I went to a 3D Design conference at Warwick University this week and the keynote speaker was Daniel Simon. This guy is the guy the 12 year-old me wanted to be when he grew up. He says about himself "Daniel Simon designs sophisticated vehicle-centered dreams for imagined futures, pasts, and sci-fi worlds". Pretentious, I know, but basically he designs cars for science fiction. This is what I used to do at the back of the class in school, doodling in my notebooks, before the teacher yelled at me for not concentrating. I love this guy.

Anyway, the reason I'm posting this is he has a number of his pictures on his website available to download as wallpapers. See here:
http://danielsimon.com/wallpapers/

Indeed. The first two departments I'm looking at implementing Sharepoint in are HR and QA. By the nature of their roles, these two managers are highly organised and already have good manual document control in place that they want to replicate in Sharepoint. Sharepoint effectively becomes the Quality Manual that we're audited on for ISO certification (do you have ISO in the US?). It's a lot of work, and I want the majority of it to be carried out by them, not me. They know more about what they're trying to achieve than I ever could.

But if you let them have control, how to do you prevent other departments demanding control of their own sites? I'm sure I'll figure it out.

I get this with onsite Exchange as well. The only way I've found is to view the properties in Outlook and look in the Internet Headers where the original alias address used is displayed. Would love know an easier way.

@scottalanmiller said:

SharePoint would definitely spiral out of control if you give end users the ability to create their own sites and stuff. Few companies do that. Most use IT as a gateway and make end users request new sites or pages through IT.

Oh, right, that's not what I was led to believe from talking with some Sharepoint consultants. I had it in mind that department managers would manage their own sites and not be a drain on IT resources.

Obviously you can still use Microsoft Office with Google, but I don't see the point. If you want to stick with Office, you're always better off using Office 365 for e-mail. Google Apps only makes financial sense if you're going "all in". Mix and matching products from Microsoft and Google doesn't really work.

@scottalanmiller said:

@Carnival-Boy said:

I'd be interested to hear about the working practices of anyone who gets anywhere near a 50GB mailbox. My biggest bugbear is probably when someone sends an Excel spreadsheet as an attachment to 20 different users, instead of just linking to it - things can quickly get out of control. Email can be the enemy of collaboration.

It is 25GB typically. And rarely do people approach it.

50GB according to Microsoft's website. My e-mail is a mess, but I'm pretty good at using Search, so not really a problem.

OK, given hosted e-mail is a no-brainer, there are 3 options:

1. Office 365
2. Google Apps for Business
3. A.N. Other

You all seem keen on 1. Anyone using, or have good/bad experiences of, Google? I'm off to spend the day at their new Soho offices next week (http://www.stylist.co.uk/life/we-love-googles-new-london-hq-designed-by-penson-studios) and would like a bit of background to the advantages and disadvantages. The main one is that Microsoft Office is very good, though that is partly just because it's what I'm familiar with. I'm not sure I'd want to give it up. My brother's company is seriously considering Google at the moment - I think they have about 500 users and several IT staff, so the savings would be pretty large potentially.

I'm about to start working my way through "Sams Teach Yourself SharePoint Foundation 2010 in 24 Hours". That's Sams Publishing, not Scott Alan Miller, sadly.

My biggest concern about Sharepoint is how to stop it getting out of control. This may not be a problem at somewhere like NTG, as you're mostly all IT guys. But in a typical SMB, IT skills are relatively low. I like order and structure and will spend a lot of time getting things right, but many other department heads are more laid back. I think it will be very easy for Sharepoint to become a sprawling, dis-organised free-for-all.

My book doesn't address this.

@scottalanmiller said:

I'm not sure what "we" think. But businesses (not IT departments) tend to think that big is better and that IT is obsoleting itself by being a stumbling block. Even if it isn't documents people need to keep a lot of communications in large businesses.

We = the collective awesomeness of Mango Lassi!

