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This past Saturday I had the pleasure of participating in SharePoint Saturday Los Angeles. I founded this event with Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet) and this year it was wonderfully led by co-chairs Nedra Allmond (@nedraallmond) and Wahid Saleemi (@wahidsaleemi). Attended by over 250 people it was held on the same weekend as the Long Beach Grand Prix the committee selected the theme “Race to Collaborate”. Our keynote provided by Mark Miller of End User SharePoint (@eusp) gave us some wonderful insight on the nature of social, collaboration and the trust we build as content providers in this industry. The most important lessons I learned however were in the class I taught, Getting a Green Light – How to Pitch a SharePoint Project and those I attended later in the day. 1. Everyone has Valuable Experience: There were many new people to the SharePoint community who attended this event. Often when you are new at something you think you have nothing to contribute. This is far from true in our community. While you may be learning the in’s and out’s of this complex platform, your business experience and knowledge of your own company is critical to your successfully implementing any SharePoint project. Don’t underestimate how important this is! 2. Enthusiasm for this Technology is Everywhere: While there may be conversation about the health of the SharePoint community out in the blogosphere I think that is all rubbish. Users, developers and business people are excited about the business transformation that can be achieved by properly leveraging SharePoint and other Microsoft technologies. I think those of us who question the health of the community need to look at it from a users standpoint more often. They are far less jaded. 3. The Education Gap Remains: There is still a gap between the vision that Microsoft is painting and the ability within the community to execute that vision. That’s where we come in! It’s remains extremely important to educate members of the community on the balance between technology features & real world implementations. SharePoint is only valuable when it solves a real business problem. 4. The Cloud is Up-incoming not Adopted: Business is still trying to figure out how to make the most of the on-premises implementations that they are wrangling. Now, we are asking them to move to the cloud and hosted solutions. The gap in strategy between those two implementations must be addressed, not only by Microsoft but by the partner community that supports the technology. Cloud based solutions, like everything else, have to make sense for business. 5. Help is Available, Even for Free: The good news is that there are many talented, smart people who are actively thinking about these issues and developing smart plans. These people do not just work at Microsoft or at partners. Some of the wisest, most savvy people I met at SPSLA were the users themselves who are on the front lines. It is important, for me at least, to help develop these people into the next wave of speakers and consultants who will bring that real world experience into the community and share what they’ve learned. I encourage everyone to get and stay involved in this burgeoning technology field. Collaboration and the cloud are both here to stay. It’s up to us to deliver true business value to our organizations! I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at more of these events. If you are in the area come out to our Los Angeles SharePoint User Group on April 26th at the Century City Microsoft Store and hear a case study by some of these talented members of the user community from Cedar Sinai. |
| Love SharePoint? Want to educate yourself and get more involved? April is going to be your favorite month! Two great community events will be happening and they are both free! SharePoint Saturday Los Angeles – April 14, 2012 On April 14, 2012 at Cal State Long Beach SharePoint MCM’s, MVP’s architects, developers, branders and other professionals interested in Microsoft’s SharePoint enterprise software platform will be in attendance at the upcoming SharePoint Saturday Los Angeles event at California State University, Long Beach. This free, all day event is intended to educate technology and business professionals on SharePoint’s benefits and capabilities in a fun and friendly environment. Held at the Student Union facility on the Cal State Long Beach campus the event will include more than 30 sessions led by working professionals skilled in a variety of SharePoint disciplines. Some of the session topics include: · Metadata and taxonomy management · Social computing · Migration and upgrade · Business intelligence · Design and layout · Enterprise content management · Workflow, Web Parts, and other SharePoint solutions · Enterprise Search · Cloud computing and hosting · Project Management Breakfast, lunch and snacks will be served at the venue, and free wireless internet access will be provided by the facility. Giveaways and prizes will also be provided throughout the day. SharePoint Saturday LA is a free event open to the public, however space is limited. To register for the event, log on to http://spsla.eventbrite.com/. Registration opens on March 14, 2012. For more information about SharePoint Saturday LA speakers, session topics and venue details visit the SharePoint Saturday site at SharePointSaturday.org/LA, follow the event on Facebook.com/SPSLA or via the LinkedIn group SharePoint Sat. Los Angeles. The event Twitter handle is #SPSLA. There will also be a community table there with folks from LASPUG, Women in SharePoint and other community organizations. Los Angeles SharePoint User Group April 26, 2012 If that’s not enough the Los Angeles SharePoint User Group will return to its new home at the Microsoft Store in Century City for another fun, free educational event on April 26th. We’ll have a great case study presentation which will be confirmed shortly. Stay tuned for more information and join us there. With 3 hours free parking and great restaurants for some SharePint fun afterwards we are loving our new home. Food will be served at our event which starts at 6pm. You can register at http://laspug.eventbrite.com and space is limited so please register early! You can follow news about LASPUG and other community events on Twitter via @SoCalSpug. The Los Angeles SharePoint community is thriving and it is a true collaboration of professionals coming together to learn and network. Get involved today and expand your SharePoint knowledge. You won’t be sorry! |
| Thanx to a tweet today from Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet) I got to review the pre-reading list for the Microsoft Certified Master program. Scanning this very long list of content brought home to me the depth and breadth of knowledge suggested to master this wonderful thing we call SharePoint.
