Thank the Mentors

In my last post I talked about too much and not enough SDL Web knowledge. Several posts ago I once asked who do you trust. This post thanks some of those that encourage community involvement around SDL Web.

I'm seeing a good amount of recent sharing for both technical and business audiences from the following groups. See a mix of content from veteran to new sharers on:

• TridionDeveloper, hosted by ContentBloom 
• Building Blocks' Blog
• Tahzoo's Blog
• Content Management Group on SDL Community (this is a bit less Tridion and more content strategy, but the group does use Tridion among other Web Content Management Systems)
• SDL UX Group

Thanks to John, Nick, Ryan, Robert, and Phillip, a few I know that have encouraged other sharers in the above list. Thanks to those behind-the-scenes that I've yet to meet or miss in this post.

When I asked how others encourage sharing in a recent Skype chat, Robert Stevenson-Leggett shared four points recommendations:

1. "Don't directly offer incentives, but reward good sharing"
2. "Compliment good tips and tricks and say stuff like 'that would make a nice post,' etc."
3. "Don't push too hard"
4. "Innovation time can be used to create healthy competition to share between peers"

He remarked that this approach "needs to be grassroots though, not top down." Chris Morgan agreed it's about rewarding initiative and we should "nurture not dictate." Pankaj Guar pointed out encouragement throughout an organization helps as well, both from the "top as well as bottom."

Ryan Durkin also pointed out that sharing can be scary. "It's kind of like presenting in front of hundreds of people which a lot of technical people won't do." You need to work with your team to mentor, review, and praise sharing to create momentum. He concluded by saying, "I'm a fan of catching people doing something good rather than catching them doing something bad. You get more out of people that way."

These thoughts match what I've seen personally as well as the science and art behind motivation. See Daniel Pink's Drive for more on motivation or anything by Seth Godin on overcoming that scariness.

I don't have much hesitation now when I blog, but I remember my mix of excitement and fear in this early Tridion post on BluePrinting. Today, I worry more if I'd say something that makes someone else's job harder. It's less about fear and more about respect.

I would also add these four points to the above advice:

1. Sharing may not change everything overnight, don't worry about your reach at first.
2. Some posts will help others in small, meaningful ways at the end of a Google search months to years after they're published.
3. You'll meet and connect with people from all over.
4. Sharing changes the sharer.

Personally, I've been inspired by at least two phrases from some of my own mentors:

1. "Share more."
2. "Don't ever apologize for not being technical," as encouragement to a relatively new Tridionaut who doubted his value to the community.

Did I miss anyone? Leave a comment citing helpful encouragement, inspiration, or challenges from your own mentors (in the Tridion community or elsewhere). Or by Midas Rule, write your own post to thank your mentors.

Tridion Doesn't Work That Way...

This post contrasts things you may or may not know about Tridion (SDL Web) connected by an embarrassing moment in my role as a product manager. Let's talk about too much knowledge, not enough, and why I'm not asking you to share this time.

Too Much Knowledge... Can be Embarrassing

We were recently discussing the idea of "tagging" content in SDL Web Experience Manager (XPM) as seen in the rough wireframe below. This specific idea won't end up in the final product without a bit more discussion, validation, and iterations. Or it might get swapped with something with a higher priority.

Rough wireframe exploring the idea of "in-context" tagging. Our UX designer stressed it's very rough. Don't tell him I showed this to you.

Extending Your SDL Community Reach with Some QueryString Parameters

The SDL Community site is up, but only 25 of my posts were displaying.

If you're on Blogger and want to see more of your posts, try:
/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss&max-results=999

Too add the missing 200 or so posts to the site I added a max limit parameters to my feed and then changed it to RSS. I Blogger through Feedburner, but you can use a different service.

464 is a lot of blog posts, but if that included my posts, it mean I've contributed half of the feed. Hmmm...

