Oh how we get tired here at Salem from the ever-present industry demand primarily for SharePoint developers and architects whilst not recognising the wide range of other skill requirements. It is as if when deciding to adopt SharePoint that it is all about the technology and little else matters until it is 'up and running'. It is so commonly forgotten that not only is SharePoint a business service provisioning platform but that there are a wide range of other 'softer' skills that are required for SharePoint to meet business objectives and embed effectively.
This article is to act as a reminder that there are a range of soft SharePoint skills that should be acknowledged from the start. It is not supposed to be all encompassing but as so often with our articles, it is to open up discussion and debate within our client and partner community.
Here are some to think about and, better still, to appoint.
SharePoint Strategist
If you don't have a roadmap how do you know where you are going. If the strategy and roadmap isn't business-aligned, how do you know where the business is going? Any successful SharePoint implementation will be accompanied by a business-aligned clear service-driven roadmap based in business prioritisation in harmony with a progressive IT approach.
SharePoint Programme/Project Manager
If you can't plan the detail of a SharePoint environment effectively from the start and manage a realistic budget, resources and timelines you may be heading for the rocks. This person will understand any potential pitfalls and logistical hurdles in advance and plan for them accordingly. Just because they may be Prince 2 certified (etc) won't necessarily help so use a SharePoint project expert.
SharePoint Business Analyst
Translating business ambitions, critical requirements and priorities isn't just a process, it can be an art form. An effective SharePoint business analyst will be capable of translating almost any abstract business requirement into a plausible basic technological approach. The most successful SharePoint business analysts we know and use are also SharePoint administrators and know what SharePoint is capable of.
Awareness Campaign Manager
Without an early business awareness campaign, how can business users possibly understand the merits of SharePoint and get excited about the services to come? An early awareness campaign is essential in most cases and therefore a business or technology owner who is a great presenter and who speaks the business language is critical. This role includes a lot of creative thinking and a dynamic, personable character.
Communication Owner
Once the initial awareness campaign ends there is certainly a requirement in many instances for a business-focused communication owner to progess positive SharePoint messages to the business communities regularly and consistently. This often comes from the internal corporate communications department. A range of multi-media techniques may be required.
Corporate Photographer
In the UK an individual owns their own image rights. This means that a company cannot force an employee to publish a specific photo of themselves, particularly in terms of a SharePoint user profile photo. The argument that an employee has signed a contract or that they have a security card with a photo doesn't wash when attempting to use that photo elsewhere without permission. Therefore it is worth considering a decent amateur photographer or a professional to take a range of images of each employee and then allowing the employee to choose one to place on their user profile.
Helpdesk
The typically undervalued helpdesk staff are so easily forgotten here but they are the first line to user support and will need to be trained and understand SharePoint themselves to the be able to send out the right messages and assistance.
Information Analyst/Architect/Governance
Without an effective information architecture you may well have chaos. Where does information get stored, when and why and for how long. How is information classified, how is it tagged, how will people find it and how should they look. How is information segmented and how is it easily navigated to ? These are all questions that require ongoing planning, design, strategy and governance. The Salem Process (tm) provides not only a clear roadmap but a core information architecture to get things established quickly in any organisation.
IT Governance Board/Owner
Governance is key to everythiong that follows. What are the IT rules of engagement that facilitate but allow clear IT policies regarding SharePoint to be owned, understood, communicated and progressed? Do not underestimate the amount of input and thinking that may be required.
IT Change Management Board/Owner
As per another Salem article, change management that is not aligned with SharePoint dynamic and devolved capabilities may quickly stall its adoption and growth. It is essential to bing change management on board from the begining and gain agreement as to how SharePoint and the change process work most effectively and then amend existing processes and policies.
Business Governance Board/Owner
What are the rules of engagement for the business and when should SharePoint be used and in what ways. If the business community is unclear then adoption may stall. Clarity is key so establish this board early and provide a relevant set of governance questions to get things moving.
Business Adoption Owner
Adoption is far more than training as we stated in an earlier Salem article. A business owner who can manage and own the adoption process may prove critical. What are the most effective methods of gaining business buy-in and understanding and then acceptance of the new business services.
Training Strategist and Trainers
There are a huge variery of training methods for SharePoint and they can have different degrees of success dependent on the culture and environments within an organisation. Classroom training may work for 200 staff but not for 30,000 staff across 5 continents. Training also requires an effective budget. Salem Consulting has its own SharePoint Adoption and Training Methodology as well as elite Salem training partners providing adoption strategy and training deliverables for SharePoint.
Floorwalkers
Once a business service is rolled out, people are required to hand-hold and walk the floors offering direct and immediate business-user support for a short time to ensure a quick return to productive working. Questions, answers and explanations are the norm. This role encompasses some of the most important soft skills. Anyone stating that the software should be made as easy as possible to use so that training is not required is fooling themselves and performing a disservice to the business. Any worker has the legal right to be trained to perform their role effectively, and that includes software.
Help Content Writers/Authors
This is not a technical role but someone will need to write the content and quick start guides for the business user to reference to perform the business-focused tasks that SharePoint will facilitate. Do not underestimate the time this will take, Salem Consulting offers base and bespoke help content through its Salem Training partner to assist in speedy adoption.
Graphic Designer
Many SharePoint solution partners do not have big, if any, in-house graphic design capabilities. Many partners farm out this task to suitable design agencies at a cost. Therefore for user interface design and further graphic design tasks, who will be performing this role on an ongoing basis ?
Business Site Administrators
Where you have elected to devolve site collection or site administration to business divisions, who are they, how wuill you select them and what will their role entail? How effective will these people be in coping with the extra demands that have been placed upon them. Furthermore who will train and support them?
Business Power Users/Champions
Early adopters are a great method to gain business champiuons who will spread the good news and positive messages about SharePoint. These people need to be business-focused and represent their business units at a high enough level to be listened to. Effective selection will underpin an effective SharePoint strategy and ongoing service delivery as they will champion the SharePoint cause.
Business Executive Sponsor
If the business leaders have not bought into SharePoint early enough you may have a tough time later convincing them of its merits when their business divisions are busy with business as usual activities. It is absolutely essential to have an executive business sponsor from the start who can champion the merits of SharePoint all the way up to the boardroom and provide the required backing, budget and influence to ensure success and uniform adoption.
SharePoint Business Programme Board
Every SharePoint implementation should be treated as a programme of related activities and projects in our view. The programme and projects need business influence, direction, approval, buy-in and decisions. Without a business board you will be ruderless when key decisions need to be made. The board needs a senior stakeholder who is able to approve budgetary decisions as well as approve governance and policy.
