SharePoint crash test dummy

If you don’t already know, Microsoft have released the beta of Office 2010, which you can download and test out for yourself. As expected they have also released SharePoint 2010 beta.

 

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As you can see from the above you only have two options, both of which are SharePoint Server (i.e. the old MOSS) and not SharePoint Foundation (i.e the old WSS). Ah ha, as it turns out the beta of SharePoint Foundation 2010 is also available for download, you just gotta know where to look!

 

Now, fans of the show Mythbusters know about Buster the crash test dummy they subject to all kinds of cruel and inhuman tests in the name of science. If you don’t then you are a poorer person for it. In honour of Buster I have decided to volunteer myself as a SharePoint crash test dummy so you can see what happens when you install SharePoint in different scenarios. Are you ready? Here we go. One, two, three…

 

I downloaded SharePoint Server 2010 Beta (Enterprise CAL features) first and decided to throw it onto SBS 2008 initially. Now boys and girls don’t attempt this at home as I am a trained SharePoint Professional with far too much time on his hands. And in all seriousness, please don’t install beta enterprise software on a production server. Please!

 

The end result?

 

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A flaming wreck that kinda looks like what happens when you try and install Search Server Express 2008 on SBS 2008. The files get copied but the configuration wizard bombs. So now you know. SharePoint Server 2010 beta doesn’t install on SBS 2008 by default. NEEEEEEXT.

 

Now I wonder what happens if you instead use the SharePoint Foundation 2010 beta on SBS 2008? More details of what’s sure to be another flaming wreck on SBS 2008 soon.

Vehicles and drivers


The aim of most car manufacturers is to win a Formula One motor racing championship. Now, there is no way they can achieve this without a vehicle (let’s just consider the rest of the team part of the vehicle for the time being) and a driver. Both items are vital to achieve this aim.

If either of these components don’t work or don’t work well together then there is little chance of winning the championship. You can have a great driver and lose because of a lousy car and likewise, a fabulous car and a lousy driver. So either one could be a limiting factor.

Lets now translate this to a business. If the business is going to achieve the dreams of an owner it needs to not only have a successful driver but also a vehicle. If a business is not achieving the goals of the owner then these are the first two places you need to start looking for a solution.

Firstly ask yourself, is the driver the right person? If you are running your business, are you in fact the right person to be doing that? If you are also the person doing the customer service, accounting, marketing, etc are you the best person to do that? The less a driver has to worry about the more they can focus on getting the best performance from the vehicle. That’s why they have a team of people to help them. Someone to look after the engine, the tyres, the fuel and so on. At the speeds formula one cars travel you certainly don’t want to have a driver worrying about those things do you. Isn’t a business similar? If you’re driving it and you have lots to worry about, aren’t you are going to have trouble keeping it on track aren’t you? Can you perhaps do  better job somewhere else in the team?

Now consider the vehicle. Is the business (or occupation) you’re currently in really going to allow you to achieve what excites you? Is the business (or occupation) going to provide you with the end result you are looking for? Win the world championship if you may? Like I said before, you may be the most brilliant business person (or driver) but with a hobbled and limited business (or vehicle) you’re only going to be frustrated aren’t you?

So if the driver, and let’s assume it is you, needs to improve what can be done? You must continually work to improve your skills, your knowledge and experience. To survive the rigours of driving at such speeds one thing Formula One drivers need to be is pretty fit. That’s not something that just happens, it is not something that gets easier the older you get and it is not something you get while driving in a race. It is something that needs to worked at outside a race but ultimately helps a driver perform better. Let me ask you, in relation to your business (or position), what are you doing outside of that to improve your skills, enhance you experience and knowledge?

If, however, the vehicle is the issue what are the alternatives? You could tune it but maybe it would be better to abandon the vehicle altogether for something else that better suits the track and the driver. What’s the use of driving around in something that doesn’t work for you? It is only going to cause greater frustration and thereby impede performance and the ultimate goal even more. Ask yourself, is this the best vehicle for me to win ‘my championship’? If not, then maybe a change of vehicles is in order.

