All that "branding" comes at a Price.

It was interesting this morning as I browsed the blogs and SharePoint news this morning and found an article about some of the slowest SharePoint sites out there on the net. I couldn't help but smile as I saw some of the biggest names such as Dollar General and even the U.S. Marines who have droves of SharePoint talent and developers working on their sites....... and yet there they were on a list showing them as one of the worst performing sites out there!


Well, as one of my old bosses used to say "Less is more" and all that "branding" and development comes at a cost. I can almost see their teams working almost daily on performance issues, tweaking this and that to try and get things to work like they should.


I think these guys need to refocus and get back to basics. Pretty shouldn't be at top of the list, nor should you connect and hack everything on the backend of SharePoint just because you can. If you do, you're going to pay for it down the road in the form of instability, constant support issues, upkeep, maintenance, costs, and more. Before you know it your fun loving, functional, productive SharePoint site becomes a monster you can no longer control. Sure you think you got it under control and it's all those SharePoint people you've hired that are not doing their job right or things would work better.....


just sayin.


For a look at some of the SLOWEST SharePoint sites out there, click here!

SharePoint is crack and Microsoft is the pusher?

Wow, just read this article and I thought I put things bluntly! This is just another article of many that are starting to be seen out there as the result of improper planning and governance of SharePoint installations.

SharePoint is not the end all answer to every problem you have. But it can be! The real problem is not SharePoint but those who are implementing it. It's not another development "platform", although it can be used as such. But in many cases you get what the author of this article states; a SharePoint layer on top of something you already have!

SharePoint can be as simple or as complex as you make it. That's the genuis of it. It can be used for just about any industry in the world..... but like I so often say, just because you "can" doesn't mean you "should".

After spending nearly 15 years working on the front lines with every version of SharePoint out there in both consulting and corporate environments, I'm reminded of two things:

• The novel "Great Expectations" - Or better put, "Unrealistic Expectations". When someone attempts to implement SharePoint based on the hype or wow factor and finds out after the fact that they are not getting what they expected.
• "Less is more" - Refer to #1 above, then look at this again.

For a peek at the article that spawned these thoughts, jump on over to the CMS article by clicking here.

This might be called a list of expectations..... unmet

Rich Blank posted an article over at Digital Landfill that fits a trend of eye opening information for those who have implemented SharePoint or want to implement SharePoint within their organizations. Although he titles the article "5 Myths about SharePoint as an Enterprise Social Platform", it could have also been titled "Unmet Expectations about the SharePoint platform."

Rich's article is evidence of several trends in the world of SharePoint where all the hype isn't quite working in many organizations and all too often after someone sells SharePoint to an organization [this can be internal or external, and doesn't necessarily mean "sold" as much as gaining "buy in"], several expectations are not met as your implementation nears completion or in many cases spins the IT wheels and people start asking questions such as "I thought I was going to get this......" or "this isn't going to be as easy or cheap as we thought it would be." 

In the end, all the hype ends up doing is make an organization question if SharePoint is really for them, or if they fall into the money pit [hardware, software, resources, support] trying to meet expectations they find some things like Rich writes about that are nothing more than "myths" born of the "hype" from individuals who were either selling the product [consultants or someone pushing a SharePoint Enterprise license], or went to a seminar or read an article and were "wowed" about what SharePoint can do.

To avoid the money pit that SharePoint can become it's very important to follow a couple simple guidelines;

• Plan, plan and plan more! - It can't be said enough that SharePoint is not like other software implementations. It is something that needs a lot of proper planning by individuals who have experience with SharePoint and know the roadblocks and pitfalls. Without a good roadmap, your SharePoint implementation will at best fail to meet many expectations and at worst, fail completely.
• Use a SharePoint Professional! - Don't expect to meet your SharePoint implementation goals if you're not working with someone who has several years experience with SharePoint. I don't mean developers who view SharePoint as just another "project". SharePoint has the potential to touch every area of your business and streamline many business processes. The goal is to make everyone's jobs easier, not create another software platform IT has to support. Don't scrimp on SharePoint experience thinking sending someone to get a SharePoint certification will do the trick. Trust me, if you haven't been using SharePoint for several years, you haven't seen the best and the worst of it. There are things you can't be taught in class. Nothing beats EXPERIENCE.
• Governance. This should be part of your planning. Set-up some very good rules for your SharePoint deployment. Map out appearance and content requirements, define user groups [and don't for Pete's sake make everyone an Administrator!!], even write a policy if need be. And don't think you can deploy SharePoint and not have a SharePoint Administrator. You need to set rules for content and permissions AND have someone to guard the gate and support the thing.
• Don't believe all the hype. I don't care if Bill Gates told you SharePoint can do this or that. Don't jump headfirst into a SharePoint project wanting it to be another development platform you connect databases to and end up having half your IT team supporting it because performance sucks. Yes, SharePoint can do many things BUT you need to start simple, get people to use it, and have a plan [I said that word again didn't I?] mapped out for what the expectations are and what it will take to get there. SharePoint was developed to be flexible for use in many business environments.  It can be used in retail business, for intranets and more. But at each step you need to ask the "5 W's"
• Why do we need this?
• What will it take to get it done [please be realistic]?
• When can it be done?
• Where will it reside?
• Who is going to do it and more importantly, "who" will support it? 

For a look at Rich's excellent article on the "5 Myths about SharePoint as an Enterprise Social Platform", here's a direct link:

http://www.digitallandfill.org/2011/11/5-myths-about-sharepoint-as-an-enterprise-social-platform.html