Sidney was sat in his car on the M6, for once not being frustrated that he hadn’t moved for ages despite the motorway sign in front of him saying “16 MINS TO J6” for the last hour. This time Sidney was feeling quite content after a very enjoyable morning at Edgbaston Cricket Club learning all about SharePoint. It had been so refreshing just being away from Pottersgate Paints and the tour of the ground had been very pleasant in the sunshine. The fact that the croissants even came with crispy bacon on them made everything so much better. Although, maybe having six croissants was a touch greedy on his part.
Sidney didn’t get out the office very much these days so he really had been looking forward to it. He had been the first to arrive at the SharePoint 2010 Event and had quickly filled his free carrier bag with lots of leaflets. Many of the leaflets were not even about SharePoint or part of the event. Maybe, as he had no children, taking a leaflet about joining the Junior Bears, Warwickshire Cricket Supporters Club, was slightly excessive. Sidney had put on his new white shirt that morning and it was a pity he had put so much ketchup on that third bacon croissant. At least his Pottersgate Paint tie covered some of the red stain. Clipping his name badge to his shirt pocket hid most of the rest. He had sat on the front row listening to the presentation by Action SharePoint and had been really impressed by some of the things they were demonstrating with SharePoint. It wasn’t the flashy videos they integrated into SharePoint or the way they created some pretty snazzy Management Reports, but the way they showed answers to so many problems Sidney had at Pottersgate Paints. The only one it didn’t seem to help with was how to successfully romance Hannah Harper from Accounts. The Action SharePoint chaps were great and spoke in normal non-techie language that even Sidney could understand. Yes, there was one guy who kept asking geeky questions but even then the Action SharePoint Consultant gave an answer that meant Sidney then understood what the question really was about. Many in the room had been IT Managers like Sidney and obviously faced the same challenges. They were all shown how SharePoint could manage their IT Helpdesks, how it could organise all the HR policies, how it could record safety near misses, how it could store training records and even how it could be used to setup a Car Sharing Scheme. Sidney had also been very impressed with how easily they created a satisfaction survey based on England’s World Cup performance to date. The IT Manager from Glasgow’s delight in England’s poor start at least made Sidney’s mind up that he wouldn’t be supporting Andy Murray at Wimbledon.
It had been Sidney’s intention to make notes during the presentation and he had even purchased a jotter notepad from the 24 hour Tesco on his way there. He had been too scared to ask if he could have a notepad from the Pottersgate Paints Stationary Cupboard. This was mainly because last week when he had asked for some staples Gwen Gardner had insisted on knowing what each staple would be used for. So he was ready with his Tesco notepad, but as he was already trying to balance his cup of tea and a plate with a bacon croissant on he decided that note taking was a little too challenging. SharePoint seemed very straightforward. It was very powerful yet as Action SharePoint showed it was so easy to customise. They demonstrated how you could add to dropdown lists or correct spelling mistakes. They also showed how easy it was to change the company logo on all the pages. Sidney thought that would be useful next time Percy Pottersgate decided the current logo was just the wrong shade of green.
The part the Sidney had liked most about the morning presentation, apart from the croissants, was that the men from Action SharePoint kept saying that even the free SharePoint Foundation could perform all of the tasks they demonstrated and was a good starting point for many companies. Also he had learnt that SharePoint Foundation could be installed on a laptop running Windows Enterprise so Sidney was going to try it at home. He might even be able to use it to classify his prized collection of copies of the Radio Times dating back to 1970.
The morning had been very relaxed and Sidney had been quite relieved too that they hadn’t started by going round the room having to say who they all were. Sidney never enjoyed this part as Pottersgate Paints always sounded like quite a boring place to work compared to all the other IT people. At the end of the session though, Sidney had been eating the last croissant when one of the Action SharePoint guys came up to him. He had struggled to read the company name on Sidney’s name badge which wasn’t surprising as Sidney had struggled to fit the whole of Pottersgate Paints in. He had started writing far too big and it had only been when he had reached the second ‘T’ that he had realised he would struggle to fit it all in. It was also unfortunate that the Consultant had chosen that point to ask Sidney if he had ever used SharePoint as Sidney was just digesting a piece of very crispy and by then cold bacon. After taking a very large gulp Sidney explained the problems he faced at Pottersgate Paints and how he had to make a presentation to the Board next week on how they could improve their information management.
As Sidney finally started to move on the motorway he was feeling really rather pleased with himself. It wasn’t just because he had purchased a miniature Bob Willis from the Warwickshire Club Shop, but he had also accepted the offer from the Action SharePoint blokes to demonstrate the benefits SharePoint to the Pottersgate Paints Board next Thursday. Maybe Sidney could yet be the saviour of Pottersgate Paints.
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