I feel there are a lot of similarities between Formula One racing and business. The teams that manage to get everything together win championship but they don’t achieve this by chance. They closely examine both the driver and vehicle all the time to determine whether they have ‘the winning combination’. If not, they don’t simply settle, they make changes because they want to WIN.

If you’re not looking to win ‘your championship’ then you’d be better off heading to the pits and retire. Let the real racers get on with their jobs.

Dumb businesses

Most businesses in this day and age are constantly looking at ways they can grow their sales and generate more revenue from new customers. In many cases this total fixation with ‘new’ sales is blinding them to collecting ‘easy pickings’, and in some cases may even be driving business away.

What do I mean? Let me give you an example from my own experience. I wanted to buy something, so I contact the business via email and obtained all the details. I tell them to send me an invoice so I can do an electronic funds transfer. Sale complete right? Nope. Firstly, there are no banking details on the invoice I received. I then troll through the lengthy email and find the account details, but guess what? They’re wrong. So now I gotta email them back and I HAVE TO ASK for the correct details. Can you see the issue?

It is almost like they are TRYING to make it hard for me to purchase from them. Wouldn’t you think that the most logical thing would be to put the transfer details on the invoice? Failing that, don’t they have a standard payment document that lists all the payment methods, including the right funds transfer details?

How many things like this are you overlooking in your business? It all comes down to building effective procedures. If you take the time to create a payment method document you can send it out every time you need to and you know it is right every time. As I have mentioned many, many times in this blog people are so happy to waste their time repeating low end tasks, duplicating information and promoting errors yet they constantly complain they are too ‘busy’. A businesses failing to conduct itself professionally, especially at the transaction moment of the sale, tells me a whole lot about how well that business generally operates. In some respects it may even warrant me taking my business elsewhere, because if they can’t do that what else aren’t they doing properly?

So rather than investing significant amounts of time constantly taking the rough road looking for new sales, have you examined your own processes to ensure that they are as efficient as possible? Have you ensured that it is as easy as possible for your existing customers (i.e. those who ALREADY pay you money) to keep giving you more money? Have you asked them whether you can make their dealings with you simpler?

Remember, what I’m saying here is making the process easier for money coming into your business not necessarily what suits you best. You want to make the whole process of getting paid as quick as possible. This means you need to look at it through the customer’s eyes, not your own. Remember the more friction there is in a process, not only the slower the process becomes but also the more heat it generates (i.e. customer frustration).

So, spend the time ensuring your gears are as oiled as possible before commencing on the great quest for more sales, because greater revenues may be just a tweak away.

I’ll bet

Many people I’ve spoken to are under the misapprehension that I’m already working with SharePoint 2010. Sorry to say that I currently have exactly the same access to the product that everyone else has. This means I’m reading the while papers and watching the video but not working with product.

 

We all know that SharePoint 2010 is due for public beta sometime in November as Steve Ballmer announced recently at the SharePoint conference. I’m willing to bet that the announce of the beta releases of SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 will be made at the upcoming Microsoft Professional Developers Conference to be held next week (17-19 November 2009).

 

As I said, I have just as much of an idea about the release as the next person but hopefully my bet will pay off and I can finally get my hands on the new SharePoint 2010 product.

You know times are changing

When Microsoft is set to release a version of Office that is free to consumers and supported by advertising. It is called Microsoft Office Starter 2010. Here’s the details from the Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering blog:

As part of Office 2010 software that will be pre-loaded by the PC manufacturers on their PCs, we’re introducing Microsoft Office Starter 2010. Office Starter 2010 is a reduced-functionality, advertising-supported version of Office 2010, available exclusively on new PCs. Office Starter 2010 will provide new PC owners with immediate exposure to the Office 2010 experience on new PCs right out of the box.

