While the interface is still maddening, SharePoint 2007 is a quick way to build collaborative tools like blogs, wikis, and discussion forums inside your firm. Built into SharePoint 2007 are a variety or collaborative features that can be up and running with just a few clicks. While each individual app may not be best in breed, it does provide your organization an opportunity to flirt with these “web 2.0” collaborative features to see if employees will participate on the content they generate increases everyone's knowledge and awareness.

• Blogs: create internal blogs to share firm news, client personnel changes, or developments on projects so the entire firm is “in the know.”
• Wikis: have everyone in the firm become contributors and build your knowledge base or reference library organically from the ground up.
• Discussion Forums: let the conversation happen online rather than in e-mail. It is easier for others who came to the discussion late to catch up and non participants get the benefits too.

The jury is still out, however, regarding SharePoint's "document workspaces." These collaborative sites within SharePoint are fully searchable, but the real sleeper feature is that almost everything has a newsfeed associated with it. So as content is added or updated, everyone in the firm will know.