Do we need to be in the game? Another feature of SharePoint 2013

Apart from the things we already know about SharePoint 2013, like the fancy new Team Site templates, the micro blogging type social functions and the widely talked about App Store. They have also incorporated some Gamification features.
They have introduced a new site template, the Community Site template. This new type of site provides a forum like experience in the SharePoint environment.
As well as the normal type of forum activities like starting and participating in discussions, the community members receive Reputation Points for posting, replying, and receiving likes and best answers.


You can receive two types of badges:

Achieved - Gained by your community participation activities
Gifted - Awarded by other community members

Each members reputation status is displayed in their personal profile.

Example of a Community site graphically showing members reputations

Another view showing Community Members reputation scores.

It remains to be seen how well this feature is embraced by those who roll out SharePoint 2013.

If you would like to know more about Gamification in the Intranet environment and also read some interesting comments from some expert Intranet professionals, check out this excellent post on Intranetizen, What do you want, a medal? Gamification on the Intranet.

Team Sites Looking Purdy in SharePoint 2013

OK, I know I have been very tardy with the blogging. No posts since September last year. I have been very busy in the last 12 months with my focus only on work but I have recently been asked when I am going to get back to the blog and here I am. Peer pressure is a very powerful influencer :)

My first post after hiatus is about SharePoint 2013. Currently SharePoint 2013 is only available for developers and I believe the plan is to release it with the next version of Office however I received some impressive screenshots of personalised Team Sites from a colleague and thought many of you may be interested in having a look. If you are use to the look of Team Sites in MOSS or SharePoint 2010 you will appreciate the difference. I know many of my users who manage their individual Team Sites will.

Sharepoint explained by Common Craft

I have always been a huge fan of Common Craft and their ability to make videos to explain new technology trend in simple and easy to understand ways.

This one is all about how Sharepont can be used in a business to make communicating and collaborating easier and more efiicient.

No need for more of my waffle. Check out the video and you will see what I mean.

People often feel overwhlemed at work and tools like Sharepoint can help
manage and organize all the messages, document and calendars in one place. This video focuses on these key points:

• How information overload keeps teams from being productive


• How Sharepoint helps to solve this problem by creating home for a team's collaboration


• How a team leader uses Sharepoint to identify team members, create a home for projects documents, calendars, etc.


• How the team can use Sharepoint to find resources that prevent them from having to reinvent the wheel

For more excellent videos visit Common Craft. You can follow them on Twitter @CommonCraft.
View the original posting for this video including full transcript here.

Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to host a presentation in our office by Michael Sampson the author of a fantastic book Seamless Teamwork. This book is an invaluable guide for business teams on how to use SharePoint effectively. The presentation focussed on the 'out of the box' functions and how to use the collaboration tools to better run projects with teams that are seldom in the same office, state or even country. There is an overwhelming number of tools and techniques available in the 2007 version of this Microsoft product that have the potential to revolutionise the way we work and run projects and I found Michaels plain English explanation of the methodology informative and easy to understand.

Throughout the presentation I could not help but think about some of the set in their ways almost luddite managers I have worked with in the past and what a daunting task it would be to persuade an entire organisation to change the way they work.

A fantastic example of people who feel they do not need to learn new technologies happened in my company about 6 years ago.

"An Executive Manager was working late one evening when only himself and another Executive were in the building. Exec number one wanted to print out a few emails so he could take them home with him ( this was well before the days when most of us had home access and PDA's). He had never had to print anything before as his EA usually performed tasks of that kind for him. Between the two company leaders neither could work out how to print the content of the screen. Then one came up with the idea that if they could drag the photocopier closer to the desk, then they could lift the PC monitor onto the copiers scanning surface and photocopy the screen. The result was a very poor quality yet still readable copy of the screens content."

Now I am sure that if someone had shown these guys how simple it is to use the print facility available within most applications they would not have had to resort to this ingenious solution. The fact remains though that neither had felt they needed to learn about the tools they had because the way they worked in the past was fine for them and they saw now reason to change.

From my past experience, persuading employees to learn new technology and embrace a new way of working is one of the most difficult facets of change management and is a challenge many of us have struggled with in the past. If anyone out there has a simple and effective solution to overcome this problem please let me know and we will put it in a box and make a fortune.

SharePoint - Tell Me The Truth

I spoke last week at the ark group's "Advancing Effective Use and Management of Intranets in the Public Sector" conference (quite the mouthful) and heard from many people in various sections of the public service. Many attendees mentioned they were going to implement SharePoint specifically for the collaboration functionality, however few seemed to have concrete ideas as to how this is to be done, why they are doing it, how it would be managed and what benefits (if any) they could expect.

My advice to anyone fostering the idea of going down the SharePoint path is to learn as much as possible from Michael Sampson. I have spent a little time with Michael as well as heard him present on SharePoint and so far have not met anyone as knowledgeable with the product, its advantages, its features as well as its flaws and limitations. Michael has no barrow to push as far as MicroSoft goes and I find his information and advise unbiased and helpful. So for anyone toying with the SharePoint solution, subscribe to Working with People You Can't Be With and purchase his excellent book Seamless Teamwork to reap the benefit of Michaels experience.