I am an instructional designer, elearning developer, social learning strategist, and an Apple/Mac user wanna-be. Really I see myself as a jack of all trades and master of none, at least IMHO. One role I play at work is a learning technologist of sorts. I love beta testing and investigating new products to determine how my organization can use them (which is how I become no more than a Jack on most things).
Recently, I had a project and due to circumstances beyond my control, we had to push some training to SharePoint. This lead me to request Site Admin access. Having NO IDEA how to use SharePoint, I hit Twitter and a few of my external connections (since I was newer with the company, I really didn’t know who to ask, and I still don’t–”if we only knew what we knew…” [Lew Platt, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard]) helped me create a site and get it ready in about 10 minutes.
Then based on my knowledge of HTML, etc., I created a very basic site that played Captivate courses in SharePoint in a separate window when various image buttons were clicked.
Then in Phase 2 of this training program, we expanded the site even further to include technical documentation, communications, etc. Now, that group as well as my group believes that I know SharePoint. Then another group in Learning and Development had a need that they believed the LMS wasn’t going to solve, and they were debating a few solutions. Since this conversation was happening near my cubicle (which isn’t a problem for me since I tune everyone out with social media and my headphones most of the time unless they come to me), I had to walk by the conversation at what point someone asked my opinion. After being brought up to speed, I simply suggested SharePoint. To my surprise, they hadn’t thought about that at all! So I showed them the solution I did for our other internal customer (Compensation), and they immediately decided that it was the solution. So immediate that my now boss’s boss was informed and brought into the conversation with me standing there. Very interesting…
Now since I represent my department on the Social Media Roundtable, in our investigations of social platforms and solutions for my company, we have stumbled on this client and that client. Having thought we found a solution, the solution went up the flag pole only to come rapidly back down. A few in IT have been supporting SharePoint to meet some of the business requirements. Early in these discussions, I met and talked with J. Holston of NewsGator via Twitter only to end the conversation by being a SharePoint naysayer and favorable to another solution, which was on another platform altogether.
And again recently, I was involved in a meeting with Microsoft and another vendor, which that vendor began to talk about their solution and their customization of SharePoint. After the important people asked a few questions, I began inquiring. By the end of the conversation, I found myself being invited by Microsoft to SHARE2012 and being nominated by the group to attend on behalf of my company. I thought, “Great! I have absolutely NO IDEA what I am going to do there!? I don’t even care for SharePoint.” I even tried to get my department to send someone else behind closed doors.
So, you may can tell that I am slightly anti-SharePoint, yet I know SharePoint’s advantage points as it relates to some solutions. Really, here’s how I felt about SharePoint.
So here am I at SHARE2012.
Looking at the agenda, meeting the various power users, mingling with them, talking to the many vendors learning what they do, I’ve learned a ton. However, I am not sure still that I really belong here. I have no decision-making powers. I have no real SharePoint responsibilities within my team. We were on SharePoint 2007 (WSS 3.0 FREE) until the Friday prior (which I had no chance to investigate). I even didn’t come the first day because I didn’t think any of it was relative to me and my job or my responsibilities (though I am writing this in the Blogger’s Lounge, which is awesome!).