I've been using Feedburner, an (aging?) Google service that lets you automatically generate other formats including HTML, Atom, and RSS. Here you can see my Feedburner only showing posts back to 2014. I've been blogging about Tridion since 2011.

I updated Blogger to show more (and start after 2011). Blogger, by default has an Atom feed like:
http://www.createandbreak.net/feeds/posts/default

Bart Koopman explained there's also an RSS option, which the community site needs, with:
http://www.createandbreak.net/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

I did more "research" (Googling) to find the parameters for start and max, along with the RSS option so it now looked like:
http://www.createandbreak.net/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss&max-results=999&published-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00

This was impossible to test until I disconnected the Feedburner setting (below) in Blogger.

I could confirm the blogger feed querystring parameters worked when I removed the Post Feed Redirect URL.

I then updated Feedburner's output RSS 1.0.


So to get your content indexed by the community site and you're hitting the 25 post limit in Blogger, you have two options:

1. With Feedburner and your Post Feed Redirect URL, modify your feed and then set it to RSS 1.0:
   /feeds/posts/default?alt=rss&max-results=999
2. Alternatively, turn off Feedburner and give a community manager (Bart Koopman) your manual feed URL instead.

As a side effect of troubleshooting this scenario, Bart was able to add other feeds to the community site (hence the burst of recent posts from StackExchange).

By the way, you can tell I was in the Netherlands for this post from the references I found on Blogger's feed parameters:

• http://too-clever-by-half.blogspot.nl/2011/12/blog-feed-500-post-limit-for-more-than.html
• http://freshblogtemplates-3.blogspot.nl

Note: I've read that Feedburner might be shutting down. See alternatives in this post, the main thing is that the SDL Community aggregator uses RSS and if you'd like to be added or even removed, leave a quick post.

If you want to bypass the feeds and be featured directly on SDL Community section for Tridion, please sign up. I've promoted and "sold" TridionWorld before and looking back at my contribution to the Tridion blogosphere, I still have some vested interest to promote the site and your content.

I think that includes my posts now give or take a few.

Assuming they're all in there, my 253 posts out of  694 means I've contributed 36% of the feed as of now (I'm not quite sure because 694 now - 464 before + 25 already-included = 255). With this additional post, maybe you can add your older posts as well.

Congratulations to the SDL Tridion MVP Class of 2015

For the first year since I started using Tridion, I could not keep up with everything. It's awesome. But I'm also sad because I wrote a guide on keeping with the Tridion community.

So rather than (yet another) community video (my last one might be the last one), let me send my congratulations to the group.

Congrats to the SDL Tridion MVP Class of 2015!

Nothing says "good job" like Clip Art. Good job to the MVPs employed by SDL, aka Community Builders.

Winners, Alumni, and Future MVPs

Even before going into the nomination process, I had a feeling this was going to be a hard year to get selected and chosen. Indeed we've had strong contributions by new members and some that didn't qualify for sharing-in-2014 (I prefer the term "alumni" because they don't necessarily leave, but often guide and support the community, even when not doing Tridion anymore). For those that got a nomination but didn't win, see my last post and definitely continue sharing to potentially win in the future.

So Many Topics for a Mature Community

I'm especially impressed by both quality and quantity shared. I especially appreciate the topics—from BluePrinting, to SmartTarget, to even more on GUI extensions we had the bookmarklet challenge, plenty of videos, ways to use "new" software, comprehensive guides, and forecasts for the product (industry). We saw plenty of Tridion Stack Exchange questions and answers (see how you ranked in 2014). Forget podcasts, Robert Curlette brought everyone to a developer summit. This is definitely not a comprehensive list (like I said, it's hard to keep up now), so I encourage you to highlight your favorites publicly or by nominating someone to be part of the next set of community MVPs.

The posts, videos, code, Q&A, and blogs definitely reflect what Product Manager Nuno Linhares calls a mature technical community.

