Hal Zucati here for SharePoint IT Pro UA.

It's Tuesday here in Atlanta and I wanted to give you a brief recap of the conversations I've had with customers here at TechEd 2011.

I talked with close to 30 people yesterday on the subjects of SharePoint, Business Intelligence, and what the word "scenario" meant to them.

SharePoint

  • "Very useful tool, instrumental in providing the features and functionality required to allow business to grow."
  • "Works better than my car, and I drive a Porsche."
  • "After we implemented SharePoint Server 2010, we saw a 50% increase in internal website traffic and a 14% decrease in internal service requests."
  • "If only it came with a comprehensive instruction book."

I pointed the last customer to our TechNet Library, which they had not seen: "Roadmap to SharePoint Server 2010 content", http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff627858.aspx

Business Intelligence

  • "What's that? Like Military Intelligence?"
  • "SQL Server 2008 R2 and Excel, what else is there?" (I actually got several variations on this response.)
  • "Microsoft has that? Really?"

I pointed the last customer to the Business Intelligence in SharePoint Server 2010 Resource Center, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee692578.aspx.

Scenario

  • The most common first response I got was a funny look -- one that appeared to represent a mixture of confusion, annoyance, and indifference.
  • "That's where you (Microsoft) try and guess what we're going to use your stuff [products] for and then tell us how to do it ..."
  • "It's what I (the customer) put together when I want to sell my boss something."
  • "I honestly have no idea, but it sounds bad."

After receiving the replies, I showed each of the people I talked to the following article, which includes an example of what we define as a scenario: "Approval Workflow: A Scenario (SharePoint Server 2010)", http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee704556.aspx

Thanks to eveyone I spoke with on Monday and to everyone reading this.

-- Hal Zucati
SharePoint IT Pro UA