The SharePoint Community: What it is, Why It's Important and Microsoft's Role

By Barb Mosher (@barbmosher) Jun 14, 2011

Depending on who you talk to, the SharePoint Community is huge and very important to Microsoft, or smaller and more tight knit, but still plays a critical role in the popularity of the SharePoint platform.

Microsoft on the SharePoint Community

A little while ago I had the opportunity to chat with Chris Johnson, Senior Technical Product Manager for SharePoint. We talked about the SharePoint Community and its importance to Microsoft. And it is important.

But while Microsoft views the SharePoint Community as an important part of its business, it does not play a key role in the community. In fact, according to Johnson, Microsoft does not force anything on the community, it let's the community do its thing because it believes the community is filled with people who are passionate and engaged because they love what they are doing — working with SharePoint. What more can you ask for from your community?

So it doesn't play a key role, but what then does Microsoft do for the SharePoint Community?

Let's back up a little here…

The Origins of the SharePoint Community

Johnson first became involved with SharePoint in 2001, back when SharePoint was just an infant. This was when Microsoft had a separate product for content management, MCMS as most know. This was where the seeds for what is now the SharePoint community were sown. And one person whose name you should know well if you are involved with SharePoint in any way — Andrew Connell — is said to be a primary driver.

Johnson says it was Andrew Connell who started the now famous SharePint — the informal social event that brings together SharePointers from all around. Have a drink and chat about SharePoint, an event style that has grown legs and occurs in a number of different groups/topics.

If you are wondering just how big the SharePoint Community is, it really depends on who you talk to and their definition of the community. Microsoft says that there are 50k engaged active users across its SharePoint Facebook (the SharePoint Facebook Group has grown from 11k to 21k since July) and Twitter accounts. Of course, you know there's overlap there, so that number is not exactly right. But is that really the SharePoint Community? These active social network users are certainly using SharePoint or work with it in some fashion and many reach out and help others, but does that mean they are part of the SharePoint Community?

Microsoft's Role in the Community

Microsoft does not play a key role in what drives the SharePoint Community. It plays a support role, typically coming in a few different flavors:

It sends its people to events to speak
It offers swag/software
It offers a number of social networks for SharePoint users to talk to others
It runs events through its social networks (eg. Facebook Live Chats)
It supports its MVP (most valuable professionals) who do tend to play a key role in the community
It offers space for SharePoint events put on by the community
It offers MSDN and technet forums for SharePoint documentation
It holds the SharePoint conference

SharePoint MVPs have a very strong relationship with Microsoft. They do tend to be some of the most vocal community members and they have no problem letting Microsoft know what's working and what's not with the SharePoint platform. MVPs also tend to have a voice in future product planning, including what features need to be in upcoming releases and what documentation needs to be beefed up to support SharePoint users.

It's also interesting to know that Microsoft does not require its employees to be involved in the community (i.e. it is not part of their job responsibilities). However, most of them are involved anyway and have built close relationships with community leaders.

Does the Community Drive the Success of SharePoint?

What came first, the community or the success of SharePoint? In other words does the SharePoint Community drive the success of SharePoint? Johnson said that Microsoft sees it an organic growth between the two. The growth of the product makes people want to be engaged.

Of course Microsoft really hit their stride with SharePoint 2010 in terms of both timing and features. The community rallied around it and supported it in ways that Microsoft really needed, as did people in the community.

So that's Microsoft's take on the SharePoint Community. It's huge, it's engaged and Microsoft supports it in any way they can, short of taking control of it.

@WonderLaura Talks Community

If you really want to understand what the SharePoint Community really is all about, you need to talk to people in it. And so I did. First to Laura Rogers (aka @WonderLaura), who first became involved with SharePoint in 2004 when the organization she worked with decided to try it out. Laura was an Exchange Server Admin. In 2005 Laura met Bill English (another well known SharePoint expert) at MindSharp training. She committed to a chapter in Bill's then upcoming book on SharePoint 2007 and took her first steps into the door of writing and speaking about SharePoint.

Laura shifted to a SharePoint Ambassador role at work, teaching people how to use and create applications with it. She admitted struggling with the organization's development team who didn't embrace SharePoint. She then started speaking at conferences and was later recruited to work with SharePoint 911 where she has been for the last two years.

When Laura defines what the SharePoint Community is, she compares it to the SQL Community. Where that community is filled with tech/IT people, the SharePoint Community has a much broader base of people. The SharePoint Community includes the techies/admins, developers, brand/visual designers and end-users. There are a lot of people in it like Laura, who develop applications using much of the out-the-box capabilities.

Laura told me that she sees the Community has really come together in the last three years thanks to social networks like Twitter where people started talking about SharePoint. Here, she says her knowledge grew exponentially.

On Microsoft's Role

Laura sees Microsoft as a good facilitator. It offers facilities, sponsorship, swag to user groups, speakers to SharePoint Saturdays, etc. She believes Microsoft helps as much as it can, but doesn't try to takeover or get in the way.

The Importance of the Community

There have always been a lot of blogs that discuss SharePoint. But Laura says that Twitter and other social media are the mesh that connects everyone together. Social media has made it more personal and people more approachable.

Can the community be improved? Laura says that one negative that stands to be improved in the community is what happens with vendors (and some consultants) who are involved. Politics tends to get in the way of events when vendors play a role, and there can be "greedy" people that shine a negative light on the community. She believes there is so much knowledge to go around and share — and business — that it doesn't make sense for vendors to be selfish.

Laura gained her MVP status this past April.

@JenniferMason Talks Community

Jennifer Mason's track to SharePoint was pretty straight. In 2003 she graduated from College. She interned with a company where she was paired with a project manager that wanted to use SharePoint to run his project. So she learned SharePoint 2001. When SharePoint 2007 was released she switched to a consulting group which was just getting started with SharePoint. In 2010, she joined SharePoint 911. Jennifer builds SharePoint solutions out-of-the-box using the tools given to solve every day problems.