SharePoint Conference 2008: A slight shift in focus and ideas for User Group sessions
This is the third SharePoint Conference that I have been to in the past 13 months; two offical Microsoft events and the DevConnections event in November last year. I have noticed a subtle shift in the content in this event.
Microsoft is a technology based company so it's no real surprise that that events relating to their products are largely technical in nature. But, as I often argue, SharePoint is very different than any of their other products. 'Traditional' software products are focused driving efficiencies within structured business process. This produces easily quantifiable benefits and ROI usually in the form of lower costs or increased productivity.
SharePoint is all about Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Web 2.0 and these are all technologies that focus on people, connections and sharing ideas. Delivering business value from these new age technologies and actually proving the results is much more problematic, and is more about people than technology.
Here at the conference we have seen all the usual MVP's and Microsoft experts talking about all the usual stuff; Deployment, Web Content Management, Administration, Developing Web Parts, The BDC, and so on. Of course this sort of Nuts and Bolts stuff is vital, the IT people need to understand how to operate the machinery. But we have also seen an increasing amount of content related to the softer aspects of SharePoint. There is a track dedicated to Governance, a topic which merges both the technical and business aspects of using SharePoint. I went to a session on successful Deployment and it turned out to be an MVP talking to a technical audience about the value of defining business problems, agreeing a mission statement for your SharePoint project and other 'soft' business analysis related topics. It even included interpersonal skills in meetings with business people. Hardly a mention of settings, quotas, servers, bandwidth and the like.
My favourite session so far has been "Web 2.0 What is it? and Why Should you Care?" presented by Forrester Analyst Rob Koplowitz. It was this session that got me thinking and led to me making this Post. The session was part of a series of presentations by analysts rather than technical experts. I've not seen this before at a technical conference. I missed some of the earlier sessions but hear from others that they were equally as good.
I think that it's great that the these non-technical aspects of SharePoint and its use are starting to get mainstream attention amongst the technical community. No point being technically excellent with your SharePoint deployment if no one ever uses it, or it does nothing more than host the lunch menu, internal phone directory and the meeting room booking system.
It was an interest the business value of Knowledge Management related technologies which first led to me getting involved in SharePoint. My impression of the User Group UK is that the membership is largely from a technical background? I'll be presenting a session at a meeting of the group in Basingstoke on March 27th (which Nick has yet to announce - hint hint) on the subject of SharePoint Governance and as I have already said this will cover both technical and business related aspects of SharePoint. Would anyone be interested in other non-technical sessions? Strategies for introducing SharePoint into an organisation; Developing a Collaboration Strategy; Introduction to SharePoint Business Analysis; Developing the business case for Collaboration. Just a few ideas. I've considered doing this before but assumed that there would be little interest. Maybe now's a good time?
S:)