Melcrum's SharePoint course is a sell-out!

By Nishwa Ashraf, Editorial Assistant, Melcrum

It’s just under a month before Melcrum’s SharePoint for Communicators course makes its debut in London, and it seems to have captured the intrigue of many - it’s already sold out!

Around 40% of corporate intranets are now SharePoint based. And if your company is using other Microsoft technologies, then it’s likely your IT department is keen to migrate to it as a communications platform (and has probably installed it as a “trial” already). It’s no wonder SharePoint has quickly become a hot topic for Internal Communicators.

Often seen as an enabler, It can be used to host intranet sites that access shared workspace, information stores and documents, as well as host-defined applications such as wikis and blogs. Simply put, SharePoint is actually two things that Microsoft group under a single product name - a collaboration tool and a portal platform.

It all sounds very good, but SharePoint can also be a potential block for internal communicators who may not always be well versed on how it works.

Sam Marshall, Melcrum’s SharePoint course trainer and director of ClearBox Consulting, said: “Whilst there are many courses and books available on SharePoint, they have a strong bias towards people in a technology or administrator role. A successful SharePoint deployment depends on internal communicators taking a clear lead for the site strategy and content, as well as knowing what governance to have in place.

“What I mostly hear from communicators using the portal platform as the basis for their corporate intranet is that it’s ‘good enough’ for most things but doesn’t excel in any area. Certainly if you just want to publish news it’s less straightforward than a typical web content management system. In organizations where the collaboration side of SharePoint has taken off, this can create headaches for internal communications, if the right governance is not in place you can end up with hundreds of poorly made sites competing with the corporate intranet.”

This prompted Melcrum to hold four one-day courses: SharePoint for Internal Communicators (London, UK) and Intranets with Impact (Orlando, US), aimed at mid- to senior-level communicators, focusing on how SharePoint can support communication strategy for organizations, and in turn their goals.

Taking a business-led rather than technology-led approach, the course aims to cover various topics, including:

• Key components and case studies
• How to build an effective relationship with IT
• Blending corporate communications with user generated content
• The role of internal communications in governing, shaping and promoting use.

Robin Crumby, managing director of Melcrum, said: “The decision to buy SharePoint is often taken by the IT department. So internal comms teams find themselves in at the deep end tasked with populating SharePoint with news and encouraging collaboration and a sense of community without a thorough understanding of how SharePoint works. This new course will address this gap and make sure that internal communicators are equipped with the knowledge and skills to get the best out of SharePoint first time.”

We’ve still got a few places left for the 9th June 2010 course, so if you’re interested get booking.

In the meantime, what’s your stance on SharePoint?