I have a training session tomorrow morning where I have the pleasure of introducing a room of people to the concept of SharePoint. Now I know some may snicker because SharePoint has a few thorns, but I really do see the value it can bring to a company when it is introduced properly.  Especially when people know how to use the platform.

Take my friend Eric for example. Last month we were having dinner at his place. After dinner conversations drifted over to work and he mentioned his company had just given him access to a SharePoint Team Site. We had a quick chat about what he thought of it and how he was using it. I knew he had some very specific goals, so I booted up my CloudShare server and showed him a couple of tricks that might make his work easier. A few document views, a custom list and a demo around workflows.

The next Monday I got this in my facebook inbox and it made me so happy:

It are little things like these that makes me excited to introduce a whole new group of people to SharePoint. But I will admit sometimes I have a heard time summarizing what it means and tonight I stumbled across this video of author Simon Allardice for Lynda.com. It explains SharePoint in such an approachable and easy manner that I think I’ll just send people this link when they ask me what SharePoint is: