Friday, November 21, 2008

Nothing but folders

Another especially poigiant bit from http://www.cleverworkarounds.com/ and his series on SharePoint failure:
Prior to SharePoint, many users will have known nothing else but messy shared file systems where the only means of classification was folders and file naming conventions (that no-one ever followed anyway). Now we have many other tools at our disposal which in theory is a good thing.
But as I said, many people know nothing but folders. This has been the predominant file classification mechanism for more than 30 years. Trying to “un-learn” more than 30 years of operating fundamentally the same way is not something that will come naturally. Thinking in terms of columns, views and content types requires a deeper understanding of the divisions, disciplines, compliance and vertical market of an organisation.
Really I need to expand on this, and try to get it out to my users...

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