Like a lot of SMBs, we don't have an IT department, so I guess I'm reasonably well aligned with the needs and wants of "the business". We're trying to implement a "lean" culture into the organisation, so definitely think smaller is better, and sometimes we'll use IT limitations (either real or contrived) as a means of forcing through changes on those users who are less keen on working under a changing environment. That's not an ideal strategy, but it can work. I'm not saying that mailbox size matters that much either way, but I'd be interested to hear about the working practices of anyone who gets anywhere near a 50GB mailbox. My biggest bugbear is probably when someone sends an Excel spreadsheet as an attachment to 20 different users, instead of just linking to it - things can quickly get out of control. Email can be the enemy of collaboration.

If people store documents in the correct place, whether that be Sharepoint, a file server, or some other document management system, then I don't see how anyone could need a 50gb mailbox?

Also, I imagine big mailboxes will also prove a nightmare should you decide to migrate away from O365 back to on-site or to another provider. How easy is it to migrate from O365 to Google Apps, for example?

Just because you can have a big mailbox, doesn't mean you should. Or do we think good mailbox management is a thing of the past - everyone should just keep everything forever?

Good stuff. Keep everyone lean and prevent them from using Exchange as their document management system. I presume you can you restrict mailbox sizes on O365?

Why are you going for that over a traditional ultrabook? I'm still trying to work out which is best.

@JaredBusch said:

Think about it this way, if you are worth the salary they are countering with, why did they not pay you closer to that in the first place?

Because they don't know? Neither myself, my boss, our CEO or our owner really know what I'm worth. If someone offers me an extra 10 grand, I'd probably take it, but I'd be satisfied if my current employer matched it.

No-one ever gets paid what they are worth, they get paid what it takes to keep them there and to keep them relatively motivated. Sometimes, it doesn't do any harm to prove to an employer you should be paid more. I'm not sure if you guys like soccer, but Wayne Rooney just got a massive pay-rise to stay at Manchester United simply by throwing a strop and threatening to leave for a rival. He's currently as popular with his club as ever, and his threats and disloyalty were quickly forgotten.

I don't know how big a deal this is for us Europeans:
http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/cloud-services/microsoft-earns-first-european-cloud-privacy-approval-1241792

It certainly makes me feel more warm and fuzzy towards Microsoft.

@Nara said:

Usage of retention policies tends to cut down total email storage for well-established organizations.

Most companies keep too much data. There is something to be said for forcing users to destroy old e-mail.

@Hubtech said:

.you're all gonna be jealous, i'm going to a craft beer festival

Very. The only brewery I've heard of there is Sierra Nevada. You can buy bottles of their pale ale in most supermarkets here in the UK. I like it, but it's a bit pricey.

@alexntg said:

@Carnival-Boy said:

Ikea

On the plus size, in exactly half-an-hour I'll be meeting my wife and kids in the beer garden of our local pub and enjoying some real ale and sunshine.

Interesting mention of your wife and plus size in the same sentence. Are you trying to land in the doghouse?

Yikes. I meant plus side. It wasn't a Freudian slip, honestly!

Ikea

On the plus size, in exactly half-an-hour I'll be meeting my wife and kids in the beer garden of our local pub and enjoying some real ale and sunshine.

@Joyfano said:

Sometimes they just knock on our door.

That's not good!

@Condonian said:

unveiling the idea that there's a good chance that I'll have to walk out the door if the reimbursement for the work doesn't change.

I think that's a good strategy and I've used it myself in the past with some success. But generally speaking, the biggest pay rises a person gets during his career come when he move jobs, and that's what you may have to do.

I don't agree that threatening to leave is necessarily a bad idea. I've never done it myself, but have seen it work well for colleagues. I've dropped subtle hints that I'm considering leaving, and that has worked out well for me. It all depends on how you do it, and how your employer reacts - no two situations are the same. But I've found that most employers will only give big pay rises if they believe their is a real risk they will lose you, and it doesn't do any harm to help them evaluate that risk.