How many times have you wondered how to do a task or work with software? You feel wonderful once you have found a colleague who could share their “know-how” about how to complete that task more efficiently or how to work software that does not have a manual that makes sense to you. Your colleague can help you understand. What if your colleague wants to share this experience with other colleagues that could be in the same shape as you?

I want to thank you all for the overwhelming response to the SharePoint without Coding online seminar that I offered earlier this month. The interest was immense and the feedback was terrific. Through this experience I wanted to share with you four factors to consider when you want to share your knowledge on your own: Cost; Timing; Equipment; Global presentation. The following steps will show how these factors came up:

Step One, if you are an individual who wants to share knowledge with colleagues, keep in mind that you are offering this service to the world. The only way to reach everyone is to find a web conferencing application that would allow you teach what you know. When I selected a web conferencing application to do a one hour webinar, I found out this tool: would cost a monthly or yearly fee; come with 25 seats within the basic price; could cost a surcharge for conference calls by your participants (there could be a phone number that the participants would not have to pay for but YOU would have to); could require you to have an internet service provider. Please note that in order to participate in the conference call you could use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) if you have it. It is free to use.

Step Two, if you want help to manage the money for the webinar, you need to find an online registrar. Some of these online applications are free until participants “register”. Each registration is charged to you. Percentages for the money they collect for you through different forms of payment require you to make subtractions in order to track any profits. Profits look to be impossible in order to make the cost low for librarians but also able to pay the registration fees, charge card fees and web conferencing application monthly charges with a surcharge for the phone call.

Step Three, the cost for the online seminar was based on the first two steps plus the time it would take to put all of the knowledge together about SharePoint Without Coding in a compact package to share. The cost was low as compared to other seminars that were face-to-face and online. It was so low that one person could not believe it was real. Other possible participants stated that the cost for my online seminar was too high especially if they did not have a job or if their job was not going to pay for it. The cost is to pay for a way to deliver this service to the world since EVERYONE is trying to understand this thing called SharePoint.

Step Four, if you would want to share your knowledge, you have to have a time period to share when EVERYONE could participate. It was hard to pick a time. Some participants were upset with the fact that it was happening on a Saturday night or a Wednesday night. The feedback was all over the place about a time. I had researched that Wednesday night was in the middle of the week and the best time period to share knowledge would need to be after work or close to “quitting time”. If I would offer the course on a Saturday, it had to be a time period when people were relaxing and away from work. Many future participants were okay with the time periods that I had advertised but there were some who had trouble with those particular dates and wanted others.

Step Five, re-group about this knowledge sharing experience. I want to have equal access to everyone to this information. I decided to wrap everything up into a book of my notes that would have been used for the course. Amazon would sell and distribute it nationally and internationally. It would be dedicated to the notes that I would have shared with participants in my course BUT at a price and time convenient to EVERYONE without overhead to anyone.

Amazon will be advertising it between late July and early August but you can purchase it early at the following link:

SharePoint without Coding: My Notes for Embedding the Librarian, Authored by Lorette S.J. Weldon MLS