The document discusses how a technical publications team took ownership of user support forums at a company. It provides tips for how the team approached stakeholders like support, product management, and development to get their buy-in. It also outlines the benefits the team gained, such as increased job satisfaction, visibility in the company, and a role in influencing product decisions based on customer feedback in the forums. The team was able to demonstrate their value through metrics like reducing support cases and showing how many posts they addressed that avoided support calls.
Social media in the workplace case study in implementationMila Araujo
Slides from the talk I gave at the Impact99, Human Resources Summit 2012, in Toronto Canada on October 24, 2012 regarding employee engagement and the use of social tools in the workplace.
What can social software do for your business & isw ignitionAdam Brown
An ISW Presentation on the Business Value of Social Software, How to drive user adoption of IBM Connections, and the ISW Ignition for Connections program.
Collaboration Tools to Create Better ProductsEnthiosys Inc
Luke Hohmann presentation at Insight Forum. Provided concrete tools and concepts for collaborating with internal and external stakeholders to create better products
Social media in the workplace case study in implementationMila Araujo
Slides from the talk I gave at the Impact99, Human Resources Summit 2012, in Toronto Canada on October 24, 2012 regarding employee engagement and the use of social tools in the workplace.
What can social software do for your business & isw ignitionAdam Brown
An ISW Presentation on the Business Value of Social Software, How to drive user adoption of IBM Connections, and the ISW Ignition for Connections program.
Collaboration Tools to Create Better ProductsEnthiosys Inc
Luke Hohmann presentation at Insight Forum. Provided concrete tools and concepts for collaborating with internal and external stakeholders to create better products
RiseUp redefines the way parents & coaches interact and prepare, develop and promote our youth for tomorrow's challenges. With our innovative use of cognitive, semantic and web technologies we provide the best available tools for personal development, coaching and recruiting anywhere.
RiseUp is currently in the process of raising it's seed round to complete its product development, launch program and a series of field marketing events.
Presentation to the New Frontiers Entrepreneurs - Nov 2015Raomal Perera
New Frontiers Networking event - Nov 2015. Presentation on Lean Startup.
Tweets:
Great talk yesterday by @raomal on the Lean Startup #NewFrontiersNetEvent
@raomal Thank u for yesterday @EI_NewFrontiers #NewFrontiersNetEvent .
Great talk by @raomal on #leanstartup Always good to step back and sense check your approach #NewFrontiersNetEvent
Great talk by @raomal "vision, passion & integrity" are key in a #startup! #NewFrontiersNetEvent #WeSavvy
@EI_NewFrontiers #NewFrontiersNetEvent @raomal great advice from raomal perrera never underestimate the power of networking
@raomal 'entrepreneurs aren't RISK TAKERS. They r people who figure out a way to MITIGATE THE RISK, then go for it'! #NewFrontiersNetEvent
"Understand what the problem is before you attempt to solve it" - @raomal #NewFrontiersNetEvent #startup #networking
@owletbabycare 'Are we really creating value for our customers?' @raomal ...#newfrontiersnetevent We sure are! #hiprotein #beefsnack
@raomal ...'your user is not always your customer'...#newfrontiersnetevent
The #NewFrontiers cohort engaged with @raomal's presentation #NewFrontiersNetEvent #leanstartup #networking @Entirl
@raomal To get the answers you are looking for! You need to know your problem. @Newfrontiersnw @EI_NewFrontiers
@raomal talks lean startup @EI_NewFrontiers #NewFrontiersNetEvent
Entrepreneur and Educator Raomal Perera now speaking at the #NewFrontiersNetEvent @EI_NewFrontiers @raomal
@EI_NewFrontiers #NewFrontiersNetEvent @raomal great to hear raomal perrera at the podium. He owes much of his success to Ent Irl
@raomal takes to the floor to discuss his successes with #LeanStartups #NewFrontiersNetEvent #Networking @Entirl
Very excited to have @raomal with us today at the #NewFrontiersNetEvent! #startup #networking @Entirl
How to build a successful startup - Complete guide to starting upRajat Dangi
Here's the complete guide to starting up. I tried to cover the product at an early stage, hiring, team building, growth, marketing, founder's role, and management practices. Each slide has further reading resources to learn more on each topic.
I briefly touched upon Product Market Fit (PMF), 10 ways to get the first 1000 users, 10 ways to make product viral, and building product in the long run.
If you have doubts or need more resources to read on each topic, contact me on Twitter @TheRajatDangi
My side projects can be found at https://byxyz.net. To know more about me: https://about.me/rajatdangi.
How to build a startup SLASSSCOM Talk Aug 2015Raomal Perera
An introduction on how to build a startup using lean techniques. The talk was hosted by SLASSCOM and sponsored by Virtusa, Regus Sri Lanka and Pick Me.
Preparing to Manage Social Media in a Crisis
Social media has changed crisis management exponentially. It has become the primary source for news as it breaks, to maintain a connection to the crisis, and to reach out to ask questions, comment, or get support. Consumers flock to find the ‘official’ page of the business within search, and their official channels on Social Media. This presentation from Matt Lynch explores best practice across Search Engine Optimisation and Social Media for the Crisis Management Leaders Summit, Perth 2015 #gocrisis #voriantraining
Social Media404 Oasis Social Media Best PracticesJohn Sheridan
Many organizations are still having a hard time getting started with Social Media.