So congratulations and remember sharing in year 2 can be harder than starting. And for those starting (again), it's not necessarily hard, but you do have to start. The rewards in sharing, connecting, and helping others go beyond any company-sponsored award. I even recommending sharing something, anything, non-Tridion and see what you can create (or break, your call). Then come back and get ready for the 2016 MVP awards.

Feel motivated? Need a call to action?

• Nominate someone else
• Start a blog. I could give you a direct link to Blogger or Wordpress, but you do Content Management for a living.

Selecting Community Winners

The first (and really only) thing the SDL Tridion Community MVP Selection Committee does at the start of the year is vote on MVPs and Community Builders (internal MVPs).

In the spirit of sharing, let me post thoughts on the selection process, a winning formula (there is none), a practical approach at selecting, and making this easier for me, which will ultimately help you.

I Don't Pick You and You Didn't Pick Me

First of all, I don't choose candidates except for the few I nominate myself. Suggesting candidates is the community's (your) job.

I ended up on the committee as a case of Midas Rule--a colleague changed job roles (it's old news but congratulate him if you haven't already), which left us with a spot open in SDL Professional Services (PS) to vote on community contributions. I've been both an MVP and a Community Builder and tend to both share about Tridion, but also promote and comment on the community itself. So having me vote on the community was a good fit at the time.

The committee has 2 from SDL and 3 externals. Committee members cannot vote for themselves, so being on the committee means I need to earn 3 out of 4 votes instead of 3 out of 5.

No Formula

There's no formula or minimum to winning aside from the "Becoming a MVP" selection criteria. If we posted detailed requirements, we'd likely encourage a slight-to-significant skew in the results as seen in this exaggerated graph:

 And a hypothetical histogram against these results might show that most only shared enough:

You Should Share More

As of now, I have 47 blog posts on this blog, 3 posts on TridionDeveloper, 3 videos, 1772 points on Tridion Stack Exchange from 27 questions and 44 answers for 2014.

When I first started sharing about Tridion, it was on a private forum with no blog posts. I doubted I had anything worth sharing.

After helping customers these past three years, seeing what others struggle with, and re-learning much of what I thought I knew, I realize a few things:

1. I have more to share, more to contribute, and maybe more chances to inspire others to share than my official role or title.
2. The more I explain, the easier it is to explain. Practice makes permanent.
3. No one will read it all, I'm not that special, and "few people that need my posts actually read them. But the ones that need them when they find them appreciate it."

But enough about me and my blah blah blogging.

You should share.
You are or can be a thought leader.
If you answer the same questions and keep getting the same questions, it's a sign. It means your answer isn't out there. Give it away. Or a small taste of it.

At least save yourself time and write it down... so you can reference yourself when you're next asked. Wait. If you answered it already, copy, paste, and revise it instead. If not answers, then share code, ask questions, make a podcast, or record a demo.

Educate. Share. Leave a legacy.

Don't wait for perfection. Share so small, you can't get it wrong.
Or aim so big that you can't possibly achieve your goal, but you'll make something epic anyway.

Recycle. Re-use. Good ideas need to be expressed, vetted, and revised. Bad ideas need to be expressed, vetted, and revised. Bad ideas transform into good ideas by being expressed, vetted, and revised.

Share what didn't work. Share the mistakes. The community doesn't want perfection. Parts of it want to know you and what you've done. Parts want to know what works and doesn't. Much of it just wants to get its job done.

Choice words at the right time make a difference. Encourage someone. Mentor someone. Mentor everyone or be a student of the World.

I'll say it again, as a past/current/future thought leader in your industry, you should share (more).

Edit: why do I care if you share? Because others shared when I needed help and sharing shaped my own career. Especially with my corner of the Web--Content Management Systems--I find knowing and engaging the Web is important to being a "Web" professional.

Quick Navigation Tips on an SDL Tridion Environment and Asking Smart Questions

While updating training materials and working with Electridion Training, I'll sometimes come across the need to patch or fix an environment issue. Here are some tips and tricks that have helped me recently:

Scenario: I couldn't update a profile picture with Chrome and though this might not be mission critical in a typical production environment, it's important to my new "how to update your profile picture" exercise.

