MVP Christian Buckley’s #MVPbuzzChat podcast is somewhat of a rite of passage for Microsoft MVPs and this week was the turn of newly-awarded MVP, our very own CEO Pat McGown.
The SharePoint veterans traded tales of the early days of Windows SharePoint Server (WSS), giving back to the community and the most exciting new developments in the knowledge management tool.
Scroll down to read an abridged version of the interview, catch the full version on the #MVPbuzzChat podcast or watch it 👇.
Christian Buckley (CB): Tell us a bit about your background and how you got involved with SharePoint.
Pat McGown (PM): I really have evolved my entire career around the SharePoint space, over 22 years, building customizations on top of SharePoint migration. I started way back in the WSS days. I even remember content management server, that’s going way back–when some of the early customizations were layering Macromedia Flash as a web part with a data service, feeding data into that.
More recently, I’ve been blogging and speaking a lot about SharePoint Premium and a lot of those new features that are coming to the market. So that’s been really fun to just dig into and peel back the layers. Having a foundational background in SharePoint, seeing how things like auto-fill columns and content assembly can really add to the efficiency for organizations, big and small.
CB: Tell us about some of your early experiences of working with SharePoint.
PM: Back in those early days, people would always say, can we make SharePoint not look like SharePoint. And that’s what was really cool way back when, with those early versions of SharePoint, getting customizations in there, having to deal with the GAC (Global Assembly Cache) and all of that stuff. Where I was working, we were doing stuff for the Federal Government, for the United States Department of Defense.
We were basically building servers that could get drop shipped in the field, in the Middle East, in war zones, that had Macromedia Flash. I built a radar map that would map hostile and friendly incidents, in red and blue on a map. That was really cool. That’s really where it started for me.
CB: How has SharePoint evolved over the years?
PM: So, it started with a site, right? And you had a document library, you had some lists, like contact lists, or the ability to customize the lists. And then it just evolved. Then the publishing platform got layered in there in about 2007 or 2010.
Then you were building intranets on top of it and you had the workflow engine in the background. It opened the door to so many more opportunities when that happened.
CB: What versions of SharePoint are you still running into?
PM: Mostly 2016 now. Then, end-of-life support for 2013. We recently did a migration from 2019 to SharePoint subscription.
While I understand the reason SharePoint subscription is still around, and people want to continue to host their SharePoint environments, you have to write a lot of code if you’re going to try and bring a migration from one of the previous versions into it.
CB: What was your path to becoming an MVP?
PM: My organization is 12 years old, and we really focused the first 10 years on setting the foundational structure of the business and bringing some apps to market.
We got in a great spot where we decided that we really wanted to shift our focus back into the community.
We started with sponsoring some events, then we spoke at a few events, we’re very much active in our local DC user group community, and I try to speak on topics that I blog about.
It was really just putting myself out there, learning from other MVPs, connecting with Microsoft product team folks in the spaces that I’m operating in, writing about my experiences. I think, if you do that, you get recognized pretty quickly if your content has substance behind it.
CB: What SharePoint features are you especially excited about?
PM: eSignature is one that I’m pretty excited about. Obviously, eSignature is not a new technology but it’s a new technology as part of SharePoint. And what I love about the conversation around eSignature is that for organizations who maybe don’t have eSignature capabilities today, but are considering it, it’s a great, cost-effective option for you.
Not only is it cost effective, two bucks per signature, I think, and you can get some free trial credits between now and next year. But if you think about the security layer and what you’re doing with tools like DocuSign and Adobe Sign, you’re taking documents that include your intellectual property, or they’re highly sensitive with financials etc, and you’re putting them out there, trusting DocuSign’s platform or Adobe’s platform to secure that.
With SharePoint’s eSignature, it’s on your platform, with all the necessary guard rails and protocols in place, so those documents never leave your tenant. That’s such an added benefit.
CB: Are there any other SharePoint features that you think are adding value?
PM: For the two billion documents per day that are getting added to Microsoft 365, what percentage is actually getting appropriate metadata applied to it? Probably not a lot. But if you take advantage of something like an auto-fill column that can do that for you, you’re only going to be enhancing your content management, information architecture and posture.
I think it’s great, and you can do so much more with it too. Because it’s a column on a library, you’ve got your list view formatting, and so now you can visualize your documents and your data sets in a whole new experience.
For more tech tips take a look at Pat’s M365 Horizons blog.
And don’t forget, as a Microsoft Gold Partner, we make it our business to provide innovative enterprise solutions for your business.
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