Office Starter 2010 will include Office Word Starter 2010 and Office Excel Starter 2010, with the basic functionality for creating, viewing and editing documents. Office Starter 2010 will replace Microsoft Works, offering a consistent Office user experience, such as the Ribbon, with a simple path to upgrade to a fully-featured version of Office 2010 directly from within the product.

Microsoft will soon be offering the product in beta and is asking people interested in the product to complete a quick survey as a way to nominate for the program. If you are interested then you’ll find the nomination process at:

http://survey.confirmit.com/wix5/p1059269618.aspx?type=1

This is further evidence of how much Office 2010 will be a game changer not only for Microsoft but for all those people that make living selling Microsoft Office. With the product available free on the web as well as free for download, how many existing are likely to upgrade to these products? Most, I reckon. Alternatively, how many people are going to upgrade to a paid edition? Not many, at least initially I believe. As I have said before, not only is the technology changing but also the economics. People who made their living from selling Microsoft Office are going to have to re-think their strategy as free versions of Office cannibalize existing sales. If they were smart they’d realize that there is going to be a huge potential market implementing and training customers on all versions of Office 2010 but luckily most won’t see this and will unsuccessfully continue to try and sell Office.

Why do I say luckily? Because it means more business for me as they focus on the wrong area. Sorry, as Donald Trump says – ‘It’s not personal, it’s business’.

Being busy is just an excuse

Now, I know that I’m not going to be very popular in what I’m about to say here but I truly believe it to be the case. There is a HUGE difference between being busy and being productive.

Lately, I’ve come across so many people claiming to be ‘busy’ and blaming this for having failed to get something important done. It is becoming that common now it is really starting to annoy me. Why? Because it is a total cop out I believe. The bottom line for most of these people is that ‘being busy’ is simply an excuse for not setting correct priorities. ‘Busy’ is typically a state in which people believe they need to be to achieve something, but in reality they are simply in motion without moving. They are merely creating action for action’s sake in the belief that they are being productive.

It’s human nature that there are things we like to do and things we don’t. Being productive usually means doing stuff that you don’t like doing AS WELL AS as stuff you do. Most however, fill their time with stuff they like doing but which is generally of such a low priority that they shouldn’t be doing it at all. In a word, they procrastinate. Procrastination doesn’t meaning sitting around twiddling your thumbs, it means failing to do what NEEDS TO BE DONE and you can just as easily achieve this by being ‘busy’. The issue for such people is that they do not value time appropriately. Just because you have eight hours a day ‘at work’ does that mean you have to spend that total time ‘working’? Definitely not! If I can get the same amount of productive work done in six hours, or four hours or even two hours why do I need to fill the remaining time with useless unproductive tasks? Because that’s what everyone else is doing I hear you say and therein lies the problem.

Just because everyone else is doing something doesn’t make it right does it? Being productive is about what works for YOU not what everyone else SAYS works for you! We all have exactly the same amount of time allocated to us each and everyday, yet why do the vast majority of people always seem to be ‘busy’? Stressed? Tired? Unable to do what they need to get done? Simply because they have failed to prioritize their time correctly. Maybe they’d prefer to re-read their emails than actually starting on that report or maybe they’d prefer to surf the web just a bit longer rather than actually resolving an urgent problem. Sound familiar? It should be, because this how most people operate.

Another painful truth I’ve come to understand is that YOU CAN’T DO EVERYTHING! Thus, you need to prioritize. I’ll pretty much bet that if you prioritize correctly you’ll find you’ve been doing stuff that you don’t need to do at all. There is going to stuff you like doing, but to get the more important things done you are going to have to stop doing stuff, period. If it produces a low return on your time investment its gotta go. Do you leave your money under your mattress earning no interest? Unlikely. Most people put it somewhere where it will earn the maximum return. That is called INVESTMENT. Now tell me, what is more valuable? Your time or your money? Hmmmm… you can never get more time but you can always get more money, so I’d have to say time. Wouldn’t you? So why the hell do most people do their best to not only waste their own time on low priority tasks but also allow other people to also waste their time? Unfortunately, it is generally the worst offenders who can’t even see this fact.