Following the hot-fix instructions for Hotfix 2013.1.0.87586, I needed to update a file in the following folder:

%TRIDION_HOME%\web\WebUI\Core\Controls\UploadControl\

Tip 1: %TRIDION_HOME% or any %ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE% is recognized in Explorer, the Run command, and DOS commands.

Tip 2: Windows shortcuts come in handy. Most of these should be familiar.

Windows + E	Windows Explorer
ALT + D	Navigation Bar in many Browsers as well as Explorer
CTRL + C, V, Arrows	Typical copy, paste, and quick moves (use shift to quickly highlight)
ALT + Tab	Cycle through Windows
CTRL + F / CTRL + H	Find / Find & Replace
Windows Button + Start Typing	If feeling lost without the Start Button, simply press the Windows Key and then type the name of the program you want

So for this hotfix after unzipping, you can:

Brand Defending and Organic CXM

Have you heard about customer experience management? Back when the question was, "what about a website" the idea that Web would somehow relate to "customer experience" was, well, silly. As consumers, we researched, asked around, and bought from the local, from the physical.

We do the same now, but also leave a digital trail that companies can listen and respond to if they're savvy (or maybe crazy) enough. So though we might still buy from the physical, local store, we check, validate, and confirm through search, our online social networks, and maybe by seeing what companies say about themselves.

Even for commodity goods, consumers don't buy on their own, isolated from what others think. We're almost compelled to share and contrast what we do, who we are, and especially what we buy. You know the joke?

• If you're rich: "look at me and how much I spent on this."
• If you're poor: "look at how much I saved on this!"

By the way, wealth isn't about what you could own, but how long you can continue experiencing what you do without additional income. In a way it's related to art. If you've read Seth Godin, you might recognize art as something you do to keep being able to do more art. Though this blog never broke $24.77 in ad revenue (I dropped the ads last March), I've definitely enjoyed my part in the Tridion community.

Tridion Blogging -- earn enough  to buy yourself a nice gift under $25.

Companies only have control on part of the customer experience, but they can manage their response by measuring and encouraging activities that customers value.

Example SDL Tridion Sandbox Proposal

I've written about Custom Training, the "sixth" SDL Tridion environment. But I almost forgot that I created a mock plan for such an environment as part of a course project before joining SDL back in 2010.

See the document below for a modified submission for a Web Design class I took at University of Phoenix four years ago. We were encouraged to submit projects that reflected our jobs and this demonstrated things I knew (and didn't know) about Web development and SDL Tridion (R5.3 at the time). I got somethings right and others not quite right.

Got Right

I got some things right like project documentation basics including an informal project plan, problem statement, and objective. I had an informal concept of personas by describing developers and management as the "target audience" for this mock proposal.

I included a content inventory of sorts under a section called pages and suggest separating design, content, and functionality concerns.

There's both a simple wireframe and a sitemap documenting the example site and even some notes on accessiblity, copyright, and source control based on research projects and things I've learned as an "IT professional."

I described "page types" without actually calling them page types.

Four years later and it still looks like a typical wireframe. The example screenshots are a bit dated though.

Not Quite Right

Are You Ready for a Contextual Web?

As a long-time SDL Tridion consultant, you're about to enter into oddly familiar, yet different new implementations in about a year, give or take a year. I'm suggesting the Midas Rule, or the idea that "whoever touches something first and cares the most gets to decide what to do with it" will change our roles as Content Management System (CMS) professionals.

You and your team may need more skills across more disciplines in bigger implementations but the good news is you won't be alone. The company, practitioners, and community are preparing to deal with an analytics-enabled and targeted, Contextual Web (again).

The Vendor

SDL itself has and continues to integrate its product lines. Though the claim to a "Comprehensive, Integrated Product Portfolio" might be hard to interpret in practical terms for implementers, see how this translates to the actual products in +Philipp Engel's presentation.