Editorial Feature Writers
It is fine to create a new intranet using SharePoint, and create new dynamic publishing services but who is going to prepare, gather aand write the content in advance? This is certainly true of new internal communications activities with a SharePoint driven news centre but extends far futher. Typically all aspects of new SharePoint business services will require new content written and ready for the go live date and beyond. Remember that these people will need to be trained and supported.
Content Managers
SharePoint business services require people to provide fresh and up to date content. Whilst a central news or home page environment may be managed by a central editorial team, other areas such as business unit areas within an intranet will require new landing pages, new thinking and fresh material and therefore expect a range of content manager material to be required, now and in the future. Remember that these people will need to be trained and supported.
Quality Assurance - Editorial
Someone somewhere within the organisation will need to approve new content prior to publication and therefore there may be a requirement for an approval process or else an editorial web manager to justify content, approve it and ensure it is written well enough to be published. They may also define editorial standards, writing and style guides and templates.
Style and Brand Owner
For larger organisations, style and brand is very important and carefully designed and approved, particualry in retail environments but these days can apply to the majority of organisations. For intranets and information publication there may well be a requirement for a business stakeholder to be involved in ensuring that brand and style guidelines are not only applied correctly to the user interface and page look and feel but also to a wide range of materials to be published within the SharePoint environment. This is also certainly true of SharePoint internet sites.
Search Best Bets Owner
There will be a requirement to translate business phrases and keywords into best bets for early and effective search results. Don't ignore this as it is managed through central administration but may require an owner to ensure that best bets are handled effectively for a wide range of business stakeholders.
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Does Change Management Stall SharePoint Progression
Time and time again the Salem strategists encounter a particular issue with client IT departments which is the overly-cautious approach to changes within the SharePoint environment. Clearly solid farm configuration and administration is essential, and fundamental changes to infrastructure and configuration 'on the fly' with little forethought are to be avoided at all cost. Hence change management protects the IT department and it's employees.
However, SharePoint, when designed, scaled and built properly is designed as a dynamic and agile platform for a wide range of business service opportunities hour-by-hour, day by day. Thus it is not a question of whether there are IT change management processes, but how they are used within the realm of SharePoint service delivery.
For SharePoint to be successful in most business scenarios, the ability of a business user to generate a temporary workspace or team site, for example, with no IT involvement is a very liberating and powerful experience, and one that sells SharePoint across the diverse business communities quickly. On the other hand, routing a business user through a long-winded process of justification for what may be only a temporary requirement is hugely frustrating and challenging and it won't take long for the business users to use something else.
An IT department is often an orderly, considered, diligent and deliberately process-driven environment. However few business users can really come to terms with why they can upgrade their desktop at home in less than 60 minutes but it takes an IT division 6 months or more to achieve the same result. Of course we know why but it is important for an IT department to be seen as a dynamic facilitator meeting business objectives rather than as the hurdle that prevents the business from adapting and succeeding in a challenging market.
SharePoint, when approached correctly is one of an IT department's greatest allies. Simply because devolved solution provision to the business community makes business users feel far more in control and also because IT is seen as the facilitator. Yet this is often not the case.
There are a couple of important reasons we regularly encounter. The first is that the IT department is treating SharePoint as if it is like all the other platforms and applies the same change control processes when they are in fact inappropriate to the nature of the platform. The second is that change control is used to deliberately control a slow release of services due to the fact that the IT department is worried about the in-house skill levels and also being found out as not being fully comfortable with devolution of service. Ownership is power !
The primary issue is one of embedded IT culture where we encounter IT teams stating that they have always worked this way and they always intend to, and that business administration of business services would quickly cause technical administration and management problems. This isn't entirely true and where each site collection has been properly designed and a quota applied then business devolution can indeed occur.
The advice that Salem offers is that to succeed with SharePoint it is essential from the outset that any IT department takes a completely fresh approach to SharePoint and how it will be used by the business community and which services can be exempt from change control and passed over as agile user-driven services. Once these services are freed from IT change management then the business users can be better informed and trained to create services as required and as their needs dictate. It is always interesting to watch the reaction to a very formal and heavily controlled environment when we show how Office and Outlook can provision user-driven temporary workspaces without any IT request. Similarly, should a business user customise their desktop icons, or aspects of Excel or Word, does anyone care, not usually. Therefore why should an IT department be overly concerned about the provisioning of a team site and what it is being used for ?
For those IT departments who rigidly apply entrenched change management processes to SharePoint, they are missing one of the most intrinsic and fundamental aspects of the platform which is the fast and agile ability to create something new and useful in seconds without a great amount of technical know-how. Put that back into the hands of a technologist and one has just stepped back a decade - it's really that simple.
This article was published without a change request.
However, SharePoint, when designed, scaled and built properly is designed as a dynamic and agile platform for a wide range of business service opportunities hour-by-hour, day by day. Thus it is not a question of whether there are IT change management processes, but how they are used within the realm of SharePoint service delivery.
For SharePoint to be successful in most business scenarios, the ability of a business user to generate a temporary workspace or team site, for example, with no IT involvement is a very liberating and powerful experience, and one that sells SharePoint across the diverse business communities quickly. On the other hand, routing a business user through a long-winded process of justification for what may be only a temporary requirement is hugely frustrating and challenging and it won't take long for the business users to use something else.
An IT department is often an orderly, considered, diligent and deliberately process-driven environment. However few business users can really come to terms with why they can upgrade their desktop at home in less than 60 minutes but it takes an IT division 6 months or more to achieve the same result. Of course we know why but it is important for an IT department to be seen as a dynamic facilitator meeting business objectives rather than as the hurdle that prevents the business from adapting and succeeding in a challenging market.
SharePoint, when approached correctly is one of an IT department's greatest allies. Simply because devolved solution provision to the business community makes business users feel far more in control and also because IT is seen as the facilitator. Yet this is often not the case.
There are a couple of important reasons we regularly encounter. The first is that the IT department is treating SharePoint as if it is like all the other platforms and applies the same change control processes when they are in fact inappropriate to the nature of the platform. The second is that change control is used to deliberately control a slow release of services due to the fact that the IT department is worried about the in-house skill levels and also being found out as not being fully comfortable with devolution of service. Ownership is power !
The primary issue is one of embedded IT culture where we encounter IT teams stating that they have always worked this way and they always intend to, and that business administration of business services would quickly cause technical administration and management problems. This isn't entirely true and where each site collection has been properly designed and a quota applied then business devolution can indeed occur.