At the holidays I also joined an organization out of Chicago called Business Architects Association and am preparing to take the next schedule exam for certification. As an SPadmin, business architect and all around technology implementation specialist I feel the need to dedicate myself to the pursuit of continuing knowledge. This is also the reason I'm dedicated to supporting community events such as SharePoint User Groups, SharePoint Saturday's and other avenues of training.
The BAA notes nine key areas of base knowledge required for certification as a business architect. They are:
- Strategy
- Finance
- Business Process
- Information Technology
- Human Resources
- Consulting
- Systems Dynamics / Holistic Thinking
- Change Management
- Program Management
So as we move forward in SharePoint specific business architecture I see a natural integration of these skill sets - technical knowledge of SharePoint and true business architecture skills. The list alone is worth delving into to find areas in which further study is required.
As everyone in this business is aware, some product and technical certifications are not worth the paper they are written on. I encourage people to find programs that are more robust and speak to business issues as well as technology. Certifications offered by reputible colleges, organizations such as the BAA and the PMP designation can influence hiring decisions and make you a more well rounded technologist.
Somehow in my busy schedule I will find a way to add this to my education goals for 2012.
How are you going to expand your education and develop your career this year for SharePoint and beyond?
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| As I get ready to set off for the Microsoft SharePoint Conference tomorrow I am once again struck by how overwhelming the conference can be. I am speaking Monday on driving adoption to your corporate intranet and I hope to see you there. Meanwhile, there are so many vendors and so much information swirling around that it can be difficult to feel as if you are getting the most for your registration fee and those precious hours out of the office. Here are a few things I’ve learned over time to help you, especially if this is your first conference of this scale: 1. Pick an Area of Study: With so many competing sessions its important to select an area that you want to educate yourself about. This can be tied to your current job responsibilities or an area in which you’d like to increase your knowledge. 2. Network for Career Development: There are many great people and companies at this conference. This is a perfect time to network with these individuals that are in your region, industry or future career path. Though there will be thousands of people in attendance at this conference it is really a very small community. Most of us can be found on Twitter when searching with the hashtag #SharePoint. For the conference of course you can view the #spc11 feed of tweets and see many professionals in this field. 3. Give Selected Vendors Your Attention: Without the vendors in the SharePoint ecosphere many great educational community events would not occur. Do yourself (and them!) a favor and select a few that have relevant technology and spend some time in their booths. Seek out the technical experts and you will find incredibly intelligent, passionate people who have a great deal of knowledge about our industry. 4. Have Lots of Business Cards: This is NOT the place you want to run out of business cards. Bring a lot for new friends, selected vendors and professional contacts. 5. Attend the Social Gatherings: The SharePoint community is a very social bunch! We are always doing something fun to share our experiences and support local charities. Wednesday night there are some great gatherings including the OktoberFiesta at Tortilla Joe’s and the SharePint at the Tavern Grill. These events are excellent for expanding your knowledge of the great people in this community. Whatever you do at this season’s Microsoft SharePoint Conference enjoy yourself! We are involved in a great community with excellent technology. We can use this to make a difference for people in our workplace. Have fun and see you there! |
| I've had the pleasure of being at the Henry Stewarts Digital Asset Management conference in New York for the last few days. It's very impressive to see what major broadcasting and publishing companies are doing about the explosion of digital assets and metadata. From point solutions to full end to end digital production & delivery methods the array of technology is staggering. Like all good conferences this is sponsored by vendors who continue to drive forward innovation, standards and delivery expertise. Though I'm always annoyed at the plethora of voicemails that I get from vendors there is no ignoring that they (in response to customer demand) are driving innovation forward in our digital age. However, if there's one thing that I can clearly see from listening to the case studies and customer presentations it's that a clear and present strategy is a key element in the successful delivery of these solutions. In multiple cases I listened to executives talking about monetization models, rights management and other strategies that were the driving force behind the herculean task of standing up a DAM system. That is never more true than in the case of SharePoint. When I asked my crowd this morning how many had it and then how many hated it the hands that shot up for the latter was a good deal of