Overview of SharePoint capabilities

The capabilities of Office SharePoint Server 2007 are focused in six areas:
• Collaboration
• Portals and personalization
• Search
• Enterprise Content Management
• Business processes and forms
• Business intelligence

Collaboration
You can use a SharePoint site to share information and get your work done more efficiently. A SharePoint site offers workspaces and tools that your team can use to track projects, coordinate schedules, and collaboratively create and edit documents.

Improve team productivity by using a SharePoint site
You can use a site to store routine information for a single department or short-term information for a special project that spans several departments. By using a collaborative workspace such as a team site, your team can become more efficient and more productive.

Manage projects more efficiently
You can use a site to manage projects and coordinate tasks and deadlines among team members. The Project Tasks list template includes a Gantt chart view where you can see task relationships and project status. Your team can coordinate their work with shared calendars, alerts, and notifications. You can also connect a calendar on your SharePoint site to your calendar in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, where you can view and update it just as you do your personal calendar.

Create, review, and publish documents
Groups of people can create, review, and edit documents collaboratively on a SharePoint site. You can use document libraries to store and manage important documents, or use Document Workspace sites to coordinate the development of specific documents. Slide Libraries are a great place to share and reuse Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 slides in a central location. You can take document libraries offline in Office Outlook 2007 to enable people to view and edit documents while they are not connected to the network.

Capture and share community knowledge
You can use a team site to capture and share collective team knowledge or important information. Teams can create and capture community knowledge or document internal processes in a wiki. You can use surveys or discussions to gather information or encourage dialog, and then share your findings in a blog. Team members can use alerts or Really Simple Syndication (RSS) to track updates to your sites.

Portals and personalization
You can use portal sites to work collaboratively and access the people, information, and business applications that you need to do your job. Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes features that organizations can use to personalize the portal site for individuals or groups of users

Search
You can use search on a SharePoint site to help you find information, files, Web sites, and people. For more information about using search, click the following links.

Enterprise Content Management
Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides powerful Enterprise Content Management (ECM) features for creating, managing, and storing content throughout an enterprise. You can use workflows (workflow: The automated movement of documents or items through a specific sequence of actions or tasks related to a business process. Workflows can be used to consistently manage common business processes, such as document approval or review.) to help manage the process of creating, reviewing, publishing, and even managing the content that your organization creates.

Document management
Document management capabilities can help you consolidate content from multiple locations into a Document Center, which is a centrally managed repository that has consistent categorization.

Records management
Integrated records management capabilities can help you store and protect business records in their final state.

Web content management
Web content management capabilities enable people to publish Web content with an easy-to-use content authoring tool and a built-in approval process.

Business process and forms
Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides many features that can help you integrate and streamline your business processes. You can create browser-based forms and gather data from organizations that do not use Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007. Workflows can streamline the cost of coordinating common business processes, such as project approval or document review, by managing and tracking the tasks involved with those processes

Business intelligence
Business intelligence is the process of aggregating, storing, analyzing, and reporting on business data to support informed business decisions. Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides a number of tools that can help you extract data from a variety of sources and present that data in ways that facilitate analysis and decision making.

SharePoint is the next thing you need

Twenty years ago most of us did not use word processing or spreadsheets. Today it is compulsory for all of us to be computer literate and probably be a super user with documents and spreadsheets.

WELL, the next thing we must be able to is to collaborate with one another. A SharePoint Web site allows you to easily collaborate with colleagues from across the hall and around the world. The ability to create knowledge bases, online surveys, discussion boards, and chats can help produce, organize, and distribute project information.

What is SharePoint

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help improve organizational effectiveness by providing comprehensive content management and enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across boundaries for better business insight. Additionally, this collaboration and content management server provides IT professionals and developers with the platform and tools they need for server administration, application extensibility, and interoperability.

There are three levels of users, namely:
1. End users / Site Administrators
2. System Administrators / Architects
3. Developers / Architects

In September and October I am focussing on SharePoint for all three levels of users.

In my next blog I highlight some of the areas of work in SharePoint.