The advice that Salem offers is that to succeed with SharePoint it is essential from the outset that any IT department takes a completely fresh approach to SharePoint and how it will be used by the business community and which services can be exempt from change control and passed over as agile user-driven services. Once these services are freed from IT change management then the business users can be better informed and trained to create services as required and as their needs dictate. It is always interesting to watch the reaction to a very formal and heavily controlled environment when we show how Office and Outlook can provision user-driven temporary workspaces without any IT request. Similarly, should a business user customise their desktop icons, or aspects of Excel or Word, does anyone care, not usually. Therefore why should an IT department be overly concerned about the provisioning of a team site and what it is being used for ?
For those IT departments who rigidly apply entrenched change management processes to SharePoint, they are missing one of the most intrinsic and fundamental aspects of the platform which is the fast and agile ability to create something new and useful in seconds without a great amount of technical know-how. Put that back into the hands of a technologist and one has just stepped back a decade - it's really that simple.
This article was published without a change request.
The Commoditization of SharePoint Matters
When I was young, I started fishing in some local lakes and I used to try and make my own floats out of balsa wood. At first they were useless but after a while I got a little better and had a small box that I kept them in. However making floats was time-consuming, hit and miss, and sometimes an abject failure - they perhaps saved me a little money but they didn't help me achieve my goal of catching more fish. Eventually I simply bought new floats from a shop and got on with the task of catching fish.
For the last decade or so, an entire global industry has matured in developing bespoke solutions and custom application development for SharePoint. Allegedly today the global services industry for SharePoint accounts for approximately $6 billion in partner revenue. To a degree this demonstrates exactly how far the global SharePoint market has grown. One only has to look at the relentless recruitment of 'SharePoint developers' to understand how much custom application work is being undertaken.
So let's stop and ask why. The vast range of services of SharePoint out-of-the-box is unparalleled and if any company simply mastered the basic features, services and functions (and was made aware of them in business scenarios) then they would already have a great and positive deal on their hands. All too quickly however, many partners are quick to sell custom application development, custom user interfaces and custom web parts - why well because that is what the client thinks they want (or has been told that is what is required) and often because SharePoint can indeed facilitate that approach.
The issue however is in terms of business buy-in and user adoption. For many corporations, the early quick wins are fundamental to bedding in SharePoint into business life. An effective user profile and profile search is often of far greater value early in the cycle than a custom procurement system, or a bepoke developed application.
Time is one of the greatest factors. The development cycle of any custom application is longer than a client realises. Today with so many corporate IT environments being led by non-IT-literate teams (often finance-background people) then they themselves have little true understanding of a code-development lifecycle. Indeed we remember a particular IT manager who stated that any code released with bugs is unacceptable! The iterative development and bug-fix cycle is often lost on IT management teams who expect solutions to be delivered bug-free and perfectly, at the lowest cost and first time round. This creates a problem in terms of delivery timescale expectation-management.
More to the point, an early engagement with a SharePoint business client from a development angle entrenches the early view that everything to be delivered in SharePoint is a project, is time consuming, is relatively expensive, requires a maintenance contract, and requires an iterative and frustrating period of bug fixing with a partner or contractor team. None of which needs to be true. And then the question arises as to how a custom application will be developed further or supported in-house, if that is the strategy. It always amazes us at Salem why so many companies embarking on a SharePoint project begin by trying to recruit a SharePoint developer - what are these people developing, and why so early?! We know for sure that some service companies willingly sell SharePoint as a development platform on purpose as it will provide a cash cow for years to come.
Here at Salem we fully understand and appreciate the benefits of customisation. Certainly custom user interfaces that match brand and style guidelines can assist in acceptace and adoption by the business users. However customer user interfaces and custom application development are rather different topics. In all circumstances, however, user interface design should be overlayed on top of the engineered solution, not the other way round. Trying to re-engineer SharePoint technology to meet a visual style is a strategy to spend lots of budget unnecessarily - the form over function dilemma.
Back to the subject in hand. If SharePoint is going to grow and embed in a wide range of organisations then the commoditisation of SharePoint is now essential. What do we mean by this? There are a wide range of services, requirements and business solutions that are common to many (if not most) organisations which should exist as add in services. To a degree we see this being catered for by a few well known web part companies. But there is simply not enough of this happening. Why pay for a partner to develop a contract management system when one can be slotted in that has already been developed. Why develop a clock when a clock already exists? Why develop a news centre when one is already written. Well from a solution delivery company perspective, it increases revenue to develop custom applications.
Imagine then if one can use SharePoint out-of-the-box with a range of add-in business solutions already pre-built. What this means is that the initial adoption cycle is far faster for the end client, business buy-in is enhanced as it demonstrates how quickly business solutions can be achieved. It means that SharePoint is far more likely to be adopted and then entrenched early which in turn allows client budget to be focused on more pressing matters or more challenging services that are unique to that organisation.
Another example is where an intranet is designed from scratch: why we ask? So many organisations across so many business verticals share the same ambitions that the only thing that truly changes is the user interface. The business services being requested are often far too similar to require a greenfield approach every time. Does this mean therefore that there is a requirement for a far faster agile approach to early SharePoint business service release, and in our opinion the answer is yes.
To set the scene to any client, it is extremely important to show how quickly intial valuable business services can be delivered and to progress quickly into a longer SharePoint programme in terms of value proposition. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a custom application as a starting point is not necessarily going to ingratiate the platform into the busienss community. Therefore early prioritization is intrinsic to success.
It is time for the SharePoint partner community to embrace how to deliver effective business soltions fast, early into the lifecycle using a standard range of services. It is certainly time for development companies to commence creating business solutions so that they can be packaged, sold and deployed again and again to a wider range of clients without the need for full development cycle every time. It is time that clients were given a quick sense of achievement with SharePoint rather than frustrating delays and large budgets and UAT iterations that appear to last a lifetime.
For those that argue that every customer is different, well when you have seen as many clients as we have, the one thing that strikes us more than anything else, is actually how similar business requirements are across a wide and diverse range of business verticals. Are clients worried that their competitors are using the same desktop and same version of Word or Excel - of course not. SharePoint is a superb development platform, but develop when necessary, customise when required, but ensure first that in the early months of SharePoint release, there are a wide range of quick-wins that excite the client audiences and demonstrate real value, fast.
I caught some of the best fish ever recently, and it wasn't using a custom-made float.