the audience. I'm disappointed at our industry for allowing so many failed implementations and dissatisfied customers. In case you haven't heard: SharePoint isn't the problem - your strategy & information architecture are. Whether you are implementing SharePoint for DAM, collaboration, business process enhancement or other tasks don't settle for a substandard installation. The depth of the bench of MVP's and consultants who actually understand the technology from a business perspective is getting deeper every day. Find someone who can assist you from the business side in architecting SharePoint to meet the needs of your user community. I’m not referring to the server or services architecture but the architecture of your information, user experience and solutions. Sorry, but this person usually does not live in the IT Department. I don't care if they can write a stitch of code. A true solution architect will save you more money, time and frustration than you know! Here's to architecting SharePoint 2010 in a way that brings greater satisfaction to the end user community! I've uploaded my presentation over in the Resource Materials section. Enjoy! |
| There are few words to express my concern over the people living in Japan during this difficult and frightening time. They are a strong and resourceful people however between the earthquake, tsunami and now the exploding nuclear power plant it is most important that they know the rest of the world is willing to step up and be of aid, as well as send our prayers.
Below you will find a list of links to reputable agencies who are gathering funds and supplies for the relief and rebuilding effort. Please share the link to this post or create your own. Let's collectively make an effort to be of service to our fellow men, women and children as they recover from this devastating event.
Donate today and if you can light a candle and send some positive energy to them in your own way.
Here is also a link to an article on the Huffington Post link to an article on the Huffington Post that outlines some additional agencies and from which I copied this content. For those of you tweeting about this situation please note that an iReporter on @CNN mentioned that though the phone lines are down they are staying in communication on Twitter. She specifically mentioned how reading all the tweets from us around the world is helping them to have the strength to stay calm. This is the true value of social media! Keep tweeting.Our SharePoint community reached out during all of the past disasters. Lets make sure to do our part again!Karuana |
| I’m happy to report that the Women in SharePoint West Coast branch attended its first event at the SharePoint Saturday held in San Diego this last weekend. It was a great event where we got to share our mission of supporting women in the SharePoint field through a variety of educational outreach activities.   
Our table in the vendor area drew a lot of participation and questions from the many women who attended this busy SharePoint Saturday. Held at the San Diego convention center the organizers went out of their way to have this event carry the torch of enthusiasm that SPS events are famous for. This one was no exception! For me it was great to see my friends in the community again. Women in SharePoint is a national organization which is pursuing its 501(c)(3) status. I’m happy to be participating in its West Coast branch. Dedicated to community outreach our own branch leaders met after #SPSSan to discuss our goals and how to achieve them. This great group of women included Nedra Allmond (Ascent Media Group), Paula Rippenkroeger (Slalom Consulting), Pouneh Kaufman (Warner Brothers) and Melissa A. Layupan (K2). They take after my own heart in their passion for community service, fun and dedication to leadership within the technology industry. Follow our group on Twitter at @WSPWest and stay tuned for our own website to be launched soon. Meanwhile check out the WomeninSharePoint.org site to learn more about this worthwhile organization’s goals or follow their work at @WomeninSP or @WSPDC for the Washington DC branch. Shoot me an email if you’d like to be involved as there will be lots of opportunities for all sorts of involvement in the community going forward. Hope to see you soon! |
| Note: This post was first published at my AIIM SharePoint Expert Blog. Check it out to see my weekly writings as they come out and the excellent work of other SharePoint Experts.
Maybe I'm dating myself, but I remember when SharePoint didn't exist. That's right folks. There was a time when SharePoint was only a gleam in an engineers eye and I certainly hadn't seen it! Back in those days people talked about information architecture, document management and yes, enterprise content management.
Now do not mistake me for one of those people who extolls the virtues of the past. Quite to the contrary, I remember many a long night with a text based SQL server interface where I longed for a simpler way to provide solutions to my customers. I just didn't think it needed to be that hard to structure metadata or provide a custom interface for people that they'd actually want to use.
The one thing I will note is that in those days we did thoroughly understand the need for strategy and structure prior to doing that enterprise software install! Enterprise content management strategy was the backbone of the implementation of these sorts of custom systems. Now, however, since everyone can hit File:Run:Install things have changed.
