Happy New Year from the SPTechReport team! David Rubinstein is on a well-deserved vacation this week.
The future looks bright for SharePoint in 2013. You have undoubtedly heard that Microsoft is describing the benefits of the forthcoming release of SharePoint 2013 using five words: Share, Organize, Discover, Build and Manage. The advances in each of these areas should make SharePoint 2013 a worthy upgrade for every shop. It’s finally time to put SharePoint 2007 to rest, and to make a retirement schedule for SharePoint 2010. (Yes, we know it might take a few years.)
Let us suggest some New Year’s Resolutions for you and your fellow SharePoint professionals. Since there are five keywords in Microsoft’s description of SharePoint 2013, we’ll offer five resolutions:
1. Reach beyond your comfort zone and explore new capabilities of your SharePoint installation. You’re not using 100% of its value, and features that initially didn’t seem valuable might now offer huge benefits to your organization.
2. Transfer knowledge to your end users. Run brown-bag sessions, internal newsletters, tips of the day, or whatever fits your culture best. The more empowered your end users, the better for everyone.
3. Customize, customize, customize. Out-of-the-box settings are often good enough, but whether you are focusing on back-end infrastructure, storage optimization or branding, you can get more mileage with more SharePoint customization.
4. Go mobile! Windows Phone 8, Android, the iPhone/iPad, even BlackBerry: SharePoint can benefit your employees both in the office and on the road. Nervous about providing mobile access? Don’t worry, you can keep your user empowered and your data safe.
5. Invest in training for SharePoint developers, admins and knowledge workers. We are busy finalizing the preparations for SPTechCon San Francisco, March 3-6. That’s only two months away; we look forward to seeing you there.