For the last decade or so, an entire global industry has matured in developing bespoke solutions and custom application development for SharePoint. Allegedly today the global services industry for SharePoint accounts for approximately $6 billion in partner revenue. To a degree this demonstrates exactly how far the global SharePoint market has grown. One only has to look at the relentless recruitment of 'SharePoint developers' to understand how much custom application work is being undertaken.
So let's stop and ask why. The vast range of services of SharePoint out-of-the-box is unparalleled and if any company simply mastered the basic features, services and functions (and was made aware of them in business scenarios) then they would already have a great and positive deal on their hands. All too quickly however, many partners are quick to sell custom application development, custom user interfaces and custom web parts - why well because that is what the client thinks they want (or has been told that is what is required) and often because SharePoint can indeed facilitate that approach.
The issue however is in terms of business buy-in and user adoption. For many corporations, the early quick wins are fundamental to bedding in SharePoint into business life. An effective user profile and profile search is often of far greater value early in the cycle than a custom procurement system, or a bepoke developed application.
Time is one of the greatest factors. The development cycle of any custom application is longer than a client realises. Today with so many corporate IT environments being led by non-IT-literate teams (often finance-background people) then they themselves have little true understanding of a code-development lifecycle. Indeed we remember a particular IT manager who stated that any code released with bugs is unacceptable! The iterative development and bug-fix cycle is often lost on IT management teams who expect solutions to be delivered bug-free and perfectly, at the lowest cost and first time round. This creates a problem in terms of delivery timescale expectation-management.
More to the point, an early engagement with a SharePoint business client from a development angle entrenches the early view that everything to be delivered in SharePoint is a project, is time consuming, is relatively expensive, requires a maintenance contract, and requires an iterative and frustrating period of bug fixing with a partner or contractor team. None of which needs to be true. And then the question arises as to how a custom application will be developed further or supported in-house, if that is the strategy. It always amazes us at Salem why so many companies embarking on a SharePoint project begin by trying to recruit a SharePoint developer - what are these people developing, and why so early?! We know for sure that some service companies willingly sell SharePoint as a development platform on purpose as it will provide a cash cow for years to come.
Here at Salem we fully understand and appreciate the benefits of customisation. Certainly custom user interfaces that match brand and style guidelines can assist in acceptace and adoption by the business users. However customer user interfaces and custom application development are rather different topics. In all circumstances, however, user interface design should be overlayed on top of the engineered solution, not the other way round. Trying to re-engineer SharePoint technology to meet a visual style is a strategy to spend lots of budget unnecessarily - the form over function dilemma.
Back to the subject in hand. If SharePoint is going to grow and embed in a wide range of organisations then the commoditisation of SharePoint is now essential. What do we mean by this? There are a wide range of services, requirements and business solutions that are common to many (if not most) organisations which should exist as add in services. To a degree we see this being catered for by a few well known web part companies. But there is simply not enough of this happening. Why pay for a partner to develop a contract management system when one can be slotted in that has already been developed. Why develop a clock when a clock already exists? Why develop a news centre when one is already written. Well from a solution delivery company perspective, it increases revenue to develop custom applications.
Imagine then if one can use SharePoint out-of-the-box with a range of add-in business solutions already pre-built. What this means is that the initial adoption cycle is far faster for the end client, business buy-in is enhanced as it demonstrates how quickly business solutions can be achieved. It means that SharePoint is far more likely to be adopted and then entrenched early which in turn allows client budget to be focused on more pressing matters or more challenging services that are unique to that organisation.
Another example is where an intranet is designed from scratch: why we ask? So many organisations across so many business verticals share the same ambitions that the only thing that truly changes is the user interface. The business services being requested are often far too similar to require a greenfield approach every time. Does this mean therefore that there is a requirement for a far faster agile approach to early SharePoint business service release, and in our opinion the answer is yes.
To set the scene to any client, it is extremely important to show how quickly intial valuable business services can be delivered and to progress quickly into a longer SharePoint programme in terms of value proposition. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a custom application as a starting point is not necessarily going to ingratiate the platform into the busienss community. Therefore early prioritization is intrinsic to success.
It is time for the SharePoint partner community to embrace how to deliver effective business soltions fast, early into the lifecycle using a standard range of services. It is certainly time for development companies to commence creating business solutions so that they can be packaged, sold and deployed again and again to a wider range of clients without the need for full development cycle every time. It is time that clients were given a quick sense of achievement with SharePoint rather than frustrating delays and large budgets and UAT iterations that appear to last a lifetime.
For those that argue that every customer is different, well when you have seen as many clients as we have, the one thing that strikes us more than anything else, is actually how similar business requirements are across a wide and diverse range of business verticals. Are clients worried that their competitors are using the same desktop and same version of Word or Excel - of course not. SharePoint is a superb development platform, but develop when necessary, customise when required, but ensure first that in the early months of SharePoint release, there are a wide range of quick-wins that excite the client audiences and demonstrate real value, fast.
I caught some of the best fish ever recently, and it wasn't using a custom-made float.
The Ubiquitous and Dubious Nature of 'Like'
Do you remember (thanks Gabriella) the old movies about Gladiators and the roaring crowd with their thumbs up or down to decide whether people live or die ? Well we are interested and somewhat concerned by the ever more ubiquitous presence of the Like icon across the internet. It now appears almost everywhere.
Someone posts on a Facebook wall, or a Linkedin news feed, YouTube videos or posts a tweet on Twitter (favourite) and directly underneath is a thumbs up symbol. What is it actually there to achieve we ask ? In it's simplest form it is a quick symbolic way of representing agreement - yes we share the same view. But what it doesn't say is why we like it. Worse, is that we often come across the second or subsidiary reverse option which is to 'unlike' (sic) and yet not to 'dislike'. Perhaps disliking something is just one step too far for most and positivity is the only way forward. Yet there are many times when we disagree with a post and don't like what is being said and the only way we can get this across is to comment. Therefore you can say yes you agree with no comeback but if you disagree, you will need to state why.
In some ways it is a little like the ratings system that was so fashionable a while back and which now pervades many SharePoint solutions. A rating system does not mean something is good in general, it means that it was valuable to me personally if I rated it - it is valuable to me. Think of Amazon and the user feedback on an item. 5 gold stars doesn't mean it is great, it means it is great for the person who rated it. Do you take subjective recommendations on a movie by a friend and then don't go and see it ? No, you go and see it and make your own mind up if you have any sense. In other words, what counts to you, is not what counts to someone else. That is what makes the world diverse and interesting.
