Does your file share look like your teenager’s bedroom?

It’s ok – I already know the answer. I find that many organizations think they are alone in this issue and that everyone else probably has their file shares in order, their compliance in check, their security locked down. That’s really not the case. Sure, minimum guidelines are probably met and you are all doing the best you can do. The reality is, many organizations ARE in their teenage years, at least in terms of the Information Technology department. Overall you’ve done pretty well – gradual upgrades and advancement in IT have likely brought along support for automated business systems, mobile devices, and remote access. We’ve focused on moving towards new phone systems, voice over IP, screen sharing and conference calling with video. Things are pretty good! However as IT shifts into maturity, we are faced with yet another challenge and it’s likely the biggest one yet. As we move into this cloud based world where mobile access is paramount, suddenly we are faced with making decisions about our content. And we have a lot of it. Content may be most commonly defined as documents but can include the storage of any kind of intellectual properly like email, wiki libraries, social conversations, intranets, newsletters, etc. You may be asking -

Does our content stay securely on-premises?

Do we need to move it to the cloud for better access?

How much of our content should we keep? How much do we archive?

I know the one question you aren’t asking. “How much do we delete?” We all keep EVERYTHING. Right? Just in case we need it, storage is cheap. That’s all well and good until a law suit comes along, when all the sudden having all of that valuable content might actually be a liability. But we’re teenagers – it’ll never happen to us….

You may also be hearing from your end users that they are starting to have trouble finding the content they need. This means they are now duplicating content because they are keeping a copy on their own personal file share, local desktop, and/or another location well known to them so that it’s readily available. This means they are doubling or even tripling the amount of storage space needed. They are also storing version 1, version 2, and version 3 of those documents multiple times. The items that you think are securely locked down may be floating as copies in unknown and less secured locations. Do you know where your confidential content is?

Governance is boring….

Like a rebellious teenager, we’ve also been avoiding that governance conversation that might help us fix this issue. The ROI is unclear. There is so much to organize and sort through. There are always other priorities to think about. Where do we even begin?

What if we told you we can make this process easy and worth your time?

Consider the fact that we do governance planning for our clients all the time and the process is the same. We ask the same questions. The results may be different, but the process to get there is pretty consistent. In fact, if you search for SharePoint governance, you’ll see there haven’t been a whole lot of updates on how to manage content in the past 5 years. From what we can find online, there are templates and guides, but you have to piece it all together. We are also seeing a gap – there isn’t enough information on how to effectively manage new technology like OneDrive, Yammer, and Videos, not to mention content specific to SharePoint Online. So why aren’t more people doing it? It’s not just boring, it’s difficult too.

Before you roll your eyes and walk away….

It doesn’t have to be difficult and boring. We are going to provide you more than just a template for you to think over and get you started. We are going to provide you additional options – including presentations and materials that you can download and use to work with your team, videos to explain the process, information on how to train your teams, and a roadmap. Yes, it all begins with a template, but it doesn’t end there.

Let us do the heavy lifting so you can go back to doing what you do. If you’re a teenager that might mean putting on your beats and taking a nap – but I have a feeling you have more important things to attend to.