I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the following conversation since I started developing on the SharePoint platform something over a year ago:
Friend, Family, or Acquaintance: So Matt, what do you do?
Me: I’m a computer consultant.
Usually the conversation ends here, as most people hear "computer consultant" and either decide to never ask me about my job again or they make a mental note to call me about a printer problem. But some — either in true interest or an attempt to feign true interest — press on.
FFoA: Oh really? What kind of consulting?
Me: I work for a Microsoft partner that uses Microsoft’s products to connect people to information and people to people.
This is the second checkpoint. If their eyes aren’t glassy, I’ll press on:
Me: Have you heard of SharePoint?
FFoA: Uh, no.
This is where I have a decision to make.
I can either talk about the two versions of SharePoint — WSS and MOSS. I can talk about how it enables collaboration, business process automation, and integration with line-of-business and other third-party applications. I can talk about the power and flexibility of its search functionality and that its content management features now enable businesses to run not only their intranets on SharePoint, but their Internet sites, as well. (Take ours, for example.) And if the substantial out-of-the-box functionality isn’t an exact match, I can talk about its extensibility as an application platform.
Or I can have a fit of coughing and apologetically excuse myself. It really depends on my energy level.
If you have some development experience on SharePoint, I’d tell you that a few of the things I do include:
- Helping clients analyze their information and designing information architecture, taxonomy, and navigation strategies
- Customizing the user interface of SharePoint to support branding initiatives and presentation standards
- Developing workflows and customized forms to simplify and expedite manual business processes
- Developing web parts and other components to provide specific presentation and functionality
And you’d probably know precisely what I’m talking about.
So I’m curious: If you develop in the SharePoint space, how do you describe what you do? And more specifically, how do you describe what you do to people with little Microsoft or SharePoint context?
Last weekend, I overheard my wife describing to a friend about my job:
Friend: What does Matt do?
My wife: He works for a Microsoft partner and does programming on SharePoint and something with workflow.
I was proud of her. She did better than most.
