Find your SharePoint power users. They can make your SharePoint implementation a continued success. They know how to create most of the lists, views, columns and so on that you are being asked about by so many people. They also know where and how to find answers to the questions that are new to them. Trust me, there’s nobody on the planet who knows the answer to every SharePoint question out there. Every day, somewhere in the many, many organizations using SharePoint there’s a new, creative thought about how to use it. Every day there’s a new question for the SharePoint community, one nobody has considered.
This reminds me of a poster that used to hang in Microsoft’s offices on 111 West Wacker Drive in Chicago a while back. Their offices have moved to a new location recently and I think the poster was actually replaced before they moved. Either way, I haven’t seen it in a while. It was one of the best business posters I have seen anywhere; created around the tag, Where do you want to go today?, it was very, very good. I liked it so much I took a picture of it, albeit a poor one. It’s much easier on your eyes if I just reproduce here the relevant portion of the poster.
Why is our company tag line a question?
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In part, it’s a question because we really want to know. We don’t have all the answers. We just make software and then we watch you use it. And we’ve noticed you tend to do some pretty amazing things, some things we never would have imagined. We do our best work trying to keep up with your imagination.
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(emphasis mine)
One way to continue to drive the success of your SharePoint implementation is to find your SharePoint power users. They are doing things you never would have imagined or thought about when you first planned it. Once you find them increase their visibility and elevate their status with the organization.
How do you find them? Contests are often the best way to surface creative ideas and their originators. They are also great ways to find solutions to very challenging, even complex, problems, at leat that’s what history and the future suggest. (Orteig Prize, Kremer Prize, One of the many X Prizes)
How do you increase their visibility and status in your organization? You know the answer to that question better than I but would suggest that you use SharePoint as one of the vehicles to do so.
Just know that right now someplace in your organization it’s very likely that someone is doing "some pretty amazing things, some things you never would have imagined" with SharePoint. Find them.
