The 3 Most Common Mistakes in Office 365 and SharePoint Deployments

The 3 Most Common Mistakes in Office 365 and SharePoint Deployments

Today it’s all about the cloud, and why not? The benefits to supplying your organization with a high-quality implementation of Office 365 closely integrated with a SharePoint Intranet and Microsoft Exchange are irrefutable. Having these three powerful application environments skillfully implemented and professionally maintained by Microsoft eliminates an enormous amount of technical headaches while saving most organizations considerable cash.

What Your Training Department Doesn’t Want You To Know

What Your Training Department Doesn't Want You To Know

Still using “Instructor Led” Training? Don’t let your Board find out!

Sure, instructor led training was the standard way to train in corporate environments for the last 100 years.  Before PowerPoint, it was dry erase markers on whiteboards and before that, chalk on slate.

The issue isn’t that this model is so expensive (lost time, travel, etc, etc.) or that it’s so ineffective (90% forgotten in 30 days) but that for the best run organizations it’s been replaced by a much better system.

Over the last 5 years there has been a huge shift to a dramatically more effective and efficient model; delivering training to each desktop via video streaming through your corporate intranet.

Can Great Branding Eliminate the Need for Training?

Can Great Branding Eliminate the Need for Training?

We live in a fast-paced world today.  In fact, that’s a tremendous understatement.  Anyone involved with the SharePoint platform, or for that matter, the world of IT in general, realizes that we work in an industry that breaks a second into 1000 parts.

If Talk is Cheap, Why is Training So Expensive?

If Talk is Cheap, Why is Training So Expensive?

 Low Value Boot Camps

At this moment in time, SharePoint training typically takes the form of a 2 day off-site “boot camp” style cram session.  The effectiveness of these boot camps is disputed.  Recent surveys attempting to identify the root cause for SharePoint’s abysmal adoption rate (22%), often target poor training as being the main culprit.

Want Real Adoption? Implement SharePoint Upside Down

Want Real Adoption? Implement SharePoint Upside Down

The Routine

Most organizations implement SharePoint in the same step-by-step manner:

1. IT department buys the product and the licenses
2. Install the platform
3. Deploy a site for each department manager
4. Migrate the content of shared drives into these new sites
5. Move into “maintenance” mode.
6. Training

Also, each department manager most likely got a SharePoint ‘team site’.  They may have also received a memo about their new site, providing them with their username, password and a link to the site that they now ‘own’. Unfortunately, Managers tend have no idea what to do with their new site and it’s not their fault.

Training a Multilingual Environment in SharePoint

Training a Multilingual Environment in SharePoint

Multilingual SharePoint? Si, Oui and Já!

Multilingual SharePoint Training? Ne, Nej and Nein!

Do a Google search for “multilingual SharePoint training” and you’ll find an endless series of links providing information about how easy it is to get the SharePoint platform to adapt itself to the needs of a multilingual world.  And while that’s true, and Microsoft has done an incredible job in making SharePoint a great multilingual platform, it’s not what you were searching for. Multilingual SharePoint training is almost impossible to find.

Intranet Training: Every Cube is a Classroom

Intranet Training: Every Cube is a Classroom

 New Strategies in Intranet Training

There’s a new strategy emerging for training employees in technical intranet procedures. I’m speaking, of course, about online training and support provided as a series of brief video snips. Bite-sized training modules that are easily searchable inside your existing intranet are proving more compelling and cost-effective than the traditional intranet training model.

SharePoint Training Strategies Don’t Work

Sharepoint Training Strategies Don't Work

SharePoint’s Number One Problem is Poor Adoption

A recent IDC poll indicated that only 22% of the employee base use SharePoint on a regular basis. As if the negative ROI of this situation weren’t bad enough, another study shows that the cost of supporting SharePoint can be over $40 per person per month. According to a Osterman research study, 46% of employees say that poor training is the reason for the poor adoption.