If you read nothing else about SharePoint today, I implore you to read this blog post by Michal Pisarek about the trouble with Team Site templates. His point is that out-of-the-box, Team Site templates use a goofy nomenclature for folders that leaves users without a clear understanding of what goes where. He concludes by urging people who are going to implement Team Sites to customize the nomenclature using your organization’s information architecture, to make everything clear and get everything aligned.
To me, though, the wider view is this: Poorly named folders, while seemingly a small thing, will be the No. 1 impediment to widespread adoption of SharePoint within your organization. Information workers will come to a site ready to file a document, see the folder choices, scratch their heads, curse under their breaths, and leave the site. And, perhaps, leave SharePoint for good, complaining that the software is stupid. They will lament to their managers, “Isn’t EVERY document in SharePoint a shared document?”
So, not only does providing context as to what these containers require help organizations meet their business objectives, but it will also help grease the skids, so to speak, to get their information workers to use the tool.
—David
