I have always been interested in using technology to collaborate on projects and share information efficiently. The collaboration and information sharing could be within the business or outside the business. It seems that Microsoft SharePoint is the tool that will finally make Microsoft Office worth upgrading. The new version of Office is enhanced by having SharePoint on the back end.
I think SharePoint has great potential on both the intranet and the internet. I will go over the strengths of both setups here. Before going into that, however, I should point out that Microsoft may be cannibalizing SharePoint’s market a little with their new Live Office. Of course, there are miles of difference between Live Office and SharePoint. In this case, you do get what you pay for.
I tried two different versions of SharePoint. First, I played with the older Sharepoint 2003. It looks and feels old, but it’s still useful. When you get started, you have a few features activated like a bulletin board, a picture, and a few document folders on the side. It is very basic and easy to customize. At first glimpse, it looks kind of lame. However, once you start uploading documents, creating team pages, organizing events, and playing with site permissions, you start to see how this tool can really help with project efficiency. Whether SharePoint is hosted internally or externally, it serves as a gathering point for all employees. Suddenly, SharePoint is the application and Office is the support software. Let me paint a scenario.
Imagine you arrive at work and have a few priorities for the day. You have to add your bit to a proposal your team is writing, you have to prepare to take some time off when your baby arrives next week, and you need to update the safety committee on some information you got at a meeting with the fire chief. When you arrive, you open up the SharePoint site and look for the proposal. You see that it is checked out by Susan. You’ll have to wait for her to finish. You stop by her office and ask her to let you know when she’s done. You then pop by HR to ask about getting leave. You see that they go into their page on SharePoint and pull up documents you need to fill out there. Just then, Susan calls to tell you she is finished. So, the HR clerk tells you where to find the documents on SharePoint. You head back to your desk and check out the proposal to add your bit. After a few hours, you finish your edits and save the document back to SharePoint to check it in. Then you go to the SharePoint forum for the Safety Committee to let them know what you learned from the fire chief. Once you are done, you navigate to the HR team’s SharePoint page and print out the forms you need for family leave.
In this example, SharePoint seemed like a ubiquitous tool. You may visit Word or Excel, but SharePoint is always on. It is involved in everything. This is exactly the point. Think of it as an extremely friendly version of a network, which we don’t think about until it’s down. However, instead of consisting of a bunch of drive letters and endless folders, it is all grouped by function and team. In your company, you may be a part of a committee and several teams. As a result, your work files may be a mix of all the different aspects of your job. This is a nightmare to navigate on a network. In addition, your co-workers may be emailing you different versions of the same file. How do you keep tab on all the different versions? SharePoint solves all these issues, yet can be as unremarkable as an internet connection. It just seems like the way things ought to be on a network. This is true whether your team is under the same roof or is spread out around the world.
So, what is the other version of SharePoint? It is the 2007 version. If SharePoint 2003 was cool, SharePoint 2007 kicks ass. It completely ties in with Microsoft office to tame the document beast. But, in addition to that, they added wikis, blogs, and RSS feeds. Imagine that within your business. How much would that cut down on your email? How much knowledge can be collaboratively gathered? On top of that, the controls for customizing are what you would expect from an application that has “figured it out”. I’m really excited for Microsoft having put out something that makes work less of a job and more of an opportunity to showcase your talents. When you don’t have to battle with your tools, you can go out and show what you’re made of.
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