Learning SharePoint Again

I started this blog to post about things that I was using and learning at work, and at the time it was really focused on things in the Microsoft stack – SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, SQL, etc. However, I took a little detour a while back and left the Microsoft world for a little bit.

I went to work for a large airline and was working on rebuilding their mobile applications. The iOS app was great, the Android app was under way, and the Mobile Web experience was proving to be exceptional – I wrote much of the JSON that the apps consume. I was lucky to be a member of great teams and was part of a fully agile release and development process which I enjoyed immensely due to my project management interests (I am a PMP and PSM I). While it was really a great learning experience it wasn’t fulfilling; I found that my passions really lie in helping people in an organization do their jobs better.

That brings me to six months ago. I joined the SharePoint world again, and I’m experiencing it all with a much larger organization than when in my previous SharePoint role. I’m now the Collaboration Platforms Architect responsible for all that entails. Right now it’s SharePoint, but it will include chat, video, messaging, etc. It’s incredibly exciting to be quite honest with you. I’m working with end users daily, and getting to design solutions to meet their business needs. Naturally, as a Microsoft guy I’m learning everything that I can about what we can do with Office 365 – it’s such a vast offering and can provide so much. I’m looking at other providers and learning what I can do to facilitate better collaboration across a multi-national firm.

Six months in I feel like we are on our way towards making positive changes for our users, and I can’t wait to see what we get to try! We’re starting with a new intranet (of sorts), exploring our cloud options, utilizing search as much as possible, and working to empower our users as much as possible.

Now that things are rolling I plan to get back into this blog – I, no doubt, will be learning an incredible amount, and I will be posting those things here. Many will be trivial to some people I’m sure, but I hope that others will help some people solve problems at their own organizations. Here’s to new things.