This week I decided it was time to start learning some new software, and started to shadow my team’s SharePoint guru. I’ve used SharePoint a little bit in the past, however we’re currently upgrading to the latest version (MOSS 2007), and so I thought it was a good time to get re-introduced.

SharePoint is an interesting piece of software that allows for a lot of collaboration between colleagues, teams, and companies. I’m curious to see what we can come up with, seeing as how our previous usage of the software was pretty abysmal. This time around the Implementation team is taking the time to enable features and functionality as we decide we need it, and then is taking the time to come up with some standards on SharePoint’s usage. I’m excited to see what will happen with our SharePoint strategy, as I see great things for both the company and my team specifically.

So far I’m just shadowing my colleague, watching him as he works through his day, creating wonderful pages for other teams to use. I’d like to learn how he’s able to do all the things he is, that way there will be two of us on the team that can offer this as a consulting service to the rest of the department. This ensures our longevity at the company, because we’ll be able to offer more than just writing, more than just user guides. We’re actually thinking about this more like freelancers do, trying to increase our service offering so that people will contact us for more than just writing. I’m excited to see where we can take the team in the next while, and SharePoint is just the beginning!