UX & UI Design behind SDL’s Customer Experience Cloud from Philipp Engel

By Midas Rule, the product(s) will integrate. And no, those familiar-looking interfaces aren't becoming more like Tridion. SDL software is becoming more, well SDL.

On Tridion RTF Links and Empty Parents and a 99% Answer Rate on Tridion Stack Exchange

Two chats with separate colleagues inspired this nearly two-posts-in-one.

One of my colleagues pointed out we only had 3.9 questions a day on Tridion Stack Exchange (TRex).

With a clear case, compelling argument, and screenshots, I was sold by his email. We need to get the message out. But he wasn't quite convinced that he could also convince others. Here's the gist of the argument. We should:

• Put more questions online to...
• Make a healthier TRex site to attract a larger community, so we might...
• Have even more SDL Tridion MVP winners (there is no current limit) and...
• We shouldn't hesitate to post things that we others might be interesting 

At 99% answered, the site isn't even struggling. We also discussed finding time, so here's a quick and condensed version with my spin on the message:

TRex eats 3.9 #SDLTridion questions/day from 713 users. At 99% answered, it's still hungry! 

So this post is taking me a moment to summarize and link to something, but the Tweet took a minute at most.

His last point on what others find interesting is well interesting and makes a nice segue into the following surprises for my own "online following." Recently, another fellow consultant, Susan Carr, gave me some social media tips. For more pro insights, follow and engage with her on DistilledMessage.

Tip 1: Get Insights

One tip was to analyze keywords for my blog, which I admit to forgetting to review regularly. Most surprising: what I think my blog is about isn't what readers are finding me by.

Google Analytics showed someone (don't worry, you're anonymous) last month searched for:

• "how to add tridion component link to rich text field?" as well as
• "in tridion what is the purpose of creating empty parent publication?"

These are relatively easy:

Make a link in a Tridion component's RTF by placing a cursor in the rich text field. Select the hyperlink icon that looks like a chain under the insert tab. You can then choose the type, choose a url (if not a component link), add a title (which appears as a tooltip in some browsers), and the target which controls how the window pops-up.In Tridion you can only add children publications. 

The empty parent publication is simply a "hook" for scalability. If at some point you want a completely separate branch of publications, you'll add a new schema publication under the empty parent. The empty parent can help with removing publications (which always need at least one parent) as well. The name is rather confusing, but feel free to call it something like "scalability parent," "primary publication," or something that makes sense. You can also hide it from most users through scope (authorization) settings.

Oh and Alexa's traffic stats for my blog point out "sdl tridion parent" could be a search phrase I might be interested in. When I figure out if that means BluePrinting or "parent" company, I'll let you know.

Users and content management organizations are looking for interesting and seemingly simple topics.

Tip 2: Meaning of Measurements

A high bounce rate isn't bad for a blog. Users will take a quick look, skim and read what matters, and then move on. So now I can continue to share, guilt- and worry-free, that my posts don't keep the same attention as say, an online store. Maybe I'll even stop competing for page views with yet another Tridion blog, and go back to focusing on the right reasons.

Tip 3: The Right Reasons

Social media might be challenging for "traditional" marketeers, where the social point is about sharing, connecting, and being authentic over selling products. It's an odd paradox where you do better by caring less.

My original reasons for sharing were the range of emotions that came with purchasing an enterprise CMS in a previous role. I had many questions and the Tridion technical community helped me plenty of times. At some point I was able to give back and haven't stopped since.

Now, maybe I can take my own content strategy advice and look at the practical things my "readers" are looking for. I'll still make cheeky contributions in the name of community (and/or Halloween) and dive deep into techno-functional topics, but it helps knowing sometimes someone just needs to know where to click.

For the technicals and would-be Tridion bloggers out there, you should be looking to click Publish or Ask a Question.

