We've been training SharePoint administrators for quite a few years now, and have had great success in fulfilling our mission of building human capability to produce positive change in organizations. However, there has been a piece missing for me and I think we might have a solution. (My clients are about to let me 
know one way or the other.)
The thing is, attending a two day SharePoint administrator course is costly in both time and money. Sure, it is time and money well spent, but only for certain people. What about the unwashed masses that don't need to know how to build sites, customize lists, add users, or change the design? In an organization of hundreds, we might train two people in all the nuances of using and administering SharePoint. And we train them well. But when these two people go back to the office and apply all their skill, creativity and cunning to build a beautiful SharePoint site, and then roll it out to their organization, how does the rest of the company know what to do with this thing called SharePoint?
You see, SharePoint is a collaboration tool, and a darn good one. If you ask you average office staffer if they have experience with a word processor, they'll say "yes, Microsoft Word". If you ask them about spreadsheets, they'll say "Excel". But if you ask them if they have used a collaboration tool, many will give you a blank stare, even if their organization is using SharePoint. Why? Because "collaboration tools", at least by that name, are relatively new in our collective unconscious. I remember 20 years ago having experience with a "word processor" was a hot job skill to have. And I would bet my boots that 5 years from now, people with SharePoint skills will be very hot indeed (actually they already are in demand, so now you know I am not a bettin' man).
So what does the organization do with this new mission critical collaboration tool that has the power to transform the way they work, how people communicate, how institutional knowledge is captured, where and when people have access to current information? Well, until now, the practice has been to train the administrators and let the users figure it out for themselves. Or ask the administrators to coach and support the new users – which is even worse because oftentimes the admins are still learning, too. And if they do have the knowledge, they seldom have the time, patience, or teaching skills required to efficiently and effectively convey the core concepts required to get people up and running and feeling good about this scary new tool.
What's more, because SharePoint is a collaboration tool or a groupware application, by definition many people are sharing it, and as we all know, it's garbage-in-garbage-out: if people aren't in agreement on who, how, and why the software is used, then the usefulness of SharePoint is greatly reduced. What could really set the people free, instead becomes another place that they have to look for stuff.
And when people resist a new technology (our natural human tendency, let me assure you) then they are less likely to use it. And when some people don't use the new SharePoint installation it is less useful to everyone. In fact the investment the organization has made in this great new tool could be all gone to waste as the SharePoint users dwindle to a few pockets of die-hards or specialty users. According to Wikipedia:
"One of the biggest hurdles in implementing groupware applications within an organization is to achieve a high level of adoption from its members. Without clear commitment from top management any groupware implementation risks to fail. ... Training is required to make people comfortable using it, otherwise they may not use it."
So this has been bothering me. My clients can't afford the SharePoint Administrator course for all their staff, nor does everyone need it. However, everyone does need some sort of training, preferably in peer groups and at a low cost.
So this Christmas, I sketched out a SharePoint End User course. This is designed to be delivered face to face or online (our eClass – no travel required, which is ideal for SharePoint, which also requires no travel!). It is also affordable, time effective, non-technical, and designed to be taken by peer groups at once.
I'm hoping this course will fill a niche that helps "everyone else" use SharePoint effectively and therefore exponentially increase the collaboration in our clients' organizations, and how well they function overall.
This "hot new course" is now posted on our website and is ready to go. Please comment here or email me (gerry@sectorlearning.com) with your thoughts, interest, or feedback.
Power to the PEOPLE!
Gerry Brimacombe