I have to jump in and echo anyoneone who stressed the importance of the “why” in any article, training or demo- showing someone “how” to do something never works unless they can relate those steps to a concrete reason or need.
How to implement versioning? Piece of cake. WHY might you want/need versioning? OMG, that could take an hour. Not to mention the tangents it will lead that unknowing business user off into.
]]>I have a question, a long while ago (year plus) I believe you published an article on spiffing up homepages using a Sharepoint Blog and an RSS reader to reformat the blog on a homepage as a recent news type piece of content. I haven’t been able to find the article for the life of me, any pointers?
]]>Rob.
]]>We could imagine a similar mashup targeted at beginners, including:
- a subset of EndUserSharePoint.com
-SharePoint Blank
- Get the Point
- etc.
My favorites:
1. categories – make it easy to find and navigate and subscibe at various depth levels
2. tag or wiki based navigation
3. What’s New Webpart consumable by corps
great discussion
]]>One of the better ways to get end-users up to speed is the “Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training Portal Edition”, installs on SharePoint, and the “Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training Standalone Edition”, installs on local computers.
• Standalone, http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7BB3A2A3-6A9F-49F4-84E8-FF3FB71046DF&displaylang=en
There is also great free SharePoint Server 2007 training at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/CR102146081033.aspx. There are extensive series on using document libraries, calendars, workflows, and Excel services.
The SharePoint Server 2007 Help is at, http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/FX101211721033.aspx. You can use it as is or provide the most relevant content to your end-users.
I hope this Helps. It also has me thinking about how best to provide our content for SharePoint 2010.
Thanks,
Brian
]]>Something along the lines of…”Cooking with Calculated Columns on a Budget”, or “3-Minute Formulas”, or “You Can Calculate”…just so many title possibilities…LOL
One of the things I deal with almost daily in my organization is new users to the world of SharePoint and how to get them up to speed. As a developer/designer/trainer/”solution creator” for all things SharePoint at my work, I normally just sit down with them on a one-to-one basis for a couple hours taking them on the tour of what SharePoint is. We cover as much as possible without “SP-Overload” (not always possible, but we try), and I always make it a poitn for them to bring in some material that they’d like to be able to migrate/manage to a site so we have something literal to find a solution for. Once we’re done, I let them digest what they’ve learned and then come back with additional questions. I normally send them a variety of links for additional resources (EUSP being at the top of the list), but as the main (only) contact for any and all things SharePoint, they always come back to me with specific problems and questions about how to solve a particular scenario…which I encourage ( I do enjoy that part of my work).
This all works fine in the short-term, because for my users (and anybody really), its nice to have a real person they can talk to…someone that will answer their questions and help them to discover what can be done within the system.
In the long-term however, self-service is the key. Not because I dont want them to come back to me for answers, but because I want, and encourage them, to actively seek and discover how to do things on their own…either through intuitively discovering how to do things in a system that (hopefully) they’re becoming used to, or by searching online at various resources.
We’ve tried numerous times throughout the years at creating our own internal “Wiki” to serve as the knowledge base for everything that all of our users have learned how to do in SharePoint (let them write the content), but each effort has resulted in nothing more than an initial ramp-up of interest…then eventual lack of use (which is unfortunate given some of the internal solutions many of my users have come up with).
With all this being said, I’d like to be able to send my users to a place where they could find all the information they need…something that was easy to use, easy to search, and intuitive on how to find the answers they need. As I said, EUSP is at the top of the list of resources I send them a link to, but its not uncommon for me to hear back how they have to sift through (what appeared to them as) a bunch of stuff for advanced users (”script” stuff, “Data View Webpart” [what the heck is that?, they've asked], site management, permissions)…”Where’s the stuff for ‘End Users’?”…”Most of the stuff on the site seems like its for administrators, tekkies, or programmers” (yes, even though technically “We” [Mark and each of the contributors to the site] dont write or cover anything on the “Developer” side of the house on the site…there is a very fine line between “Coding” and “Scripting” that not everyone is familiar with).
I like the idea’s that are being discussed in these comments. With the sheer amount of information found within this site, we need a better way to surface all of it…old and new. Tagging by difficulty level with a separate page/area to search each would be a great start, differentiating areas of interest via the “Channel” idea also sounds interesting, “contextual” vs. “functional”…all of these approaches do have merit. Personally though, I’d like to see something more community-driven that provides answers and “How-To’s” to meet the needs of anyone regardless of their experience level or searching “prowess”.
Not sure exactly how to accomplish this, but I can certainly picture it:
- “Wiki-like” in nature, with searching and links (direct and cross-linked) to each and every article posted.
- “Add to Knowledge-Base” option for threads posted on the STP forums for solutions to given problems (all levels covered there….from basic to advanced).
- Dynamically updated “Top 20″ most popular or frequently accessed topics/questions for each category of articles (searchable FAQ).
- Separate RSS feeds for each category of articles, level of user (maybe even new categories for different types of solutions that are somehow related with feeds to those as well).
- “User” Created/Edited content area – separate from STP, but feeds into the Wiki with content submitted and edited by the EUSP audience (this would be the place where users can create content they feel would benefit everyone – could be “Account-based” where they’d have to apply to be able to add/edit content, but would be a great way for anyone to be able to “Give back” on what they’ve learned.
These are just examples of what I envision in my little “SharePoint Utopia of Knowledge”…and I realize thet there’d be some “logistic” things to work out in order to create something like this, but I think it’d be worth it in the end.
Great discussion so far everyone…I ‘m looking forward to seeing what comes out of this.
- Dessie
]]>I am liking that idea more and more. It’s going to take a little legwork on my end to have Natasha get everything setup, but it looks as if it is what people are expecting with this much content. After setting up everything, I’ll build a free, content editor web part and make it available to the public to place on their SharePoint sites. The only glitch will be for those running an https connection because they will get a security warning in IE everytime a page loads with that web part on it.
Information Workers
Power Users
Site Collection Admin
We’ll see how this plays out.
Mark
This would leverage the huge base of content already on the site, plus give someone new to this site that flow of “new” stuff every week (or every day, or whatever frequency they choose) that some people seem to be asking for.
A site full of info is great for research, but overwhelming for someone who wants to learn in a more regulated way. Get the info out to them with a sprinkler, not a fire-hose.
- Ruven
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