SPTechCon 'Defining Moments'

A couple of highlights from the morning workshops here at SPTechCon:

Todd Klindt, in his excellent admin session with Shane Young, discussed the confusing terminology Microsoft uses for SharePoint. First is the issue of a site. Is it a URL? Then you have site admins and owners, though Klindt cautioned you can't really have a site owner. He later talked about the message "Database offline." In the relational world, it means it is not accessible. In SharePoint, it means it is stopped. "It would seem Microsoft went out of its way to make things difficult," Klindt commented.
On a similar note, Dux Raymond Sy urged people to define requirements, processes and roles clearly before even getting into the SharePoint technology. "The technology's the easy part," he told those in his session. "People spend the money and say, 'Let's roll out SharePoint.' If you're not going to do the background work, don't do it." He told the story of an engagement he was on where the company wanted to use a traffic light to indicate the status of projects. The group decided that red would mean 'late.' But when Dux asked what they meant by 'late,' the bickering began.
Without clear definitions, getting the most out of SharePoint is next to impossible.
-- David