White and Black Economic Empowerment

Namibia has gone through various political changes over the past two centuries. One thing however is always constant. Once the political change occurs, there is a realisation that political independence means very little without economic ownership change. When the English ruled over Southern Africa they had the economic might. The Afrikaner took over and had to create state institutions such as the “Eerste Nasionale Ontwikkelings Korporasie” (ENOK or First National Development Corporation) to allow Afrikaner businessmen to get a share of the economic pie. The also created other institutions that should be supported by their people to become as powerful as the English ones, for example banks and insurance companies (Sanlam, Santam, etc.).

In much the same way, the black people of Namibia need to become participants in the economy. The first efforts were made in the early 1990’s to unite the two chambers of commerce, namely the Windhoek CCI and Windhoek Business Chamber. This resulted in the Namibia National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the predecessor of the present NCCI.

This was one of the most challenging times in my working life. The mistrust of decades had to be plastered over for the sake of the country and our newly created democracy. We succeeded.

BUT, we only plastered over the problem. The black majority is still not participating in the meaningful way promised by the politicians. Or for that matter, the way the previous English and Afrikaner political movements allowed their voters to prosper.

Loving a prostitute

For a period of two years I lived in Ausspannplatz close to the police headquarters. This area was previously the place travellers would stop and leave their wagons before entering Windhoek. (“Aus spann” means to let the cattle free to graze.) There is a small park and two traffic circles in the area. This is the downtown of the city.

As in most cities and towns around the world, the downtown has become a night life area filled with bars and casinos. Of course, where there is money and alcohol, there are also prostitutes and drugs.

When my forefathers (the Plaatjies family) came to Windhoek, they had a business in the area – opposite where the Ministry of Transport and Works is today. Not surprisingly, I found some of the people still remember my family in the area.

But it is the night life that was the most interesting. The area starts to come alive with the “night people starting around 16H00. The first “ladies” start appearing as their customers pass by before heading to their respective homes. Alcohol is being bought for the night ahead as it is cheaper from the bottle store than at the bar. The men in the area are either “boyfriends”, (who share the income with their girlfriends), drug peddlers – mostly marijuana, or petty thieves.

I have spent many an interesting evening with the people of the area and have never felt threatened by anyone. However, life and death are ever present. This can be through knife fights, being shot by the robbery victim or police, or while asleep on the railway lines.

During this period I met a young lady who was living in the area and we became more than just friends. I later moved to another part of Windhoek and she moved with me. However, this part of town and the people in the area were too part of her life. We later broke up and she returned to spending her day and nights in Ausspannplatz. Unfortunately, she became sick and as it was untreated it led to pneumonia. She passed away three days after being admitted to the hospital.

Elmarie Motswana was only 24 years old.

Her story began when she was 13 years old. Her mother and stepfather worked as labourers on a commercial farm close to Mariental. She became pregnant and had a baby boy at this age. Barely literate and with no hope, she moved to Windhoek to get another chance at schooling. Within a few months the lights of the city had bedazzled her and she went missing from her family’s house.

She created a new history for herself and over the next ten years she became Elmarie Motswana. She had played soccer at school and had gone with the school team to Brazil. Her mother was a rich lady from Katutura, but she hardly went home because her stepfather did not like her. And so it went on with each passing year and less and less of the true Elmarie stayed behind. Only after her passing, was I able to piece together some of her past.

Bring back forced labour

Crime is a problem. It stretches from petty theft of cellular phones to murdering your own wife. Sometimes it seems as if our Independence has given us freedoms because the punishments have been taken away. The punishments done away with include corporal punishment in schools, the death penalty, and forced labour amongst prisoners. More importantly the shame that went with the crime is no longer there.

Bring back forced labour, the Namibian Constitution Article 9(3)(a) allows for forced labour “required in consequence of a sentence or order of a Court”. Allow the prisoner to reimburse the victim and society for the wrongs they have committed.