This is why I feel its important to understand and master ECM strategy before delving into the depths of SharePoint or any other ECM system. It may not be sexy, but it will still serve as not only the backbone but the roadmap for your implementation. AIIM offers both types of training courses (ECM & SharePoint) and there is a lot of other written material available.
Understanding the depth of services you want to offer, the requirements for them and what SharePoint can offer in these various areas will make you a better SharePoint professional. You don't have to take on writing an entire ECM strategy to have the segments inform your opinions about implementation and development.
I still feel today that its our responsibility as technologists to aid our business leaders in making smart decisions. Educating yourself about the overall goals of ECM prior to the specifics of a platform like SharePoint will help you do that.
Enjoy! |
| Note: This post was first published at my AIIM SharePoint Expert Blog. Check it out to see my weekly writings as they come out and the excellent work of other SharePoint Experts.
Recently I was interviewed by Deborah Miller of Global360 because of my nomination to the SharePoint50 List of key influencers in the SharePoint community. During that interview Deborah called me the “poster child” for utilizing SharePoint as a career development tool. At several of my recent speaking engagements I’ve talked to people new to the SharePoint community who were looking to find their niche and leverage their involvement in SharePoint into a new career direction. Given this interest in the subject I thought I’d write about using SharePoint as a career development tool.
This is of course based on my own experience and your’s may be different. Issues like your past career experience, the environment of the company you work in, education and other things come into play. However, I do believe there are some basic components to expanding your career in this sector. It is important because there are not nearly enough good SharePoint technologists to go around. Whether you are a trainer, designer, administrator, developer or architect you are needed! You will find your own path but here are a few things from my experience that I hope you will find helpful.
Find Your Niche
SharePoint is a deep and complex enterprise development platform. No one can know everything about it. Take the time to research all that is available and find an area that perks your interest. In other words, complete a horizontal review of the technology so you are well versed in its overall feature set, then select an area to deep dive into. If this idea is still confusing to you, take a look at a SharePoint conference list of speakers and topics. You will soon see that different people consistently speak on select topics. I normally speak on enterprise content management strategy and business intelligence. Other people focus on social networking tools, migration strategies, content deployment, Powershell, branding, governance etc. Find an area that speaks to your work history. I had many years of document management and business solution architecture before I entered the world of SharePoint so that continues to be my area of specialty.
Know Your Identity
Some people are born developers having a great affinity for code and the intellectual process involved in writing solutions. Other people, me included, are happier interacting with people and the overarching processes that drive business. There are the visually creative web designers who must also master the realm of CSS and other tools to turn vision into reality. This is, of course, an over-simplification of each role but the point is that it is important to know who and what you are in the technology field. Too often I see job descriptions that ask for a “SharePoint Architect” when the skills they outline are for a pure developer. There is a difference between being a business solution architect with the focus on business and a software solution architect where the focus is on writing the code. You must understand the nature of your role better than the recruiters who are hawking these silly job descriptions. I feel strongly that we must also push back against companies who are trying to make the SharePoint person a Jack or Jill of all trades – business solution architect, SharePoint Administrator, DBA and developer all rolled it one! Separate disciplines are separate skills sets and very rarely do they converge in one person. Know yourself so you won’t be confused as the knowledge worker industry matures.
Get Involved in Your Local Community
Career development is as much about people as it is technology and never has that been more true than the deep and vibrant SharePoint community. Every city has a local SharePoint User Group (SPUG) and if it doesn’t maybe you should start one, even virtually. In a SPUG you can meet vendors, Microsoft personnel, MVP’s and your peers. Most recruiters also reach out to these groups when they are looking to fill the numerous openings that currently exist. Unfortunately right now there are issues in some cities with individual companies or groups usurping the local SPUG. I personally believe that is due to a lack of end user involvement. Whatever the situation in your city the plain and simple fact is that through SPUG’s, local free conferences like SharePoint Saturday’s or larger paid conferences you can meet important people in our community and start to be known.
Knowing people will not make up for a lack of talent or technical ability but it will put you in a position to have the opportunity to leverage that talent in a larger or more lucrative manner.
I would also assert that no community leverages Twitter and social networking quite like the SharePoint world. If you don’t have a Twitter account get one! Following the search terms #SharePoint or #SP2010 will garner you tremendous access to knowledge. Most Microsoft MVP’s and other community leaders like myself utilize Twitter heavily. At conferences, during webcasts, with the posting of articles, bugs and fixes we fill these feeds with truly valuable information.
