4 new screencast-based demos for MOSS; more hints about SharePointPedia
Personally, I believe that screencasts will quickly become the de facto way for many people to learn how to use a new piece of software like Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. In today’s fast paced, YouTube crazed world, it’s often times more efficient and almost always more effective to learn how to use a software feature by watching a short video than by reading a “how to” text article. A key aspect of my concept of the SharePointPedia is that 1) it would contain community annotations and supplementary content similar to what the MSDNwiki currently provides for the .NET Framework SDK, and 2) it would support the storage/streaming or embedding of screencasts that complement a description of a feature or a how to article.
Coincidentally, here are 4 recently posted screencasts of MOSS features, which were developed by the SharePoint User Assistance group, and there may very well be more forthcoming:
· Configure a SharePoint Server 2007 site to receive e-mail
· Deploy an administrator-approved form template
· Add a library to a Records Center site
· Enable Excel Services and data connections for a SharePoint team site
While these screencasts are extremely well done, I feel that they’re a bit too lengthy and probably too costly to produce to be able to cover the many hundreds of features in MOSS. Typically, a feature or use case centric screencast should be no longer than 2 minutes. That way, the viewer can watch it quickly and get immediately back to work. Since I continue to fall behind on publishing my Vision/Scope document for the SharePointPedia, I thought that it would be worthwhile to publish the “Recording a Screencast Demo with Camtasia Studio” whitepaper (it's here) that I had drafted a couple of months ago as supplemental guidance on how to create screencast-based content for the SharePointPedia, and since TechSmith, the makers of Camtasia Studio graciously provides free licenses to the MVPs, I want to give them a well deserved plug because the software is indeed very easy to use and quite flexible -- you can get more info here.
Many of the SharePoint MVPs are planning to create short screencasts in the coming months. In the absence of the SharePointPedia (implementation timeframe still TBD), you can use the SharePoint Community Search to find the latest SharePoint screencasts. If you’ve created a screencast, please leave a comment here with a URL that links to it. If you feel strongly about a MOSS feature that is unintuitive and urgently needs a screencast, please leave a comment about that, too.
[11/18 update: Just found a very well done screencast that provides a tour of key features in WSS 3.0.]
