SharePoint Strategies for setting up a Complimentary Collaboration for your community.

MICROSOFT OFFICE SHAREPOINT 

• Communicate
• Collaborate
• Accelerate Change
• Automate Review/Approvals 
• Calendar and Schedule Events
• Share News,  Links, Documents

DESIGN:  Start with some basic ideas however, and try to keep it simple enough to grow over time. There are inherent challenges to "Field of Dreams" SharePoint.  Put simply, "if you build it, they will come, look for the data, share the data, maybe create some folders, but if they cant find it, they will go."

• The problem is not too much documents in Sharepoint for the most part, its how and where we try to put them.. at first its easy to see.. then over time and use, complexity grows.  We  LOVE folders, and we feel better to have our stuff tucked neatly into a folder, but can we, or others find it when we need it?  Over time, your folder strategy and others folder strategy, it just doesn't match. 
• Then it compounds.. Suddenly your folders need folders, and the nested, nested, nested URL gets so long that it can no longer be shared because there are file limitations to how long your url character name can be. 
• Structure your big site rules and governance. 

ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL. Human nature as it is, we see technology and want the flexibility to use and label, define and evolve it as we see fit. The technology lets us, but over time and use, some of the earlier definitions we established get too complex, its too hard to find something, people don't use it because they can not depend upon the site to answer their needs.

BIG PICTURE: When deploying a SharePoint Site, building it for collaboration is goal one. So the site must be reasonably easy to share, find, exchange, and manage the workflow of data.

BEST PRACTICES: What examples do we have of the BEST solution for this feature? Keep a community of business process problem solving ideas. We have a business problem that involves the exchange of data, that needs some tracking, workflow, and notification, for example. How have you handled this? Do you produce metrics?

TIPS: 

• SharePoint Design Gotcha's --Page elements to check --  great sharing by Heather Solomon. 
• Content Types can Make Life Easier With Sharepoint 
• Metadata:  Its Data About Data-- understanding its structure can improve user experience
• Basic Content Types and Site Columns 
• SharePoint Productivity: Using Explorer versus DataSheet Views

WHAT ARE YOUR BEST PRACTICE IDEAS?  What features have you used in SharePoint for business advantage?