Seven days until SharePoint 2010 makes its official debut. Despite so many having already seen so much of the new software, there is still plenty of excitement surrounding it. But hey, a launch can only mean one thing: It’s party time!!

I, for one, will be thrilled when SharePoint 2010 makes it into wide release. I’ve been covering software launches of all types for more than 10 years, and can’t recall as much hype surrounding a release as we’ve seen around SharePoint 2010. Perhaps it’s just that this is a very vocal community of users, and that it’s exciting for folks to be on board with software that’s still on an upward curve. (It’s become fashionable for folks in the community to note that they’ve been working with SharePoint since it was Site Server, or to say they began with Tahoe.)

SharePoint 2010, from all appearances, is a major improvement over MOSS 2007. But few think it’s as significant an upgrade as MOSS 2007 was over the 2003 edition. The wide release will also mark the end of speculation about migration to 2010; we’ll actually get to see how many folks move off their 2007 implementations, and how many don’t.

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The “SharePoint Shepherd” Robert Bogue reports he’s well on his way to creating the next version of his seminal book, “The SharePoint Shepherd’s Guide for End Users,” with a target release date of mid June. To make the version even better, he’s soliciting community input.

In a note, he wrote: “We’d love to hear about either the SharePoint 2007 tasks that you or the users you work with are commonly needing to remember. Or, if you’ve had time to spend with SharePoint 2010, we’d love to hear about key tasks, concepts or areas that you believe will be critical to users being able to effectively use the 2010 version of SharePoint. Any thoughts that you can share about the challenges you’ve been having with getting your users to be effective are welcome as well.”

Robert says he’ll send a complimentary copy of the 2007 book—or the 2010 book when available—to the 10 best responses. Send your input to me at drubinstein@bzmedia.com; we’ll forward them to Robert and publish the best ones here as well!

—David