by Bill Ives
October 3, 2008 at 1:36 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, SharePoint
This is part two of my four part notes from a local event sponsored by Knowledge Management Associates, “Real World Sharepoint Experiences.” Pam Conway from Compuworks spoke on “Training Approaches to Drive Sharepoint Adoption.” Pam began her session by noting that acquiring skills is only one part of training. You also need to inform users on the why they should use the tool. There is a sales component here. You also need to build connections between users so they can help each other and reassure users there is real value to the tool.
Sharepoint is an application that needs training. As Sadie mentioned in the first session, most obstacles are change management issues, new workflow, new policies, cultural change, and the shift to tighter collaboration. You need to show how current problems are solved by Sharepoint – users will feel excited if they feel their problems are being addressed. Your training plan should cover all the features of training above. It should be business role based training, not tool based training. Sharepoint provides an e-learning add-on. You can use it as a supplement to custom ILT. It is also necessary to provide documentation in the form of custom job aids, quick reference cards that are role based.
by Bill Ives
October 1, 2008 at 7:30 am · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, SharePoint
I recently attended a local event sponsored by Knowledge Management Associates, “Real World Sharepoint Experiences.” Having been through a few of these myself in the past, I wanted to see the latest thinking on what it is likely the largest platform for enterprise 2.0 in terms of users. Last year Microsoft sold over 1B$ (US) of Sharepoint. Some may argue whether Sharepoint is really enterprise 2.0 but that is their goal and they are increasingly moving in this direction.
This is the first of four posts on the event. The session was led by Sadie Van Buren of KMA, who also writes the blog, A Matter of Degree. Here is a related post from her blog, Eleven ways to make your SharePoint implementation more user-friendly. The session, Dispatches from the Front Lines, drew on 19 Sharepoint implementations that Sadie has been involved with and on feedback from these clients. They are mainly small to mid size businesses.
First – what Sharepoint is: A Swiss Army knife – best of breed solutions are available but they have a more limited range. In addition, it is a development platform – not an out of the box application. It is also securable, provides personalization, is email-enabled, and integrated with MS Office
Second – Sharepoint is not (except with work arounds) relational, transactional, anonymous (everything tagged), or Blackberry friendly. It is also not a cross-browser platform – not Firefox and Safari friendly. There is no rating ability and no granular backed up at this point.
Sadie found the frequent starting points for clients were team collaboration and intranet management. Some clients use blogs, wikis and social bookmarking because they are baked in but these tools are not a starting point. Sharepoint is seen as more effective than other tools for team collaboration but less for wikis and blogs
The main challenges for Sharepoint success are cultural: the clean up of existing files is too steep; there is not a culture of sharing (people see their work outputs as their own and not the company’s); management wants change but will not hire for it; they underestimate the need for change management, there is no governance established, unplanned demands are placed on IT, the organization strategy is not aligned with the intranet. I have seen all of the above myself. There are some technology challenges with multiple versions of hardware and software but cultural challenges are biggest.
Some success factors include: the need to obtain executive buy-in and sponsorship, the need to develop useful applications, the need to not call systems by the tool name, as well as the need to create community and provide training and support. All of these are often underestimated or overlooked.
Microsoft announced at the Enterprise 2.0 conference its integration capabilities with a number of best of breed applications by third parties such as Connectbeam and Worklight. Sadie said that in her experience clients are not asking for this best in breed integration. They do not seem ready for it. But remember these are mostly small to midsize businesses. I think the large enterprises will be the more likely drivers of this integration.
by Paula Thornton
January 10, 2008 at 8:32 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, FASTforward08, Microsoft, Search, SharePoint
While Zia offered a formal blog statement on Tuesday (re: the Microsoft offer), he did one better by talking to the blogging team directly, by phone today.
To facilitate timeliness I’m covering this in 2 parts: Part 1 is a general recap of the meeting; Part 2 covers the industry response.
From a financial perspective the Microsoft offer put a 42% premium on FAST’s stock price, but is equal to the fully diluted equity value of the company. The offer needs 90% stockholder approval, but already has board approval and support from key stockholders. As with most deals such as this, trading of the stock was suspended during negotiation. As trade resumed, Microsoft displayed their confidence by buying 10.1% of FAST’s stock base.
In a letter to customers, FAST expressed their excitement and commitment to the offer: “The acquisition not only validates FAST’s vision and long-held leadership in the search marketplace, but it also opens a new chapter in the ongoing evolution of search. We are now moving toward enabling customers to fuse cutting-edge search technologies with leading business productivity capabilities”
The Microsoft Strategy
The primary focus of the acquisition is toward bolstering SharePoint’s search capability. While the FAST team will be aligned to SharePoint development, the company will exist as a wholly-owned subsidiary. FAST will continue to service its existing markets, including sales to LINIX shops.
If you’d been paying attention (apparently I wasn’t), you’d have noted that Microsoft and FAST had already been working to bring the two technologies together. Back in July 2007 Microsoft released federated search connectors to FAST ESP.
When SharePoint is competing for corporate sales, a primary decision disqualifyer is search. The addition of the enterprise-class performance of FAST ESP gives Microsoft greater leverage in major deals for which search is an important criterion. Many are saying this fills a big hole in the SharePoint offering. This acquisition will also decrease the complexity of dealing with two different companies to obtain key enterprise workplace functions.
Technology aside, this deal will immediately increase Microsoft’s European presence. Microsoft will acquire a major research footprint in Europe and takes an increased posture as a pro-European company.
The Future
This deal reinforces FAST’s ongoing commitment to innovate the enterprise workspace. While search is part of Enterprise 2.0 it is not all of it. This deal is a critical step to put the user in control and positions Microsoft to better compete in a user-reactive market. This radically changes the search marketplace and puts the working-class in a better position to participate in the benefits of 2.0. It definitely increases the potential to ‘shorten the distance’ between the individual and critical information.
There is a lot to be decided over the next several weeks and months — no roadmap for product development has been decided. With FASTforward ’08 just a few weeks away, the conference will swell with conversations around the latest news, as it progresses (and an increased Microsoft presence will be evident). Zia reiterated a commitment to the unique experience I was appreciative of last year: the FASTforward event in Orlando will be the place to engage in deep discussions between Customer/Partner/ISV/analyst. It will be THE event to participate in truly industry-significant discourse around the future of the enterprise workspace.
Come be a part of it (or you’ll have to just read about it).
) and you shouldn’t expect to see SharePoint running on UNIX. We’re making a business decision for enterprise search and feel great about what it means for our FAST search customers.
