At the last SharePoint Saturday DC, someone walked up to me and asked if, apart from pure entertainment, there’s any other reason why I make up & perform SharePoint songs/rap.
Photo courtesy of EndUserSharePoint.com
I responded by saying there’s actually 3 reasons why I do it:
1. Great ice breaker
I’ve been facilitating formal/informal presentations and training in the last 12 years and a key lesson that I’ve learned is that the first 5 minutes of any presentation is crucial. This is when the audience will mentally decide if they will pay attention or not.
Attendees will have an expectation that SharePoint is just like any other technical presentation, people will be expecting the same old PPT technical, boring, intro slides. By singing, you can definitely throw a curve ball and get people’s attention.
2. Facilitates better interaction
I first performed “SharePoint is Nice Nice Baby” at the Best Practice Conference 2009. I was pretty amazed how the audience got into it. Everyone was clapping and singing the lyrics along with me.
I know how challenging it can be to hold people’s interest and attention especially during multi-day SharePoint training. Perhaps motivating them by grouping students in teams and have a group singing contest in the end can increase better interaction.
3. Engages active learning
I was in NOLA a few weeks ago and had a great conversation with Tiffany Ingargiola about how powerful songs are to engage learning. She mentioned that the only German she remembers is the German Happy Birthday song. Also, I told her that I sang a hacked version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to my son when he was a baby. The net effect was that he has the multiplication table memorized. (Now your curious, huh? Read tip #5 of this blog post)
My point is, singing can help people learn key concepts better. How did you learn ABC? How about US History (remember the Christopher Columbus song)?
Here are the 3 SharePoint songs/rap that I’ve come up with so far. It’s quite obvious that I can’t hold a decent tune, that’s why I prefer to rap than actually sing =) Feel free to use it liven up your SharePoint training or presentation:
Leave a comment below if you have any future SharePoint song request. The Weird Al of SharePoint might just perform it @ a future SharePoint conference 😉
Dux,
Awesome !!!!!
Hi Dux, here is my rap/song request. Let’s see what you can do with this: Run-D.M.C. / “Walk This Way” or Beastie Boys / “Fight For Your Right”. Love your other songs!!
Thanks, Tracey
Hi Dux!
I’m an MCT and I teach SharePoint development and administration courses. I’ve been inflicting musical interludes on my classes since SharePoint 2010. Shortly after I started, I googled to see who else was doing this, and I found your own remarkable oeuvre.
Your “(SharePoint is) Nice, Nice, Baby” inspired me. Please accept the following link as my video response 🙂
http://joelblogs.co.uk/2011/09/07/stop-collaborate-listen-sharepoint-songs-from-the-show/
It’s called “Under SharePoint”. I hope you like it 🙂
joel
It’s really just mnemonic learning. You accomplish the same thing faster with acronyms