Effective combating of crime

As quoted from Commission of Enquiry headed by Justice Brian O’Linn

“Most Namibians agree that the administration of justice has fallen into disrepute and that the main causes are, inter alia:

The laws, interpretation of the laws and application of the Constitution: the emphasis on rights without any emphasis on responsibilities; on the rights of the accused and convicted persons, but not the rights of the victims and law-abiding citizens; the unacceptable high rate of criminality and unacceptable low rate of literacy in the official language in the Namibian Police Force; generally the lack of a culture of professionalism, which includes pride in the profession, dedication and motivation; failure to put in place a culture of merit and non-discrimination in the place of racist criteria; the inexperience, lack of the necessary qualifications and/or training incompetence, physical fitness; insufficient equipment, vehicles and remuneration; the failure to incorporate magistrates into the judiciary in regard to appointment, control, professionalism and ethics; the inexperience and inadequate qualifications and training of some prosecutors and even some magistrates; insufficient courts and personnel to do the job; lack of proper organisation; the delaying tactics of legal practitioners for the defence; the increase in crime levels due to many different causes and problems – some of which are insoluble; lack of the necessary consistent leadership by many leading persons and institutions; outright abuse of power and corruption by too many of those in positions of power, trust and leadership; undermining of the rule of law; abuse of power and the consequent development of a culture of dishonesty, lawlessness, criminality and despondency.

… Policemen should be appointed and promoted on the basis of education, ability, experience, expertise, performance, character, integrity and motivation.”


“… there is a widespread misinterpretation that freedom means license to do whatever one likes without responsibility for these actions or the consequences. This interpretation extends to the misuse, vandalism and theft of public property and private property alike.”

“Successful arrest and conviction must operate as a deterrent and the State should, within the limits of its undoubtedly constrained resources, seek to deter serious crime by adequate remuneration for the police force; by incentives to improve their training and skill; by augmenting their numbers in key areas; and by facilitating their legitimacy in the perception of the communities in which they work”

Recommendations include making a highly qualified and professional group of security officers more effective in supplementing police inadequacies regarding the preparing of the statements of complaints and witnesses in criminal cases in which they become involved in the course of their professional duties.

Loss of respect for the elderly

We are all going to grow old!

"Older people are the custodians of our traditions, our heritage and our cultures. They reflect our past and are the mirrors of our future. They have the right to a healthy, productive life, to live in a caring environment and to be treated with respect." - South African Minister of Social Development at the United Nations Second World Assembly on Ageing in Madrid.

As human beings were are the only conscious animal that is aware that one day our own existence will end. This is scary and many of us prefer to ignore this through denial and repression. However, we only know this because we have a memory of those who have passed before us.

Our memories are not only there to remind us of the bad things (such as death), but also plays an important role in our development and survival. In the wild, it is the old, wily Kudu who lives the longest because he has learnt from experience and retains the memories.

In all cultures, the history of a tribe, as well as the memories of past calamities was preserved only in the minds of the old people. Thus it was important before the written word, for all cultures to remember and pass on the knowledge of life saving information. The young thus stayed with in close proximity to their elders, and made effort to look after them in their old age. This is also one of the important foundations in worship of the forefathers.

Earlier than in other cultures, Europeans memories have been passed on to the next through the written word. This has been an important reason for their world dominance. The less reliance needed on the old, led in turn to smaller family units and inevitably accumulation of power and wealth in the hands of the few. It also led to younger family members being able to hold their elders to account for their past actions and decisions.

As the various cultures throughout the world have become civilised, they have gained the knowledge of the existing written word (mostly from the Bible) and often lost their own culture and memories before it is preserved in a written form.

However, since the advent of the World Wide Web in 1994, more and more of our memories, and thus our past, are available to all. And to add injury to insult, it is the young who are able to access the Web the easiest. With this vast library of information available at their fingertips, it is becoming easier for the young to judge their elders.

Our elders have lost the advantage of being the memory banks of our culture and history.

In a similar vein, earlier communication between the generations occurred at night after the evening meal. During the story telling (imparting of past wisdoms), the young were to be seen “not heard”. This was an important gesture of respect for the old, and a way of ensuring your own survival if you should get into an unfamiliar and deadly situation.

Our modern technology now means we all have cellular telephones. However, it is often the younger person doing the calling. The purpose is often still the same – to get something, whether information or to request money.

Now they cut the elder short during the normal greetings (a sign of respect) because “my credit is going to run out so listen quickly!”

We need a law to protect our elderly. Such a law must include:
• The right of older persons to live safely and without fear of abuse;
• the assumption that older persons are competent to make informed choices and decisions about their lives;
• the right of older persons to be treated fairly and be valued independently of their economic contribution; and
• the right of older persons to have access to employment, health, welfare, transportation, social assistance and other support systems without regard to economic status.
The law must also provide a mechanism punish abuse of the elderly.