Jumpstart your SharePoint Community Efforts

19 May 2012

The first ever all green SharePoint event on earth
Jumpstart Your
Community Efforts

Christian Buckley
@buckleyplanet #SPSJHB

About
Christian Buckley, Director of Product Evangelism at Axceler

• Microsoft MVP for SharePoint Server
• Most recently at Microsoft, part of the Microsoft Managed Services
team (now Office365-Dedicated) and then Advertising Operations
• Prior to Microsoft, was a senior consultant, working in the
software, supply chain, and grid technology spaces focusing on
collaboration
• Co-founded and sold a collaboration software company to Rational
Software. At another startup (E2open), helped design, build, and
deploy a
SharePoint-like collaboration platform (Collaboration
Manager), onboarding numerous high-tech manufacturing
companies, including Hitachi, Matsushita (Panasonic), and Seagate
• Co-authored „Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Creating and Implementing
Real-World Projects‟ link (MS Press, March 2012) and 3 books on
software configuration management.

• Twitter: @buckleyplanet Blog: buckleyplanet.com Email: cbuck@axceler.com

Get the Book
Available from Microsoft Press
Order your copy at http://oreil.ly/qC4loT

Tackle 10 common business problems
with proven SharePoint solutions
• Set up a help desk solution to track service requests
• Build a modest project management system
• Design a scheduling system to manage resources
• Create a site to support geographically dispersed teams
• Implement a course registration system
• Build a learning center with training classes and
resources
• Design a team blog platform to review content
• Create a process to coordinate RFP responses
• Set up a FAQ system to help users find answers quickly
• Implement a cost-effective contact management system

Axceler Overview

Improving Collaboration since 2007
Mission: To enable enterprises to simplify, optimize, and secure their
collaborative platforms
– Delivered award-winning administration and migration software
since 1994, and for SharePoint since 2007
– Over 2,000 global customers

Dramatically improve the management of SharePoint
– Innovative products that improve security, scalability, reliability, “deployability”
– Making IT more effective and efficient and lower the total cost of ownership

Focus on solving specific SharePoint problems
(Administration & Migration)
– Coach enterprises on SharePoint best practices
– Give administrators the most innovative tools available
– Anticipate customers‟ needs
– Deliver best of breed offerings
– Stay in lock step with SharePoint development and market trends

The Evangelist Role

• Product

• Partner

• Community

Email Cell Twitter Blog
cbuck@axceler.com 425.246.2823 @buckleyplanet http://buckleyplanet.com

Your Role


Why develop community?


• SharePoint is the fastest growing server product in
Microsoft history, rivaling the success of MS Office

• The SharePoint partner ecosystem fills the platform gaps,
and helps deliver solution ROI

• Many credit the SharePoint community with making
SharePoint the success that it is

• Microsoft is looking at ways they can tap into key learning
from the SharePoint community, extend it to other product areas


Why Community Development?

• Proactively drive perceptions
• Visible member of the community
• Thought leadership
• Connect to experts, partners, customers
• Microsoft relationship
• Awareness of the brand and our products


The Consumer Decision Journey

HBR 12/2010

Why Involve End Users?

• Executives
• Managers
• IT Department
• Consultants
• Partners
• The SharePoint Fairy
• End Users will determine the success
of your SharePoint deployment


Studies show that end user
participation in the design and
development of a system
dramatically increases the
chance of success


What is so hard about
developing community?


Case Study


How to
Jumpstart Community


No registration required http://bit.ly/aiYKWR

Strategy 1: Events


Strategy 1: Events

1. Start a company user group
2. Join your local/regional SPUG
3. Join your local/regional technology organizations
4. Attend or help organize a SharePoint Saturday
5. Attend or host a SharePint
6. Attend a regional conference
7. Create your own event


While at these events:
• Bring a friend, family member, co-worker
• Introduce yourself to someone new, every time
• Take notes on what worked, what you would
do differently
• Get to know the people who run them, the movers
and shakers within the community
• Help out
• Provide feedback


Feedback
Mechanisms

I find your lack of faith
in the community
disturbing…


Strategy 2: Social Media


Definitions

“Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social
interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing
techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to
transform broadcast media monologues (one-to-many) into social
media dialogues (many-to-many).

It supports the democratization of knowledge and
information, transforming people from content consumers into content
producers.”
Wikipedia.org


Cultural Battle

• Understand your corporate culture
before you try to change anything

• Explain what it is you‟re trying to do,
and get end users onboard

• In addition to executive buy in,
you need your end users to buy in

Strategy 2: Social Media

1. Create a Twitter personal profile
2. Create a Twitter company profile
3. Join a Facebook group
4. Start a Facebook group
5. Join groups on LinkedIn
6. Bookmark the MSDN/TechNet forums, create a profile
7. RSS feeds for your favorite blogs and sites
8. Use Google Analytics
9. Use Hubspot and other tracking tools
10. Utilize social bookmarking on all content


Social Media is about consistency

Blog daily activity / visits
Social media visits

Twitter follower growth Blog subscription growth


Strategy 3: Content


The Power of Content

More than any other activity, content
creation drives thought leadership, and is
the cornerstone of building community.


Strategy 3: Content

1. Create a blog
2. Read and comment on other blogs
3. Create an editorial calendar, write with intent
1. Blogs lead to
2. Articles, which lead to
3. Whitepapers and presentations, which lead to
4. Books, featured content, and other content opportunities
4. Create a metadata strategy
5. Present at a regional event or conference
6. Create content for an aggregator (Squidoo, About)
7. Write an ebook

8. Publish a newsletter
9. Host a webinar
10. Create a podcast
11. Create videos
12. Partner with other authors and experts, cross-market


Strategy 4: Take Action


Strategy 4: Take Action

1. Create a metadata strategy for your intranet
2. Create a user adoption strategy
3. Brand yourself
4. Use free press release services
5. Use free event services (Evite, Lanyard)
6. Create branded bling
7. Hire a publicist


Define Success


Measuring Success
• Have success defined up front:
o Number of end users participating
o Number of events held
o Articles written
o Views / downloads

• Make it part of your formal commitments
• Communicate your plans
o Tell people your plans
o Give people visibility as you work
o Tell people what you‟ve accomplished

The Secret to Community Success

1. Bring a friend
2. Get involved
3. Keep learning


• Christian Buckley
cbuck@axceler.com
+1 425-246-2823
@buckleyPLANET
www.buckleyPLANET.com and http://info.axceler.com

http://bit.ly/aiYKWR

Jumpstart your SharePoint Community Efforts

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Editor's Notes