If you are finding that you’re constantly ‘busy’, if you find that you are constantly letting things slip because you are ‘busy’, I’d say you need to take a long hard look at your priorities. It is probably going to involve some pain but the payoff to your health and well-being is well worth it in the end. If you think I’m joshing, stop and take a look at those around you always seem to be ‘busy’. Are they actually getting stuff done? Are they simply creating motion for motions sake? Are they using the excuse of being ‘busy’ to prevent you from giving them something that actually NEEDS to be done?

So you’ve been warned. Don’t keep coming to me saying that you’re ‘busy’ because if this keeps happening I’m going to leave you being ‘busy’ and find someone who can make time for what I need and I am unlikely to return. The inability to prioritize your own time automatically tells me you are unlikely to value my time as important. Sorry, but MY TIME is important so I ain’t going to let you waste it.

SharePoint Webinar resources

The first in what will be an ongoing series of webinars presented by the CIAOPS has been completed (An Introduction to SharePoint – 091112). Some of these will be free and some will have a small cost associated with them. When they are free, like this one was, I will post the video to YouTube. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn’t allow you to post videos greater than 10 minutes in duration so I have had to break the webinar into 4 parts which you can access via the graphics below.

Introduction to SharePoint – Part 1

Introduction to SharePoint – Part 2

Introduction to SharePoint – Part 3

Introduction to SharePoint – Part 4

 

If for some reason the links don’t work simply go to my YouTube channel – http://www.youtube.com/user/directorciaops

 

If you want the complete video to download and view simply send me an email (director@ciaops.com) and I will let you know how to obtain it. Also if you have any feedback please let me know as I want to keep improving what I offer.

 

At this stage I’m think that the webinar in two weeks will focus on actually using SharePoint at a basic level. For example, uploading documents, adding meta data and so on. I’ll confirm exactly what the next webinar will be and when it will be here. In the meantime, enjoy the presentation.

Never forget

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91 years ago today the guns fell silent on the bloodshed that we refer to was World War I. As a result Australia lost almost 60,000 killed and over 150,000 wounded which represented 65% of those who embarked for war. As a percentage this is greater than other nations such as Britain and Canada whose commitment (and losses) were also significant.

 

It is not until you experience the country side in which a great many of these losses were sustained, do you appreciate how different the world is today from that time 91 years ago when simply surviving each day was a monumental feat. It is only then that you begin to contemplate what a different world it could have been if they had not gone to war, perhaps naively. Even after experiencing the horrors of war most continued to serve with distinction, which for most people today is simply unbelievable.

 

Relic of Mon St Quentin at the Australian War Memorial

 

We owe a huge debt to these people who have fought and died in all wars to protect the land and lifestyle we now simply take for granted. Of all the locations where Australians have actively participated in military actions none, for me, stands out like the battle of Mon St Quentin on the 30th of August 1918. It is here that we were awarded 8 Victoria Crosses, the highest decoration that can be bestowed on soldiers, yet ask any Australian today and is unlikely that have even heard of the action. To me, that is simply wrong. To me, this is not good enough. To me, we must never forget their sacrifices and the sacrifices of all our soldiers.

 

If you do nothing else to remember the day the guns feel silent then spend a moment and read about, in my opinion, a battle that demonstrated what courage and determination were all about. In essence, understand the remarkable achievements Australians made over 90 years ago and in doing so never let their memory fade. Never let their contribution go unrecognized and at the going down of the sun say we shall remember them.

 

For more information about the Australian Battlefields of World War One – France see my web site www.ciaops.com/guides/battle. Click on the link 1918 to view the battle of Mon St Quentin.