Share Your Ideas
Each of us has a unique experience in implementing SharePoint in our environments. There may be certain central theme’s that we see, however, we all have different approaches to scaling the information worker challenges that face us today. Do not underestimate how helpful your experience might be to someone along side you on this path. Starting a blog, being involved in the Microsoft or other forums or submitting articles to various publications are all great ways to share your ideas and experience. They don’t have to be long involved things – a short and to the point post is great!
Additionally, writing in these environments will help you to do the same within your own company. Well written strategy documents or project proposals are a professional way of showing your skill in a particular area. This also trains you to always put your name on your work! I don’t have a problem with sharing my slides or other work but I don’t intend to make it simple for other people to claim them as their own ideas by leaving my name off. This is not intended to inflate your ego but to establish you as a subject matter expert in your particular area of expertise.
Oh, and remember that Twitter account you established above to lurk on the #SharePoint feeds? Now you can begin to use it for a two way conversation with the community. Ask a question on the #SharePoint feed and see how long it takes for someone to answer you – either with their own experience or a blog post with some answers. Tweet about things that you’ve run across. A great side effect of tweeting is that you are forced to reduce your comment to its essentials. No more run on sentences for you!
Gain Experience – Get Certified
I have never met anyone in this sector who had a shortage of work! The problem is that sometimes we do not break out of our particular areas of experience to try new things. I highly encourage anyone in this sector to invest in themselves by having a virtual SharePoint server that they can play with either at home or at work. Microsoft has provided us with a fully integrated VM that we can utilize. I suggest you use it! It is not possible to master the depth of a product like SharePoint without some extra elbow grease and hours behind the keyboard. Googling things isn’t enough – at least not for me. I need to build things, break them and build them again to understand the features and limitations of the technology I’m leveraging for my career. Even formal training programs lack the real world experience and confidence you’ll get from doing it yourself. Virtual environments are perfect for this so get yourself one today if you want to call yourself a SharePoint anything.
Some certifications in our business get a bad rap. Sometimes its sour grapes from people who haven’t done them and sometimes the tests are less than stellar. But either way you prove your respect for the industry and your career by passing them. Maybe you’ll get certified on SharePoint Server, maybe you’ll become an ECM Practitioner through AIIM or a PMP but certifications and professional designations are an important part of career development. Make the time to invest in one pathway or another.
Polish Your Public Speaking Skills
I know that some of you will loath this part but it’s a necessary evil of career development. People who can effectively communicate their ideas go farther than people who can’t. I also believe it puts your destiny firmly within your own control when you are not relying on other people to do your communicating for you. I’m not suggesting you have to become a professional speaker. I am suggesting that even within your development team speaking effectively is useful. Speaking before peers, executives, training classes or the public is a defined skill that is learned separately from technical skills. Do not think that because you’ve opened PowerPoint or written a presentation that this makes you an effective speaker. Conversely, don’t be afraid to try something new if you don’t have much experience. SPUG groups are a wonderful place to test out these skills. Please also remember a few more things about public speaking:
•Write your presentation then remove 1/3 of your slides. Less is more. People are tired of being subjected to“Death by PowerPoint”
•Aim to have fewer than 4 bullet points on a page, never use type smaller than 22pts
•Forget those fancy transitions or neon colors – they never work
•Do not read your slides to people – they can do that themselves. Slides provide you with a roadmap for sharing your experience. They are not speech notes.
•Try giving a presentation with no slides at all. This will force you to know your subject matter well and focus on the audience and message not the graphics.
•Make eye contact with people, don’t be afraid to be funny and don’t take yourself too seriously.
•Try – very very hard – not to fill pauses with “Umm..” It sounds really bad! Do not be afraid of a little silence while you take a breath or a drink of water. People really don’t mind and it’s a sign of a practiced speaker.
•Slow down – do not race through your slides. Find a comfortable pace.
•Seek out criticism and reviews – this will only make you better.
Each person has a different career path but the SharePoint sector is an excellent place to be located. Full of bright, interesting people we all share a common desire to be leaders in our field, expand the concept and practice of collaboration and implement superior business solutions for our clients. Establishing yourself as a subject matter expert and investing in your career with some of the methods shown above can help you to secure your place in this ever changing profession.
One last word of advice: Remember to have fun, don’t sweat the small stuff and use your vacation time along the way!
