book review: sharepoint roadmap for collaboration

I have been recommending Michael Sampson's book Sharepoint Roadmap for Collaboration to everyone I know who is working with Sharepoint (and that's a lot of people). It's a down-to-earth, practical guide to using Sharepoint to support (rather than hinder collaboration). I prefer it to Seamless Teamwork because that book was mostly aimed at end-users of Sharepoint rather than us poor bastards collaboration experts who have to manage the overall implementation*. This second book is much more for us.

One gripe: No pictures. Not a single one. Something for the visual thinkers in the next book please Michael.

*Apparently SP 2010 will solve all the problems that have bedevilled previous releases. My advice: Trust but verify.

seamless teamwork

A couple of weeks ago, I got a copy of Michael Sampson's Seamless Teamwork. A longer review may appear elsewhere but for now, let me say it's pretty nifty and I've already recommended it to some people who are using Sharepoint for team collaboration. If you're new to managing virtual teams but not using Sharepoint then it's still worth a look. I haven't digested chapters 11 & 12 that are available on his web site but extent to which Michael has tied comon project activities and challenges (e.g. brainstorming, vision setting, team building) to Sharepoint functionality is impressive.

Some slightly critical comments:

• Lots of people loved the framing of the book in the context of the fictional project Delta. I find this device in business books really grating as the author shifts gear between a third-person description (in this case the story of Roger the project manager) and second-person directive statements ("you can do this with the wiki").
• Sharepoint's social software attributes get quite a few mentions (wikis, blogs, RSS) and yet these are still quite rudimentary compared to other offerings out there. Michael has not persuaded me to love Sharepoint yet.

Looking forward to the next book Michael.