SharePoint: Content Management vs. Collaboration

This week, I’ve been attending a gathering of Microsoft technical sales professionals.

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Blog TOCIn one presentation, I heard the following opinion (paraphrased):

“The most important pillar of SharePoint is content management.  This is the core value proposition of SharePoint.  It is what is driving sales.”

In another one, I heard:

“The most important pillar of SharePoint is social computing and collaboration.  This is what is driving its adoption.”

I think that what this means is that content without collaboration tends to be static, and doesn’t improve and disseminate as it should.  Collaboration without content doesn’t provide a vehicle for corporate/collective knowledge.  In addition, adding collaboration to content enables more effective management of the content – helps with applying policies for things like Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.   We can’t separate content and collaboration.  I think that both presenters would agree that having content management and collaboration baked into SharePoint at a core level lets us work together with fewer barriers.

In other news, Johann Granados (President of Staff DotNet) has recently started blogging.  I have known him for a number of months, and have enjoyed working with him and his team.  He has a unique perspective on the IT world - running a consulting company from Costa Rica.  I'm going to enjoy reading about his set of challenges and opportunities.  Welcome to the blogosphere, Johann!