Therefore the thumbs up icon, whilst steadily invading every aspect of the internet, may say that someone likes what is being said, it is entirely subjective and in itself is not necessarily a general endorsement of value to others. Peer pressure may indicate that others should agree too and this is where a problem can occur. Look at YouTube and you will see both a thumbs up and a thumbs down icon. When someone dislikes a video they don't necessarily need to explain why but for those who rated the video subject matter highly they then tend to abuse those who disliked what others liked. It is for this reason therefore that a thumbs up is problematic and misleading in too many scenarios.
A good friend of mine asked me why I gave a thumbs up to a few of my own Facebook posts and I argued that it was because I found the thing I posted as humorous or of value to me but she argued that liking your own entries is the worst thing one can do as it is egocentric. An interesting debate topic for sure and I can see how she could be interpreted as right but then again I couldn't dislike her comment as there was no icon.
One may argue that for sheer balance a dislike icon should always accompany a like icon but without added commentary it really tells us nothing except peer agreement and peer agreement without explanation is all too similar to sheep mentality where those of a weaker disposition may be influenced too easily and simply agree with the masses for acceptance sake. This is therefore the antithesis of user-centricity, personal value systems and good solid debate.
Before you click on the like icon next time ask yourself what it is to achieve and how you would equally show your dislike of something. We could add a like icon to our blogs, but then again, you may not agree with our sentiments: and that is perfectly fine with us - we like that.
Someone posts on a Facebook wall, or a Linkedin news feed, YouTube videos or posts a tweet on Twitter (favourite) and directly underneath is a thumbs up symbol. What is it actually there to achieve we ask ? In it's simplest form it is a quick symbolic way of representing agreement - yes we share the same view. But what it doesn't say is why we like it. Worse, is that we often come across the second or subsidiary reverse option which is to 'unlike' (sic) and yet not to 'dislike'. Perhaps disliking something is just one step too far for most and positivity is the only way forward. Yet there are many times when we disagree with a post and don't like what is being said and the only way we can get this across is to comment. Therefore you can say yes you agree with no comeback but if you disagree, you will need to state why.
In some ways it is a little like the ratings system that was so fashionable a while back and which now pervades many SharePoint solutions. A rating system does not mean something is good in general, it means that it was valuable to me personally if I rated it - it is valuable to me. Think of Amazon and the user feedback on an item. 5 gold stars doesn't mean it is great, it means it is great for the person who rated it. Do you take subjective recommendations on a movie by a friend and then don't go and see it ? No, you go and see it and make your own mind up if you have any sense. In other words, what counts to you, is not what counts to someone else. That is what makes the world diverse and interesting.
Therefore the thumbs up icon, whilst steadily invading every aspect of the internet, may say that someone likes what is being said, it is entirely subjective and in itself is not necessarily a general endorsement of value to others. Peer pressure may indicate that others should agree too and this is where a problem can occur. Look at YouTube and you will see both a thumbs up and a thumbs down icon. When someone dislikes a video they don't necessarily need to explain why but for those who rated the video subject matter highly they then tend to abuse those who disliked what others liked. It is for this reason therefore that a thumbs up is problematic and misleading in too many scenarios.
A good friend of mine asked me why I gave a thumbs up to a few of my own Facebook posts and I argued that it was because I found the thing I posted as humorous or of value to me but she argued that liking your own entries is the worst thing one can do as it is egocentric. An interesting debate topic for sure and I can see how she could be interpreted as right but then again I couldn't dislike her comment as there was no icon.
One may argue that for sheer balance a dislike icon should always accompany a like icon but without added commentary it really tells us nothing except peer agreement and peer agreement without explanation is all too similar to sheep mentality where those of a weaker disposition may be influenced too easily and simply agree with the masses for acceptance sake. This is therefore the antithesis of user-centricity, personal value systems and good solid debate.
Before you click on the like icon next time ask yourself what it is to achieve and how you would equally show your dislike of something. We could add a like icon to our blogs, but then again, you may not agree with our sentiments: and that is perfectly fine with us - we like that.
When Social Networking isn't Social Networking
A previous Salem article featured thoughts on the plethora of consulting companies jumping on the social networking bandwagon. This article is more specifically focused on social networking within organisations and typically when the topic crops up regarding SharePoint implementations.
Let us start by trying to define what we mean by social networking in this context. Well, social typically means personal, in other words, nothing to do with performing the business of the day. Every company has social networks, visits to the bar on a Friday after work for gossip, office romances, office divorces, scandals, the social aspects of office politics, gossip about anything and everything. It doesn't matter how much a company tries to keep chatter under control, it simply disappears underground, but it remains. We cannot count the amount of times that a company will say they wish to be seen as a collaborative organisation but would not consider fabulous services such as Microsoft Lync because people 'will chat and waste time too much'. Believe us, people will talk no matter what, even over the water cooler and at break times, in the canteen, in the toilets, in the bar, on the phone, indeed anywhere. So why not harness real time collaboration and conversation as part of the intrinsic culture of the organisation rather than trying to repel it?
Okay so we also hear CEO's occasionally saying they would like to have their company have a 'Facebook style culture'. Well what they mean is real time conversation, collaboration and sharing, what they don't mean is social networking in the social way we have just defined it. And even if they do mean that they will not be able to cope with the HR governance and policy issues that follow when Dave from Accounts publishes the fact that he has just split up from Sue in Sales and is now seeing Fiona in Finance. Only once have we encountered a large organisation that has embraced social networking at the core of its collaborative ethos and this was presented by way of an intranet home page dedicated to an open discussion board where just about anything and everything could, and was, discussed. The bottom line for most larger organisations is that they will not achieve a Facebook culture in the office as corporations are risk-averse.
The issue with the concept of social networking within business environments is that, unlike personal social networks, there is nothing in it for the end user. Why would a business user start to publish personal and private details about themselves unless they were trying to make friends or were a newcomer to a company. They have already established their own social network in the office and its relativel;y low risk. As most people accept, knowledge is power, and the longer someone has been in post, the more they entrench themselves via what they know and what they have learned. Sharing personal thoughts and social aspects of themselves in a corporate environment not only worries HR deeply, but also exposes the end user to a degree of professional risk. Expose the wrong information, say the wrong thing and that elusive promotion may go straight out of the window. Comment in an inappropriate way and one may be disciplined. Say what is on one's mind and one may find ones self being shown the door.
If this is true, then why are there so many consulting companies using the term 'social networking' to corporations? Well as per our other article, there is a degree of trendy bandwagon jumping going on, and using the latest terms to an older generation of business leaders makes them think they are missing out on something important and assisting in generating consulting revenue.
