually becoming more ubiquitous,” noted Christian Buckley, Chief Evangelist at Metalogix Software. “When you think of the various Microsoft properties — Office365, Yammer and even OneDrive — they are being built with SharePoint as the content collaboration fabric beneath them, and this transformation of SharePoint, from the platform layer to the apps we consume, requires a stronger community of influencers than ever to help guide SharePoint practitioners into the future.”

This year, harmon.ie commissioned an advisory board of prominent SharePoint influencers, including winners from the recent top 25 U.S. SharePoint initiative such as Christian Buckley, Chris McNulty and Joel Oleson, as well as Scratch Marketing + Media to identify the movers-and-shakers who help others traverse and understand the full potential of SharePoint. Based on a list of the top European SharePoint professionals comprised of the 25 winners from last year’s EU initiative and more than 40 new entrants based on informed community nominations, the finalists were decided by more than 2,500 qualified SharePoint community votes in a crowd-sourced voting process. The top 25 were then ranked through a combination of community votes, digital and social reach and resonance, and SharePoint relevance.

“For more than a decade, SharePoint has been the backbone of Microsoft’s information management infrastructure and we have built up a very vivid and engaged worldwide community,” said Michael Greth, SharePoint Specialist and Microsoft MVP. “But we always struggled with user acceptance. I think this will change dramatically in the next years and Cloud, Social, and Mobile will be the drivers to focus on collaboration, relevance and usability.”

The European initiative sought to highlight the top influencers from the many countries that comprise the EU. There were 19 countries represented in the voting, but the majority of influencers were from the UK (14) and Germany (10). Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Belgium contributed most of the remaining influencers respectively. See the list of top influencers by country here.

“It is a privilege to be part of this very special SharePoint Community, especially as a woman, because this community has evolved from being that of pure technology to one that’s bigger, stronger, and all about people — and we women tend to be strong at those points,” said Agnes Molnar, International Consultant, ECM & Search Expert and SharePoint Server MVP at Search Explained. “I’d like to grab this opportunity to encourage all women in Europe who work with SharePoint at any level not to be shy, and to be more active in the community.”

The top 10 overall European SharePoint influencers are:

1. Wictor Wilen – @wictor
2. Spencer Harbar – @harbars
3. Gokan Ozcifci – @GokanOzcifci
4. Tobias Zimmergren – @zimmergren
5. Waldek Mastykarz – @waldekm
6. Chris O’Brien – @ChrisO_Brien
7. Falak Mahmood – @falaky
8. Marwan Tarek – @marwantarek
9. Michael Greth – @mysharepoint
10. Maarten Eekels – @maarteneekels

“A passionate worldwide community is critical to the continued success of the SharePoint platform in the evolving mobile enterprise,” noted Yaacov Cohen, co-founder and CEO of harmon.ie. “As the ways in which people and businesses use SharePoint continue to change, the SharePoint leaders on this list create and maintain the roadmap that drives employee productivity and collaboration in today’s increasingly mobile-reliant business environment.”

Check out the complete list here.

About harmon.ie

harmon.ie empowers the social collaboration workforce by delivering the single-screen experience today’s mobile enterprises and tech-saturated users demand. Giving companies a way to securely support their employees’ changing work dynamic, harmon.ie now delivers a seamless user experience anytime, anywhere and on any device. An established global company, harmon.ie combines the power of the top social and collaboration platforms — including IBM, Microsoft and Yammer — to help its thousands of customers around the globe achieve the promise of the mobile enterprise.