Is SharePoint the Answer to the Social Question?
March 30, 2011
I recently read a post which opened with “Technology is about expansion.” I am sure that is on a banner somewhere, or one of those posters meant to inspire the drones. While true, the reality is even among those who are adept in all things tech, experiences like social trends are subjective. If you don’t believe this, engage two IT gurus in a conversation, slip that query in and sit down. You will likely be there for a minute.
“SharePoint: not the Social Answer” is a relevant opinion piece. The author is a former pastor at the church of SharePoint (SP); I say former because he has since converted to what he deems to be a more reliable tool. While his new ‘faith’ is a topic for another time, his experiences with SP are well worth a review. This passage clearly shows his view:
Getting users to understand and adopt social software can be hard in general, but SharePoint has so many options and options within options that users are literally scared of using it. I saw the glazed-over stare of users time and time again when they attempted to use SharePoint. Generally, users would have a specific idea in mind and would attempt to click around hoping the answer would appear. This resulted in one of two things: they would give up or the very persistent would ask IT to walk them through it.
There is a comment for this post that sums up this perspective even more succinctly:
It’s often difficult to explain what’s wrong with SharePoint, because quantitatively speaking, it has it all. It’s the immeasurable stuff that makes it suck.
I was left wondering how widespread this view of SharePoint actually is because I’ve definitely heard the opposite. Where is a good Pew poll when you need it?
Ken Toth, March 30, 2011
Freebie
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