The reality is that we are not dealing with social networking within organisations (save for the ambitiously-thinking minority), what we are really dealing with are social networking techniques applied for business scenarios, which is somewhat different. Techniques and technologies such as user-centric My Sites, subscription-based news feeds, RSS subscriptions, Office Talk business 'tweeting', status updates, discussion forums, instant messaging, presence awareness, ratings and comments are all part of the technology set that has become fashionable and effective in social networks that translates perfectly to business environments. But rarely is there anything social about it in truth.
Therefore by applying the techniques and psychology from social networks we can indeed look at how effective knowledge and skill-based networks can be employed by organisations that which to be progressively more interactive, open, collaborative and how business adoption and buy-in can be obtained and maintained.
However for the majority, the term social networking without any form of clarification, in our view, represents a populist phrase that has no depth or substance or value for a business environment, and is currently particularly abused within the consulting industry. Dave may still be dating Fiona in Finance, but frankly, it's none of our business.
Let us start by trying to define what we mean by social networking in this context. Well, social typically means personal, in other words, nothing to do with performing the business of the day. Every company has social networks, visits to the bar on a Friday after work for gossip, office romances, office divorces, scandals, the social aspects of office politics, gossip about anything and everything. It doesn't matter how much a company tries to keep chatter under control, it simply disappears underground, but it remains. We cannot count the amount of times that a company will say they wish to be seen as a collaborative organisation but would not consider fabulous services such as Microsoft Lync because people 'will chat and waste time too much'. Believe us, people will talk no matter what, even over the water cooler and at break times, in the canteen, in the toilets, in the bar, on the phone, indeed anywhere. So why not harness real time collaboration and conversation as part of the intrinsic culture of the organisation rather than trying to repel it?
Okay so we also hear CEO's occasionally saying they would like to have their company have a 'Facebook style culture'. Well what they mean is real time conversation, collaboration and sharing, what they don't mean is social networking in the social way we have just defined it. And even if they do mean that they will not be able to cope with the HR governance and policy issues that follow when Dave from Accounts publishes the fact that he has just split up from Sue in Sales and is now seeing Fiona in Finance. Only once have we encountered a large organisation that has embraced social networking at the core of its collaborative ethos and this was presented by way of an intranet home page dedicated to an open discussion board where just about anything and everything could, and was, discussed. The bottom line for most larger organisations is that they will not achieve a Facebook culture in the office as corporations are risk-averse.
The issue with the concept of social networking within business environments is that, unlike personal social networks, there is nothing in it for the end user. Why would a business user start to publish personal and private details about themselves unless they were trying to make friends or were a newcomer to a company. They have already established their own social network in the office and its relativel;y low risk. As most people accept, knowledge is power, and the longer someone has been in post, the more they entrench themselves via what they know and what they have learned. Sharing personal thoughts and social aspects of themselves in a corporate environment not only worries HR deeply, but also exposes the end user to a degree of professional risk. Expose the wrong information, say the wrong thing and that elusive promotion may go straight out of the window. Comment in an inappropriate way and one may be disciplined. Say what is on one's mind and one may find ones self being shown the door.
If this is true, then why are there so many consulting companies using the term 'social networking' to corporations? Well as per our other article, there is a degree of trendy bandwagon jumping going on, and using the latest terms to an older generation of business leaders makes them think they are missing out on something important and assisting in generating consulting revenue.
The reality is that we are not dealing with social networking within organisations (save for the ambitiously-thinking minority), what we are really dealing with are social networking techniques applied for business scenarios, which is somewhat different. Techniques and technologies such as user-centric My Sites, subscription-based news feeds, RSS subscriptions, Office Talk business 'tweeting', status updates, discussion forums, instant messaging, presence awareness, ratings and comments are all part of the technology set that has become fashionable and effective in social networks that translates perfectly to business environments. But rarely is there anything social about it in truth.
Therefore by applying the techniques and psychology from social networks we can indeed look at how effective knowledge and skill-based networks can be employed by organisations that which to be progressively more interactive, open, collaborative and how business adoption and buy-in can be obtained and maintained.
However for the majority, the term social networking without any form of clarification, in our view, represents a populist phrase that has no depth or substance or value for a business environment, and is currently particularly abused within the consulting industry. Dave may still be dating Fiona in Finance, but frankly, it's none of our business.
Social Networking - Or Dad Dancing ?
Have you ever been embarassed by your father dancing like an ill-coordinated jellyfish at a wedding to some 70's or 80's 'classic' ? Have you ever been mortified when your mum decides to dress as a 22 year old ? We sure do, and worse still, we get the same feeling when 'social networking' is mentioned increasingly in corporate land. Now, one thing is for sure, we cannot get away for the dramatic impact (which is vastly understood as yet) of social networking on our culture as it is becoming all pervasive.
However when we see the topic of social networking in corporate spheres it is often by way of a desperate desire to be seen as 'current', 'with it', 'down with the kids', and more worryingly, a desire to make money out of it for corporate means that has not been thought through properly. Trendiness in management consulting is something that is very aligned with dad dancing because it is often via an older generation out of step with a younger generation but eager to please and be accepted as thought-leaders when it isn't true. If there is money to be made a the expense of a younger generation, you can be absolutely certain someone will try it.
A classic example is the often-seen desire for a corporation to include a clock on the home page of a SharePoint intranet as it is perceived as 'useful'. One should perhaps take note that younger generations rarely wear a watch due to the fact that every gadget and mobile device tells the correct time, all the time. In another similar vein, California school children were asked why they wouldn't use the school email system, with the overwhelming response that 'email is for old people'. Yet your parent's (or boss's) mastery of writing an email is somewhat viewed as a forward step!
Why then are we witnessing so many management consulting firms, and recruitment organisations jumping on the social networking bandwagon. Well, first of all it makes these companies appear as 'current', secondly it allows them to feel they are not being left behind in an ever-changing technological age, and thirdly, someone can smell money. I remember so well in the 1970's when a thousand companies were set up to cater for the skateboard craze across the globe, and almost all of them had vanished as we hit 1980 - they came to learn the jargon, they had the money to be seen as influencers, they made their cash and then made a quick exit. Will the same happen again with social networking in corporate land - very possibly.
