It's been a while, because of a small vacation and a lot of projects I've been working on. After clearing some deadlines, I've some space to keep on blogging. And the first thing I would like to talk about is the principle of "monkey see, monkey sharepoints".
Training
Daniel was fortunate enough to facilitate a SharePoint Crash Course for my department. 2 days filled with sharing the knowledge with beginners. I had the pleasure of having 2 clear days in my calendar, just for experimenting with SharePoint functionalities and designing without the distractions of my phone, pda, email, meetings, etc. Furthermore I took a seat in the back of the class so I could check out the reactions of my colleagues.
As the training went on and on, little light bulbs started to form over the different heads across the room. And they grew bigger while they were working and speaking together about all the possibilities they were discovering. It was especially fantastic to see that the "old-school" elderly, who are true Blackboard fans, were diverted from the dark side, back to the light. The frowns about SharePoint changed into big smiles!
Experience
And that is the power of SharePoint. Yes, everybody can work with it. Yes, everyone can create functional team sites within minutes. And yes, we could talk about all the different possibilities the system gives us. BUT the real power lies in the experience users have. Not until they have seen the product in action and afterwards have the ability to work on their own in a controlled environment, that the true power shows itself. From that moment the snowball effect starts and users can't let their team site go and have their imagination run wild.
SEEING the possibilities is BELIEVING in the software and results in TRYING to translate their creativity into actual functionality.
WARNING
A word to the wise. Training can create the kind of buzz among the staff/users as I described above. You do need to meet some conditions.
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no distractions during day(s)
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enthusiastic & knowledgeable trainer
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time
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switch often between theory, practice and discussion
Professional training is great, but there is nothing worse than wasting my time. ;-)