I have added a new page containing the Top SharePoint bloggers. The list content is derived from Listly and updated by the community! Get involved, add your favorites and vote!
New Top SharePoint Books List Available
New Top SharePoint Bloggers List Available
I have added a new page containing the Top SharePoint bloggers. The list content is derived from Listly and updated by the community! Get involved, add your favorites and vote!
Speaking at ARMA Meeting, February 28th 2013
I’m starting to line-up a few speaking engagements for 2013. The first I am confirmed for is the ARMA meeting on February 28, 2013. The topic will be The value of Information Architecture and Content Taxonomies; defined, value and approach.
More information to come; as I learn it…
Hope to see you there!
SharePoint Dates Earlier Then 1900
I ran across a situation today where a client wanted to store and manage dates that were earlier then 1900. The out of box SharePoint Date/Time metadata column doesn’t allow this. Without custom coding, your only option is to store this data as a single line of text. As you could imagine, there is problems with this; including no formatting, i.e. anyone could enter anything they wish!
Fortunately, this particular customer had purchased the Bamboo Solutions Enterprise product which included their Bamboo Validator Column. This column allows you to select various data types and include a validation string. I still found I had to select the Single Line of Text data type but was able to add the following validator: “([1-9]|0[1-9]|1[012])[- /.]([1-9]|0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[- /.][0-9]{4}$”. This validator allows for any valid date.
Bamboo to the rescue!
SharePoint Saturday – Silicon Valley – 6/2/2012
I would like to thank all those who worked so hard to make the SharePoint Saturday Silicon Valley event successful. There were many great speakers, lots of vendor support and a good turn-out of “information hungry” SharePoint folks.
As promised, I have added the presentation I delivered to my library for you to download and view.
If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to leave me a comment on this post or contact me directly.
Exporting MindManager Maps to Microsoft Word
If you have ever exported your a MindManager map to Microsoft Word, you may find it to be a somewhat disappointing experience. There’s just not a lot of options for formatting, including/excluding topics, etc. Well, this has changed! There is a new MindManager add-in product on the market called OPTi-Word which provides a whole bunch of great export features.
Speaking at SharePoint Summit 2012 – Toronto
I am speaking at the SharePoint Summit 2012 (Toronto) Conference this year! I am delivering 2, 3 hour tutorials on Monday, May 14th.
Tutorial 1.3 – Architecting Information for SharePoint 2010
Regardless of the industry your organization is aligned with, if your goal is to use Microsoft SharePoint 2010 as an Intranet and/or Document Management System (DMS), you will need to architect your solution to simplify the storage and management of content, promote findability, promote the agile evolution of information use and trust. We will walk through high-level designs of site structures, data taxonomies and metadata that, when applied, will aid with each of these critical success factors. We will wrap-up this session with time for Q&A and you will leave with example Intranet implementation designs architected by Bob Mixon.
- Review of top 4 critical success factors that apply to all Intranet and Document Management Systems.
- Architecting site structures and data taxonomies that lend themselves to simplifying the storage and management of content and agile evolution of information use.
- Architecting data taxonomies and metadata for the enterprise, departments and divisions.
- Surfacing relevant search results using these techniques.
Tutorial 2.3 – Adoption of SharePoint 2010 in the Enterprise
The continued evolution and growth of your SharePoint 2010 Intranet and Document Management System (DMS) requires your user base to trust and adopt it. Simply implementing such a solution and releasing it to your organization rarely works. You will need to create and manage a strategic plan for incrementally rolling out your solution, promoting trust and adoption. In this session, we will cover techniques, strategic plans and roadmaps that promote trust and aid with adoption.
Areas we will cover include:
- Understanding what it is you are building; strategic planning and communication.
- The value of information assets.
- Improving trust and adoption of SharePoint
- Governing the implementation and use of SharePoint.
- Aligning your implementation with Corporate Strategic Initiatives.
- Education.
- The value of automating operational business process.
- Integrating Microsoft Tools and Office Applications.
- Integrating business applications.
- Integrating 3rd party tools.
I am really looking forward to delivering both of these sessions. The content comes directly from my SharePoint 2010 Architecture, Management and Design (SPMAD) course and should be great learning for all who attend. Information Architecture, Design, Governance and Adoption are still the most complex aspects of a SharePoint Intranet implementation. I hope to meet new friends and see old ones.
Looking forward to seeing you at the conference!
Steps Toward a SharePoint Reference Information Architecture – by Seth Early
Seth Early, from Early & Associates, wrote an interesting article about the purpose and use of a Reference Information Architecture. He then describes, in part, additional information architecture steps required to ultimately derive a physical SharePoint implementation model; content model, site structures and navigation elements.
One area Seth touches on this article is the need to focus on user processes first and foremost. I am currently writing quite a bit about this topic myself. For example, I often see contributor and consumer process/contextual requirements bundled in to a single list or library. There are times when this can be accomplished with success. However, more often I find this to not be the case; contributors may be pleased with the solution but consumer contextual needs are not met. Or worse, the administration of content, such as security, is too complex.
I am looking forward to reading more from Seth and having the opportunity to complete the articles I am writing about this topic.
Read Seth’s Complete Article Here – Steps Toward a SharePoint Reference Information Architecture
Thank you again Seth for more great work!
Colligo Briefcase
My friends, at Colligo, have a new product called Colligo Briefcase. It provides all the robust power, you have come to expect from Colligo products, on the iPad. Yep, you can now connect to a SharePoint site and manage all your favorite content right from your iPad.
Just a week ago, I happened to be part of a very large SharePoint PoC and was asked to demonstrate some mobile abilities. I quickly configured my iPad IPSec/VPN so I could log in to the customer portal and brought up a few sites, lists and libraries in the Safari browser. They were impressed with how quickly I could get everything configured to do this. The real eye-opener was when I then demonstrated Colligo Briefcase connected to their same environment and was able to quickly show the document preview and offline abilities.
If you have never been able to experience Colligo products, I do recommend doing so. They have a slew of products that provide true integration with SharePoint, offline abilities and preview. One of the best features of their products, for all the years I have been working with them, is; they just work! Believe it or not, that’s the best part; they just work. No complex configuration, clean user experience and it all works!
Instead of me listing all the great features of this product, I highly recommend you crack open your iPad, go to the App Store and download it. Make sure to tell my friends at Colligo I said hello too!
SFSPUG – Introduction to Information Architecture
I had the wonderful opportunity to speak at the San Francisco SharePoint User Group last night. It was held at the Mindjet office, downtown San Francisco, and we had a great group of attendees.
I started the meeting by asking where they would like to start; An Intro to IA or IA Applied to SharePoint. They chose to start with an Introduction to Information Architecture; which I thought was great. There were so many fantastic questions, I wasn’t able to get through even a small amount of the presentation. Though this is somewhat common, I hope everyone felt I was able to add value!
I appreciate the group asking me to come speak and hope they invite me back. We have a lot to talk about and discover together!
For those who are interested, I have published a PDF version of the presentation here on my blog. I don’t have all the notes in the presentation complete yet, but I hope it helps someone. Let me know your thoughts.
SPMAD – Introduction to Information Architecture