Okay so what do we think is really going on ? Well when we see so many untrendy, traditional corporate firms getting excited about social networking what they mean is that there is a way of making money through accessing a large pool of resources that have, to date, not been traditionally accessible to them (or more usually, avoided them). Let's take recruitment as an example. Recruiters traditionally build a database of people with skills and a CV and then match them by one means or another to job vacancies. It has been the way for decades. Rather like dating agencies really. Suddenly we see an influx of discussions regarding recruitment using social networking - in other words, when we have a lack of resources is there a way to reach and attract those we may not have found otherwise. Have you stopped to consider that these people don't want to be found?
I remember reading a website in the USA once regarding the ability to trace and locate individuals. The website asked the simple question, why not just email them or call them - and ask yourself the question, if you have to trace someone, should you really be trying to contact them at all. In simple terms, people like to manage, organise and control who they are in touch with, who they contact and specifically who they do not wish to be contacted by. Spam calls to home phones and spam email to our inboxes have been a problem for over a decade and are now on the wain. So why would anyone think it is a good idea to try and use social networking environments to, in effect, spam people who are most probably not interested in your services ?
One only has to ask an audience whether they click on pay per click search results to find that many people avoid these ads because they don't like being sold to. No one likes walking into a store to have a look around only to be pounced upon by three shopfloor assistants with targets to achieve. Do you read the junkmail pushed through your letterbox, no us neither.
So why is there an obsession in corporate land with social networking? Well because there are hundreds of millions of people who are inter-related or connected to eachother for social reasons - but maybe, just maybe you can sell them something, or recruit them, but at least make money out of them, or worse still, talk about the topic of social networking in general and charge for it. Social networks are 'socially-driven' whether it be family, love, likes, shared hobbies or egotistical requirements to be 'seen as popular'. People are connected for private and personal reasons. Do you have 1000 Facebook friends ? But whatever the reason these internet communities are not called 'business networks' for a very good reason. Social means 'not work'.
Let us relate it to SharePoint. SharePoint is a relatively small community of talent which is growing but which is still less than the number of roles available. Each recruitment firm wants to get as many SharePoint people on their books as possible (often without any vetting) so that they can place them for a fee. That's fine as that is how the model works. The issue is that recruitment is a very tough and cut-throat business and any recruitment firm wants to be the one who finds the person and places them, thus sustaining a business relationship with the corporate client (they don't care about the person being place in general). So what happens when the resource pool becomes very limited? Well the recruiters start to think of other ways of attracting talent so that they can place them elsewhere. Personally I have had two agents from the same company, one who placed me and the other trying to lure me away from that role to a different firm purely for commission ! When one has talents in short supply, one will be very careful who one chooses to work with - period.
So social networking. Yes a huge talent pool accessible in a way that was never possible before Well maybe not actually. People are now hiding their Facebook profiles, making themselves non-searchable, hiding their connections and limiting access to personal information. Why, because people are quickly discovering that they are not as in control of who can contact them as they may desire. The social networking communities have matured enough to know what they like and what they do not. Then late in the day the men in the black suits arrive banding around the term 'social networking' as if they had just discovered the largest gold mine in the world, at least five years too late.
Social networking is not new. Remember the communities on Compuserve in the mid to late 1990's and how popular they were? We all have social networks beyond the internet in our daily lives, the people who know, the people we share a beer or dinner with, the people we hook up with for social events. We have our social network - we sms them and call them up. Interestingly half of my friends don't even use an internet social network but I still talk to them and see them regularly, if not more regularly than internet 'friends'.
So why now? Well because Facebook and similar social networks are becoming entrenched in our daily lives as a means of communication, real time social communication. Linkedin is a business networking service that is increasingly becoming bastardized from its excellent origins. Looking at the Linkedin news feeds today it is increasingly resembling boys in a sales office, sharing banter and finding humour in each other's comments. That's okay but its detracting from the value of Linkedin and making it feel like a club one should either join or avoid. Do I share my business connections, do I heck for the simple reason is that it is my private business networking build over years of professional discussions and business connections that I am not going to share with any lazy recruiter out there.
Therefore, the last 18 months has seen huge amounts of corporate speak, business seminars and recruiter strategies regarding social networking - I don't remember seeing these people in Compuserve in 1996. I remember the days when a recruiter would buy me a pint or lunch and form a valuable business relationship - not any more. These days everything appears to be performed on the cheap and I cannot remember a time when I last met a recruiter face to face. One should remember that people are far from stupid and know which firms are good, which are bad to work for on reputation, how much their value is in the marketplace and where they would like to go next. Trying to enter and sell within a social networking space won't help you, if the product you are selling isn't popular.
So the next time you see a thread or advertisment in corporate land regarding social networking as yourself a simple question. Does this company actually fully understand the topic of social networking and has a long history in the subject - because if not, you may simply be witnessing your dad at a wedding trying to get to grips with some dodgy dance moves to Lady Gaga. Best avoided.
However when we see the topic of social networking in corporate spheres it is often by way of a desperate desire to be seen as 'current', 'with it', 'down with the kids', and more worryingly, a desire to make money out of it for corporate means that has not been thought through properly. Trendiness in management consulting is something that is very aligned with dad dancing because it is often via an older generation out of step with a younger generation but eager to please and be accepted as thought-leaders when it isn't true. If there is money to be made a the expense of a younger generation, you can be absolutely certain someone will try it.
A classic example is the often-seen desire for a corporation to include a clock on the home page of a SharePoint intranet as it is perceived as 'useful'. One should perhaps take note that younger generations rarely wear a watch due to the fact that every gadget and mobile device tells the correct time, all the time. In another similar vein, California school children were asked why they wouldn't use the school email system, with the overwhelming response that 'email is for old people'. Yet your parent's (or boss's) mastery of writing an email is somewhat viewed as a forward step!
Why then are we witnessing so many management consulting firms, and recruitment organisations jumping on the social networking bandwagon. Well, first of all it makes these companies appear as 'current', secondly it allows them to feel they are not being left behind in an ever-changing technological age, and thirdly, someone can smell money. I remember so well in the 1970's when a thousand companies were set up to cater for the skateboard craze across the globe, and almost all of them had vanished as we hit 1980 - they came to learn the jargon, they had the money to be seen as influencers, they made their cash and then made a quick exit. Will the same happen again with social networking in corporate land - very possibly.
Okay so what do we think is really going on ? Well when we see so many untrendy, traditional corporate firms getting excited about social networking what they mean is that there is a way of making money through accessing a large pool of resources that have, to date, not been traditionally accessible to them (or more usually, avoided them). Let's take recruitment as an example. Recruiters traditionally build a database of people with skills and a CV and then match them by one means or another to job vacancies. It has been the way for decades. Rather like dating agencies really. Suddenly we see an influx of discussions regarding recruitment using social networking - in other words, when we have a lack of resources is there a way to reach and attract those we may not have found otherwise. Have you stopped to consider that these people don't want to be found?
