Acknowledgments

No project of this size can come be completed in a vacuum. I asked some of my trusted associates to contribute to the book by writing a few of the chapters. First and foremost, I want to thank Spencer Harbar (www.harbar.net), MVP for Office SharePoint Server, a good friend who I met in the days of Microsoft Content Management Server 2002. Spencer was instrumental in developing the structure and approach of this book, acting as a sounding board for various decision points in the process. He also contributed Chapter 3, "Overview of Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Web Content Management," and Chapter 17, "Content Deployment." Bob German (http://blogs.msdn.com/bobgerman) contributed Chapter 1, "Embarking on Web Content Management Projects," and Chapter 16, "Implementing Sites with Multiple Languages and Devices." Matt McDermott (http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/matthew), MVP for Office SharePoint Server, contributed Chapter 13, "Search," and John Holliday (www.johnholliday.net), MVP for Office SharePoint Server, contributed Chapter 5, "Minimal Publishing Site Definition."

I also want to thank those at Microsoft who provided support, as well as those who assisted in answering some of the technical questions: Arpan Shah, Ryan Duguid, Lawrence Liu, Jim Masson, George Perantatos, and Tyler Butler.

No technical book is complete without a solid review to ensure that the code compiles and the text in the chapters is factually correct. Many members of Ascentium were instrumental in reviewing the book. Ascentium is an interactive marketing and technology consultancy that delivers solutions ranging from interactive marketing, customer relationship management, business intelligence, portals, and collaboration to application and product development and infrastructure management. A special thanks to Jason Conway, who coordinated the review efforts of Stefan Gordon, Cale Hoops, Jared Lasater, George Olson, Michael Panciroli, Clint Simon, Roxana Tzau, and Thomas Wyrick. I'd also like to thank my fellow SharePoint MVPs Patrick Tisseghem and especially Dan Attis and Brendon Schwartz, who reviewed a handful of chapters in a very short amount of time.

I would like to thank everyone at Wiley Publishing who helped me get this book to you. Like all projects of this magnitude, the original plans were thrown out the window a few times when unexpected turns presented themselves. Katie Mohr, Jim Minatel, and Kenyon Brown made this a fun and rewarding experience.

In addition, I'd like to thank all of my former students who spent a week with me attending my Office SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management class for developers (www.andrewconnell.com/go/299), and those who left comments on my blog (www.andrewconnell.com/blog). All of you were instrumental in helping with the development of the presentation of topics covered in this book and I greatly appreciate the dialog we have shared.

Finally, I'd like to thank those in the MVP SharePoint community for the energetic, passionate, challenging, and at times insane discussions that we share on a private distribution list. I cannot express how privileged I feel to be among some of the best and brightest minds in the SharePoint field. Hats off to April Spence, Melissa Travers, and Lawrence Liu at Microsoft for all they have done to help build, facilitate, and bring this community together.