Simple question, when someone who has no idea what SharePoint is, how do you explain it to them? It is so simple, but so complicated.
Do you use the 6 pillars?
Well, its like, innit, you know what I mean, its simple, innit…
One of the IT director who just had bought Office 365 called me for a meeting to discuss SharePoint. His problem was that he had 20 systems all doing something or another – why should he get the 21st system. Well there were two ways I tried to explain;
1. My past experience :
For collaboration at RM we developed a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) where parents, teachers and students can collaborate…For Publishing through how we developed the nhs.uk site… For document management, how the NHS Information Centre uses SharePoint to publish, approve and provide online search and retrieval of its publication catalogue…
I guess, some people understand more through examples.
2. Secondly, through getting them to describe their existing systems, so for instance, this IT director had eFile for document management, another system for blogging, another for CRM, another for Help Desk, another for Defect Tracking, their CMS was on SiteManager, no search facilityto search across the board, no reporting and so on… This made it easier for me as I could easily say how SharePoint can do each of these for you highlighting many added benefits on top.
In my example ‘someone’ asking the question was an IT director who saw SharePoint as just another system. However, depending on who that ‘someone’ is in another situation, the answer may be completely different. I wouldn’t even want to guess what the answer would be if that someone is another annoying recruitment consultant looking for a SharePoint consultant to do VB reports!