I remember reading a website in the USA once regarding the ability to trace and locate individuals. The website asked the simple question, why not just email them or call them - and ask yourself the question, if you have to trace someone, should you really be trying to contact them at all. In simple terms, people like to manage, organise and control who they are in touch with, who they contact and specifically who they do not wish to be contacted by. Spam calls to home phones and spam email to our inboxes have been a problem for over a decade and are now on the wain. So why would anyone think it is a good idea to try and use social networking environments to, in effect, spam people who are most probably not interested in your services ?
One only has to ask an audience whether they click on pay per click search results to find that many people avoid these ads because they don't like being sold to. No one likes walking into a store to have a look around only to be pounced upon by three shopfloor assistants with targets to achieve. Do you read the junkmail pushed through your letterbox, no us neither.
So why is there an obsession in corporate land with social networking? Well because there are hundreds of millions of people who are inter-related or connected to eachother for social reasons - but maybe, just maybe you can sell them something, or recruit them, but at least make money out of them, or worse still, talk about the topic of social networking in general and charge for it. Social networks are 'socially-driven' whether it be family, love, likes, shared hobbies or egotistical requirements to be 'seen as popular'. People are connected for private and personal reasons. Do you have 1000 Facebook friends ? But whatever the reason these internet communities are not called 'business networks' for a very good reason. Social means 'not work'.
Let us relate it to SharePoint. SharePoint is a relatively small community of talent which is growing but which is still less than the number of roles available. Each recruitment firm wants to get as many SharePoint people on their books as possible (often without any vetting) so that they can place them for a fee. That's fine as that is how the model works. The issue is that recruitment is a very tough and cut-throat business and any recruitment firm wants to be the one who finds the person and places them, thus sustaining a business relationship with the corporate client (they don't care about the person being place in general). So what happens when the resource pool becomes very limited? Well the recruiters start to think of other ways of attracting talent so that they can place them elsewhere. Personally I have had two agents from the same company, one who placed me and the other trying to lure me away from that role to a different firm purely for commission ! When one has talents in short supply, one will be very careful who one chooses to work with - period.
So social networking. Yes a huge talent pool accessible in a way that was never possible before Well maybe not actually. People are now hiding their Facebook profiles, making themselves non-searchable, hiding their connections and limiting access to personal information. Why, because people are quickly discovering that they are not as in control of who can contact them as they may desire. The social networking communities have matured enough to know what they like and what they do not. Then late in the day the men in the black suits arrive banding around the term 'social networking' as if they had just discovered the largest gold mine in the world, at least five years too late.
Social networking is not new. Remember the communities on Compuserve in the mid to late 1990's and how popular they were? We all have social networks beyond the internet in our daily lives, the people who know, the people we share a beer or dinner with, the people we hook up with for social events. We have our social network - we sms them and call them up. Interestingly half of my friends don't even use an internet social network but I still talk to them and see them regularly, if not more regularly than internet 'friends'.
So why now? Well because Facebook and similar social networks are becoming entrenched in our daily lives as a means of communication, real time social communication. Linkedin is a business networking service that is increasingly becoming bastardized from its excellent origins. Looking at the Linkedin news feeds today it is increasingly resembling boys in a sales office, sharing banter and finding humour in each other's comments. That's okay but its detracting from the value of Linkedin and making it feel like a club one should either join or avoid. Do I share my business connections, do I heck for the simple reason is that it is my private business networking build over years of professional discussions and business connections that I am not going to share with any lazy recruiter out there.
Therefore, the last 18 months has seen huge amounts of corporate speak, business seminars and recruiter strategies regarding social networking - I don't remember seeing these people in Compuserve in 1996. I remember the days when a recruiter would buy me a pint or lunch and form a valuable business relationship - not any more. These days everything appears to be performed on the cheap and I cannot remember a time when I last met a recruiter face to face. One should remember that people are far from stupid and know which firms are good, which are bad to work for on reputation, how much their value is in the marketplace and where they would like to go next. Trying to enter and sell within a social networking space won't help you, if the product you are selling isn't popular.
So the next time you see a thread or advertisment in corporate land regarding social networking as yourself a simple question. Does this company actually fully understand the topic of social networking and has a long history in the subject - because if not, you may simply be witnessing your dad at a wedding trying to get to grips with some dodgy dance moves to Lady Gaga. Best avoided.
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
SharePoint Internet Websites - The Perfect Platform
Here at Salem Consulting we are often asked whether SharePoint is a good platform for publishing internet websites and the answer is certainly yes. To demonstrate this effectively take a look at this excellent website for inspiration:
http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/topwebsites.aspx
However, it isn't SharePoint that is the issue, but more to do with badly thought-through corporate websites in general. What are they there to achieve, who are the audiences, are the sites effective and have they been optimised for search engines (yes we are skilled in SEO strategy at Salem too) ? We have seen far too many badly thought-through internet facing sites (on a wide range of platforms) that simply achieve nothing and act as poor brochureware. If a company is going to design a new internet website, first ensure that the correct analysis takes place so that the website achieves the goals set from the start.
It is true that for ecommerce and webshops, SharePoint is not as yet ideally suited as things stand. However do take into account that it will only be a matter of time before we find Biztalk modules servicing these requirements, in our opinion.
If you are wanting to leverage your SharePoint assets, then incorporate your websites into your SharePoint strategy, as SharePoint is a fantastic platform to facilitate. If it's good enough for Ferrari, it is good enough for us !
http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/topwebsites.aspx
However, it isn't SharePoint that is the issue, but more to do with badly thought-through corporate websites in general. What are they there to achieve, who are the audiences, are the sites effective and have they been optimised for search engines (yes we are skilled in SEO strategy at Salem too) ? We have seen far too many badly thought-through internet facing sites (on a wide range of platforms) that simply achieve nothing and act as poor brochureware. If a company is going to design a new internet website, first ensure that the correct analysis takes place so that the website achieves the goals set from the start.
It is true that for ecommerce and webshops, SharePoint is not as yet ideally suited as things stand. However do take into account that it will only be a matter of time before we find Biztalk modules servicing these requirements, in our opinion.
If you are wanting to leverage your SharePoint assets, then incorporate your websites into your SharePoint strategy, as SharePoint is a fantastic platform to facilitate. If it's good enough for Ferrari, it is good enough for us !
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