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| Note: This post was first published at my AIIM SharePoint Expert Blog. Check it out to see my weekly writings as they come out and the excellent work of other SharePoint Experts.
SharePoint architects, developers and administrators are in a unique position to have a measurable impact on business and people. We have been given a technology platform that allows us to increase efficiency, reduce waste, connect people and drive results. When we use our talents as business process engineers with the potent tool of the SharePoint platform our impact on business can be succinctly measured by these yardsticks.
As technologists we must embrace and expand our talents as business solution architects. This is beyond the bits and bytes of our platform’s toolkit. In fact, often it has nothing to do with technology at all. Often the best solution involves defining a new policy, educating the workforce or reorganizing job duties. To use First Lady of California, Maria Shriver’s expression, we are “architects of change” before we are architects of technology solutions.
And yet that is where we most often fail. Throughout this wonderful community there are many voices speaking directly to feature sets, custom development options and other pure technology plays. These are the necessary experts who help us turn our vision into reality. Fewer though are the voices that talk about the business management and people skills required to be the architect of an enterprise wide information delivery system. This topic is important because it can show us how to communicate with non-technical business leaders. These decision makers must be encouraged to understand our ability to help them and directly impact both the top and bottom lines.
Here are some key elements to embrace as you build a business case for SharePoint solutions or other enterprise wide technology. As an architect of change these principals are interchangeable and interdependent and therefore are listed in no particular order.
Capability
It seems obvious to say don’t promise what you do not personally know you can deliver however too often the details of project requirements and scope creep sandbag a perfectly simple project. Take time to familiarize yourself with the limitations of real world implementations. Reach out into the blogosphere and Twitter communities to understand the difficulties other firms have encountered. This will keep you from overpromising and under delivering which is a sure-fire way to lose your executive sponsor.
Curiosity
It’s is amazing to me how many people have lost the simple ability to be curious about their surroundings. This is an important component of the business solution architect’s personality. Whether you are manufacturing, service or technology related company you must learn from the people within your business. They are usually very well versed in what has made them successful to date. They will teach you what is important going forward. A 20 minute conversation with an Executive Assistant can often teach you more about a company than 30 days of formal requirements gathering. Stay curious even after you’ve met management and
Charm
Never underestimate a pleasant personality. Chronically rubbing people the wrong way won’t get your enterprise system adopted by users or funded by business leaders. While being true to your real nature find a method for working with people that leaves you and them feeling uplifted. You will find people will more often come to you with questions and projects. That will increase your influence in your own environment which is critical to architecting real change. Never is this charm more important than when dealing with an implementation problem or a failed project. Pay it forward.
Flexibility
I have never called myself an evangelist. That is because that term implies a single minded focus on a particular topic. I do not find that useful in today’s enterprise environment. Most organizations of any size have a combination of technologies implemented. Being flexible and allowing competing technologies to have a place in your world view is mature, professional and smart. You can not solve every problem with SharePoint even though you might want to. There is a seat for many people at the table – don’t try to crowd everyone out all the time.
Manners
In the course of an enterprise implementation you will run across some flavor of either virulent hostility, quiet resistance to change, nay-sayers and downright rude folks. Their fears are your greatest teachers. Listen closely to what they say. Invite your most powerful nay-sayer to your meetings. Make a special effort to brief them, even if it’s difficult and one on one. These people who vocally resist change always speak to an underlying current of the masses that some people will not clearly articulate. Make no mistake that other people feel the same and to ignore them is to invite disaster. Do not complain, gossip or generally kavetch about these people. They will hear about it and use it against you. Attempt to be pleasant, have great manners and be responsive to their feelings. That is, after all, true collaboration.
Integrity
You must keep your word to business. It is essential that you earn and retain the trust of the stakeholders who will discuss you and your projects when you are not in the room. You cannot please all of them all of the time. Expectations are very hard to manage. However, if you keep your word and deliver what you can when you say you will you’ll be ahead of the game.
Professional skills such as the ones detailed above can aid you in transforming your relationship with the key influencers in your organization. They are the precursor to true strategic thinking and many successful executives mastered these skills for very different reasons. In the SharePoint community we are in a unique position to transform business process with the breadth of technology available to us. Take up the challenge, find your niche and start having a true impact on the people you work with. You can be an inspiration to others and you might not even know it. We are all architects of change and its time we continue to build the business landscape of the future today. |
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Welcome to my blog devoted to SharePoint. Here I'lls hare my writings on using SP tools for business process improvement and collaboration. I'll also post information about SharePoint community events.
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