Know when to go for the tough subjects, but be practical with what people really need (how to insert an image in Tridion). I am still learning Tridion through your posts and answers, but also from your questions. If you're already sharing, convince the next person. And if you've done that, convince someone else that they have a compelling story.

I'm getting expert blogging advice and clever insight that 99% answered isn't necessarily a good thing. But this shouldn't be limited to me, others need to hear this stuff too.

Technical Questions in SDL Tridion Foundation and Workshops

Update:
After hearing that maybe functional training or workshops aren't for technicals, let me be clear that technical resources should absolutely want to be part of the workshops (that define what you'll have to build). You should also know how to use the software and what CMS designs mean to authors. Most importantly, you'll likely benefit from seeing how we transform wireframes into actual CMS functionality.

After two separate weeks of two BA trainings, I've addressed probably too many technical questions (again, but it's my fault). So, apologies to those that were hoping for some nice, easy software training. You probably learned how to make content, edit pages, and publish the changes plus a whole lot more!

SDL Tridion's business analyst functional training track covers at least:

1. Foundation: How to use the software.
2. Content Modeling: What you need the software for and how to document it.
3. BluePrinting and Authorization: Who can update which parts of the content model and where.
4. Functional Design: How to document everything above in a way you can implement.

To help future functional trainees and my peers, here are general answers to frequently asked technical Tridion questions. Pick one that fits.

• Yes, you can do that, otherwise I wouldn't be training your team. :-)
• Yes, you can do that, it's covered in technical training.
• Yes, you can do that, it's covered in the technical documentation.
• Yes, you can do that, have you tried searching or asking online?

For technicals in a functional class or workshops, please understand that you may be:

Flaming Sword of Sharing (10% Chance to Proc)

It's obvious I share, but I have somehow acquired the (occasional) ability to help others recognize their expertise and/or to share online. Knowledge professionals are more likely to contribute to their profession's thought leadership after meeting me.

If you're familiar with D&D or MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) terminology, it's like I have a Flaming Sword of Sharing with a proc that lights the sharing fire in you.

At least three of my colleagues started blogs because of an internal speech I gave. Most of my colleagues in North America and some in Amsterdam started sharing after I joined (correlation doesn't prove causation, but maybe I can take credit for the inevitable here!).

One of these sharers has surpassed me. No, not in quantity, but in page views. Congratulations to Mihai for surpasing CreateAndBreak's page views. Maybe I'll catch up to him, who knows? Mr. Action Mihai Code-ariu's blog, Yet Another Tridion Blog is on fire.

It took me about 2 years to get to 79,419 page views. Mihai passed me in a little over a year. Who's next?

I'm sure hyper-connected Web-savvy millennials will eventually put our numbers to shame. Until then, wield your Swords of Sharing and let's ignite the SDL Tridion Technical community again.

Keep in mind it's not a competition (unless you happen to be me or Mihai). Page views is just one of many ways that demonstrates impact, you won't know your contribution to the community until you actually publish.

You're Too Close to Your Expertise

I'm surrounded by highly-qualified, problem-solving coworkers and friends that are sometimes blind to their own strengths and expertise. I think we have more to share than we realize.

A theme my company promoted this year was "Climb Higher." I like how the phrase evokes a challenge, we're scaling scenarios and reaching new heights. Maybe with all this work, I'll lose some of the "consultant gut" my technical account manager jokes about.

I'm ready to climb! But I also want to be sure we don't become victim to the "curse of expertise" by losing our audience. Should we chase expertise while ignoring what we already know and what we can individually contribute?

I'll Share When I'm an Expert...

I'm seeing this less among my immediate peers. Most share when they can and have ideas on what they'd like share. The challenge now is finding/making time or narrowing down topics (to which I point out you're already answering and helping customers all the time).

False Dichotomies...

It wasn't until one of my colleagues admonished me to "never apologize for not being technical" (guess who gave those encouraging words) that I started noticing Tridion expertise isn't all or nothing. It's not even functional versus technical. There are so many aspects to content management, in general, that it's challenging to really know it all (my post on the seven places for markup hints at this).

