Originally posted at nothingbutsharepoint.com

Can you think of some services or gadgets that changed your perception about the future of technology?

I don’t think the Web is dead but I think it is evolving to its next persona. This article from Wired magazine made me believe that I’m not alone: The Web is Dead.

Do you know why having browser based applications is better than desktop applications? (for users)

I like Google docs and some of its functionality but I would use it more often if I had a client application for my multiple devices. Is it that Google and others are trying to keep us on the browser?

The trend: Less usage of Web browsers. Google business model will probably be adjusted.

Have you detected the same problems I found on the App Stores?

I personally don’t like to buy the same app for each one of my different devices. If I buy a game for iPod I would like to have it automatically for iPad and for Mac. In some cases the same app for iPhone works on the iPad. But none of them work on the Mac.

The trend: Multi platform applications integrated with App Stores. I buy an app for iPhone and I can use it on my other devices.

Is 2011 the Netflix year?

Being a faithful user of an Apple TV I can say that Netflix is an amazing service. The Christmas blizzard got me and my family on the way to Washington DC and we decided to stay in the closest hotel. We spent 2 nights there and having all the surroundings covered with snow, we had no way to use our time creatively. When I opened the Netfilx app on my iPad I was surprised to see that I had the option to continue watching Battle Star Galactica exactly where I left it a few days ago. Netflix is like the Kindle reader but for videos!

I think 2011 is the year for Netflix and their competitors.

The trend: Synchronization between devices, I start with one device and I finish in other.

Is social networking mature?

I think social networking is just starting. I can’t see a business social networking site that achieves success; LinkedIn is a network of professionals I would not say it is focused on improving businesses. Looks to me like the non for profit organizations are a perfect fit for social networking and I’m sure many will jump on board.

The trend: More social networks will appear and will integrate. Each one will have a different focus: Facebook on the individual, Twitter on the message, Kiva on the entrepreneur. Some others could focus on the business opportunity, the field of expertise, etc.

Is Microsoft too late and old?

I think no one is too late for innovation. Windows 7 returned trust to Microsoft and Windows Phone 7 announced that Apple is not the only one that can do “one more thing”. I believe 2011 will not be the year when Microsoft beats Google or Apple but I think it is the year when they integrate their software, services and hardware. Microsoft is not old, it is experienced.

The trend: A cautious Microsoft will be preparing for 2012 with well integrated services: music, video, apps, Office, Windows, Mac OS, cloud based storage.

Can SharePoint really be used for public facing applications?

Even though SharePoint is known for its great use inside organizations I believe we will soon see a real increase of its use not only for public facing Web sites but for developing multi platform applications.

SP is more powerful than ever and it is supported by one of the most diverse and active communities.

And, who said that Apps are only for public use? I’m sure that SP could be a great platform for developing corporate App Stores.

The trend: The SP community will gain more experience using SP for solving “non-traditional” requirements. The global trends outside of the LAN will definitively influence corporate IT Pros.

I left out the following:

Android, because even though many love it, I think it’s a messy OS.

WebOS (Palm/HP), because we don’t know how it is after HP’s.

Gadgets and services I like and I think will be very important this year:

• Tweetdeck, and Adobe Air application as is the NYTimes Reader. Client applications that feed themselves from the Cloud.
• Netflix, works everywhere with great quality and speed. Even though they still don’t have important movies for streaming.
• iPad, it is indeed a revolutionary product. Will Palm offer some serious competition?
• Kindle, small and powerful device. I do not need color for reading novels. For colorful viewing the Kindle app would do it great. What is next for Kindle? I can’t figure it out.
• Windows Phone 7, is promising. I hope Microsoft is taking it seriously and a tablet device would come with it instead of Windows 7.

The customer is always right. Therefore I must think that for some customers a Web site is a source of problems.

I’m having a customer that is willing to change their hosting provider to another one that uses very old technology and holds a lot of security issues. What’s the rationale? 

That hosting provider doesn’t offer any authentication method, is static HTML and is inexpensive. That means that less interactivity with the customer’s employees equals less possible problems. And of course less time lost, less training, etc.

That would go against most of my believes, but in this case I’m not the customer!

If my customer is right then I must try to understand how to better listen to his/her needs. My conclusions are:

1. For some, the Web is an online brochure. In that case should be inexpensive to have and should look good.
2. For some, the priority is not to use the best out of the technology. It is important to “be there”.
3. Having a customer that doesn’t need to have a great interactive Web site is not bad. Actually can be very profitable to keep static pages with less related expenses like licensing, maintenance, support, infrastructure.

The paradigm to break is:

I want to offer my customers the best service I can provide. That includes my experience and my believes of what is better for them.

Providing the better service for my customer is to understand what they need, even if they don’t know how to express it.

It is not a philosophical competition on who is right. I should not even try to convince the customer that what I’m offering is better if they can’t understand or agree with what it would take for them to run my advise successfully.

A Scenario with negative outcome:

• I convince the customer to use a great CMS.
• The customer doesn’t place a process for editorial work.
• The site even powered by the CMS looks static on the Web.
• Conclusion: The CMS was expensive and the results the same as a non editable Web site.

In order to understand what is the most important for my customer’s Web sites I will ask:

1. Dou you have someone responsible for the Web site maintenance?
2. Are you thinking to integrate your new Web site with existing offline processes?
3. Do you have some concrete and specific result you expect from your site? If yes, is it aligned with your organizational vision?

It’s better to show what you know by letting your customer decide what is good for them while using your knowledge and principles to make that decision worthwhile. 

Image: Creative Commons - Josef Stuefer

Imagine building a SharePoint Site for managing a book collection. You would need that Site to store information about: books, authors, publishers, storage locations and meta data (search criteria).

After you finish designing the Site you will start using it and of course you will discover things to improve. SharePoint will make it easy to implement changes.

Now that your Site is a success you see that someone needs to manage a collection of software CDs. You would think that they could use your book collection Site as a sample. Sure, that would be good.

SharePoint offers a better alternative. It lets you save your Site as a template so other could reproduce exact copies in few seconds. Now your company could start using your Site Template as a base for organizing books, documents, CDs, equipment and many other things. That is productive and effective.

SharePoint will transform your Site in one file with extension “.stp”. That means that your site template can be named: collections_site.stp

An additional benefit of working with templates is that they can be deployed in any SharePoint environment easily. That means that you could share or sell the template to others that use the same version of SharePoint you use.

For complex sites there are some considerations. Feel free to contact me if you need some support.