Editor’s note: You’ve probably emailed or talked to a member of our Support staff on the phone at one point and may have been curious about who the person on the other end is. Well, there are even more of them now – as Bamboo has expanded, our Support and Services team has also grown. In this edition of our continuing “New Faces” series, we will spotlight newly added members of our Support and Services team. So without further ado, let’s get to know your new in-house problem-solving masterminds!
When did you join the Bamboo Solutions team, and what is your role?
I joined just this month and am in the Services team. Once I get traction in the products, I will be helping customers with their implementations of product suites like PM Central and Community Central.
What are your personal goals regarding your position for the next year?
My goal is to be an integral member of the Bamboo team and to learn as much as I can product-wise so I can help wherever there is a need.
What’s your professional background?
My background covers a variety of roles, and not just training (which I love doing). I have also managed support teams as a technical writer and business analyst. When I first started learning this thing called SharePoint, I had a lot of questions, so I started an internal SharePoint User’s Group (SPUG) at the (rather large) company where I worked previously. To give you an idea of the company’s size, we had over 27,000 active site collections, so we were deeply entrenched in SharePoint. Over the last several years, our little user group grew to over 2,000, and we conducted three forums a week demonstrating best practices around SharePoint, all on a volunteer basis. So if you want to learn how to run an internal SPUG, I can share some best practices with you!
What prompted you to join the Bamboo team?
The opportunity to grow my knowledge of SharePoint; where I worked previously, I never saw the back-end of SharePoint, so my awareness is limited to the end-user experience, and I wanted to learn more. Plus, the awesomeness of Bamboo’s product suite is astounding; anything an end-user wants to do can be done much quicker with one of our products.
What were some of your first impressions of working at Bamboo?
Everyone here is really nice! It is refreshing to walk down the hallway and always see a smile, and having a chance to chat and brainstorm around the coffee pot is great. And the coffee is divine!! There is a genuine camaraderie here, and it feels like a big family where each person has a particular focus. Still, together, there is a single-mindedness to deliver our best.
With over 70 products to learn, do you feel overwhelmed? What’s your strategy for getting up to speed?
I think the key is understanding what each product will do for our customers, so my strategy is to focus on the differences between the products. After all, they are SharePoint-centric, so knowing SharePoint helps! Coming from a workplace where we did not use Bamboo Solutions products, I can see how many of our products would have helped me without ever having to write a lick of jQuery or open SharePoint Designer. I wish there were a way to proclaim to the world how effective our Web Parts can be; companies could shut down the use of SharePoint Designer simply by implementing our solutions and solving various issues their end users are facing. What a win-win for an enterprise!
Other than your deep and abiding love of extending SharePoint, what interests or hobbies do you enjoy outside work?
I sing in the Vienna Falls Chorus, a part of Sweet Adelines International. I am an avid history buff, so living near all these historical places is fantastic! And for exercise every day, I walk my dog, Penny Lane, around all the trails here. Did I mention I’m a Beatles fan?