The landscape looks more like this, which means there is a lot of room to share what you know that others might not know.

Don't Shrink the Ring of Online Expertise!

Combining the two ideas from above, inspired this visual. As we each progress in our careers and development, we may forget what was hard or challenging. We may never be satisfied on the autodidact's path, but you know people need what you know every time you get those same basic questions specific to your expertise.

Rather than waiting to share deep knowledge and expertise when you're ready, maybe it makes sense to start from where we are? Or even better, start from where your audience needs you?

Climb Higher by Making the Climb Easier

So rather than just climbing higher, let's leave hints and guide posts behind for those that follow our paths. Or better yet, let's construct the easy paths ourselves and that we wished we had when we started.

Let's continue to craft an easy-to-follow landscape. Let's go higher not just not by climbing, but by building or growing mountains.

These cartoons were inspired by Dan Roam's Back of the Napkin (I know I should have done drawings instead), which was mentioned in The Art of Explanation (another excellent, recommended read). I'm using the SDL Buddy as a stand-in proxy for Tridionauts (Tridion practitioners), but any icon representing a member in your community will do.

Guess the Tridion Blogger

For an SDL CMT WCM knowledge sharing event I presented on the Tridion community (of course!). Tired of explaining the “why” behind sharing, I asked my colleagues for help before the presentation with these questions:

• Why did you start blogging?
• What was the hardest part?
• What do you like the best?

And "Any other thoughts, questions, or feedback on blogging and the SDL Tridion technical community?"

In summary my peers responded:

• The top reason was to share and contribute, to help others. In second place was, “because Alvin told me too.”
• The hardest part was starting, finding good topics, and finding motivation and/or time. Though we should keep our audience in mind, it’s paradoxically easiest when we share what’s important to us, not worrying about the audience.
• The best part for most of my colleagues was seeing how their contributions were actually used and referenced.

Responses also focused on the people aspect of sharing with themes on respect, learning from each other, earned prestige, and of course, beer... I mean meeting new friends.

No time? To address the lack of time and challenge in finding topics, I just offered: “Raise your hand if you were asked a question in the last week or so.” I then asked how often we answer the same questions over and over. These answers would make good topics to share—you’ve already done the thinking and writing, just remove sensitive details. You don’t even need to give away everything.

If you’re still looking for topics, see what SDL sharers have blogged about (Tag Clouds via wordle.net). See if you can guess who’s who by the terms alone. ;-)

How Long Should it Take?

This weekend, on the other side of the globe, a few colleagues debated how long it should take for a new editor to be ready to create content.

I received a text suggesting I blog about it, not realizing there was a bet on whether I would. Of course I'd blog about it, maybe not right then and there since it was the weekend and the laptop wasn't nearby (in the bathroom) at the time (too much info), but sure!

So here's the post, "Simple Content Update Instructions [for SDL Tridion authors]" written almost exactly a year ago.

More Blogging Tips for the Tridion Professional

Make a Tag Cloud

Want your very own tag cloud? Check out Wordle.net.

This is based off CreateAndBreak's RSS feed.

Seven Wins in Developing a Technical Community

To me, more "community" means a win for Support, Marketing, Sales, R&D, Services, HR, customers, and you:

1. More shared knowledge and improved support (a win for Customer Support)
2. More awareness and visibility of products (a win for Marketing and Sales)
3. Understanding of what challenges customers face and how they're implementing a solution (a win for Research and Development)
4. A chance to shift from a hands-on to a brains-intensive "expert model" (a win for Professional Services)
5. A chance to be transparent, showcase a company culture, and earn trust (win for HR, the market, and the organization)
6. All of the above for a win for the customer as they get more shared knowledge, more product understanding, an understanding of what to watch out for, expert consulting, and a product and company they can trust.
7. For you, a win for career satisfaction.