I had the pleasure of attending Share 2012 in Atlanta, GA last week. Billed as the world’s only Microsoft SharePoint conference designed to help business users address business issues, the event brought out a crowd that was much different than typical SharePoint conferences. There were no IT pros, developers, architects, nor anyone else from IT, for that matter. It was strictly business users. I had some great conversations with attendees focused on various business topics surrounding SharePoint.
The event was packed with great speakers, including Dux Raymond Sy, Sarah Haase, Susan Hanley, Richard Harbridge, Adam Quinn, Ruven Gotz, and Ant Clay. Speakers covered a wide range of some of the most important business-related topics within the SharePoint community. Dux’s session, in particular, was one of the best keynote speeches I’ve ever seen, including an introduction by the Atlanta Falcons Drumline. That’s how you make an entrance!
I really enjoyed moderating the keynote panel on the second day, entitled Real World SharePoint Governance. Featuring panelists Sarah Haase, Susan Hanley, Richard Harbridge, and Adam Quinn, the panel explored the importance of SharePoint governance within an organization and real world scenarios experienced by the panel throughout their journeys with SharePoint.
Here are some especially salient points I took away from each panelist:
• Susan Hanley encouraged focusing on outcomes and not requirements to ensure that what is delivered will meet the business needs of the organization.
• Richard Harbridge suggested not focusing on storage growth to measure the success of SharePoint governance and instead focusing on indicators of the community health index, such as the liveliness of pages and the engagement of users across the organization.
• Adam Quinn warned of having more than three site owners due to the old “too many cooks” adage, and suggested enforcing this by requiring an internal certification be completed in order to become a site owner.
• Sarah Haase recommended focusing on “quick wins” that have clear outcomes and immediate benefits to the organization when starting a SharePoint project. She suggested using these scenarios as case studies to help encourage other business departments to adopt SharePoint.
Did you attend Share 2012? What was your favorite aspect of the event? Let me know by leaving a comment below!
