About Matt Passannante

Matt is an energetic person, whose passion is driven by real-world experiences in learning, planning, and implementing Microsoft SharePoint solutions. Matt is a very process focused individual, who finds great joy in helping others learn more about Microsoft SharePoint.

Matt's background

Matt Passannante is an IT Professional and Business Analyst with over 11 years of experience in bringing people and technology together to solve critical business problems. Focusing on the perspective of the business, Matt’s approach to SharePoint implementations takes into account aspects of administration, architecture, evangelism, planning, and communication with a business-first approach.

Matt started his career in manufacturing and systems support before he moved on to consulting around business process automation and the portals and collaboration space. He now spends his time exclusively training and consulting on the administration and architectural aspects of SharePoint products and technologies to help companies “effectively bring SharePoint into the organization” and focus on solving critical business needs.

Matt in the SharePoint community

Matt served as the President of the Rocky Mountain SharePoint User Group in Denver, Colorado for over 7 years and is now the acting President of vspug.com (the Virtual SharePoint User Group). He also resides on the Board of Directors for the SharePoint Summit Conference in Montreal, Canada, and is a top speaker at many of the premier SharePoint conferences around the nation.

In his words: Matt’s training philosophy

Very early on in my career, I was sent across the country to attend an administrative training course. The course provided me with a lot of technical material, but when I returned to my job, I immediately faced an up-hill battle when it came to applying the new material that I had learned in order to solve critical business problems. Yes, the course taught me some very important lessons around the technical aspects of the technology. Unfortunately, when I returned to my job, I also had to deal with factors such as people, relationships, and politics. I quickly learned that most technology issues weren’t caused by the technology itself. They were caused by people, their relationships and the political influences and constraints in which they had to work. It was at that time that I realized in order for me to apply my technical skillset, I had to take a more business-focused approach towards implementing technology. I vowed at that time, “If I ever get the opportunity to train other people, I’m going to base my entire class upon real-world experiences.”

As a SharePoint Administrator, you often have to wear many hats and obtain a multitude of important skillsets. On top of that, each release of SharePoint grows in scale by an order of magnitude and we are forced to learn at an accelerated rate. My classes don’t just teach the technical aspects of SharePoint, they walk students through the processes of planning, administration, architecture, communication, risk assessment, and everything else you need to know in order to “effectively bring SharePoint into the organization.”

Most students come to class expecting to learn how to properly administer a SharePoint implementation from the ground up. Those topics will be covered, but I feel it is more important to provide students with confidence in their newly acquired skillset and their ability to apply that skillset in their existing environment.

If you have seen me present in public, you know that I teach my material in an environment that is very energizing. I teach on my feet. I tell stories. I laugh. I sometimes even yell and scream. I am an extremely passionate person when it comes to life and that includes the education of SharePoint Products and Technologies. I hope that my passion and enthusiasm for teaching SharePoint can help you in your SharePoint career.

I hope to see you in class!

-Matt