This slide uses a fictitious example to walk you through our Best Practices process, OASIS.
This is a presentation that Kati Driscoll, a Social Media Analyst, that works with me - we were asked to present our work on social for AAA to the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce.
Explore L&D trends and insights for 2015. Kineo US leaders Cammy Bean, VP of Learning Design, and Chip Cleary, VP of Solutions and Consulting, discuss top tips for adding business value to your learning strategy this year.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
RiseUp redefines the way parents & coaches interact and prepare, develop and promote our youth for tomorrow's challenges. With our innovative use of cognitive, semantic and web technologies we provide the best available tools for personal development, coaching and recruiting anywhere.
RiseUp is currently in the process of raising it's seed round to complete its product development, launch program and a series of field marketing events.
Presentation to the New Frontiers Entrepreneurs - Nov 2015Raomal Perera
New Frontiers Networking event - Nov 2015. Presentation on Lean Startup.
Tweets:
Great talk yesterday by @raomal on the Lean Startup #NewFrontiersNetEvent
@raomal Thank u for yesterday @EI_NewFrontiers #NewFrontiersNetEvent .
Great talk by @raomal on #leanstartup Always good to step back and sense check your approach #NewFrontiersNetEvent
Great talk by @raomal "vision, passion & integrity" are key in a #startup! #NewFrontiersNetEvent #WeSavvy
@EI_NewFrontiers #NewFrontiersNetEvent @raomal great advice from raomal perrera never underestimate the power of networking
@raomal 'entrepreneurs aren't RISK TAKERS. They r people who figure out a way to MITIGATE THE RISK, then go for it'! #NewFrontiersNetEvent
"Understand what the problem is before you attempt to solve it" - @raomal #NewFrontiersNetEvent #startup #networking
@owletbabycare 'Are we really creating value for our customers?' @raomal ...#newfrontiersnetevent We sure are! #hiprotein #beefsnack
@raomal ...'your user is not always your customer'...#newfrontiersnetevent
The #NewFrontiers cohort engaged with @raomal's presentation #NewFrontiersNetEvent #leanstartup #networking @Entirl
@raomal To get the answers you are looking for! You need to know your problem. @Newfrontiersnw @EI_NewFrontiers
@raomal talks lean startup @EI_NewFrontiers #NewFrontiersNetEvent
Entrepreneur and Educator Raomal Perera now speaking at the #NewFrontiersNetEvent @EI_NewFrontiers @raomal
@EI_NewFrontiers #NewFrontiersNetEvent @raomal great to hear raomal perrera at the podium. He owes much of his success to Ent Irl
@raomal takes to the floor to discuss his successes with #LeanStartups #NewFrontiersNetEvent #Networking @Entirl
Very excited to have @raomal with us today at the #NewFrontiersNetEvent! #startup #networking @Entirl
How to build a successful startup - Complete guide to starting upRajat Dangi
Here's the complete guide to starting up. I tried to cover the product at an early stage, hiring, team building, growth, marketing, founder's role, and management practices. Each slide has further reading resources to learn more on each topic.
I briefly touched upon Product Market Fit (PMF), 10 ways to get the first 1000 users, 10 ways to make product viral, and building product in the long run.
If you have doubts or need more resources to read on each topic, contact me on Twitter @TheRajatDangi
My side projects can be found at https://byxyz.net. To know more about me: https://about.me/rajatdangi.
How to build a startup SLASSSCOM Talk Aug 2015Raomal Perera
An introduction on how to build a startup using lean techniques. The talk was hosted by SLASSCOM and sponsored by Virtusa, Regus Sri Lanka and Pick Me.
Preparing to Manage Social Media in a Crisis
Social media has changed crisis management exponentially. It has become the primary source for news as it breaks, to maintain a connection to the crisis, and to reach out to ask questions, comment, or get support. Consumers flock to find the ‘official’ page of the business within search, and their official channels on Social Media. This presentation from Matt Lynch explores best practice across Search Engine Optimisation and Social Media for the Crisis Management Leaders Summit, Perth 2015 #gocrisis #voriantraining
Social Media404 Oasis Social Media Best PracticesJohn Sheridan
Many organizations are still having a hard time getting started with Social Media.
This slide uses a fictitious example to walk you through our Best Practices process, OASIS.
This is a presentation that Kati Driscoll, a Social Media Analyst, that works with me - we were asked to present our work on social for AAA to the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce.
Explore L&D trends and insights for 2015. Kineo US leaders Cammy Bean, VP of Learning Design, and Chip Cleary, VP of Solutions and Consulting, discuss top tips for adding business value to your learning strategy this year.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 3DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 3. In this session, we will cover desktop automation along with UI automation.
Topics covered:
UI automation Introduction,
UI automation Sample
Desktop automation flow
Pradeep Chinnala, Senior Consultant Automation Developer @WonderBotz and UiPath MVP
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 preview
LavaconMineminemineFinal
1. Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! How a
Tech Pubs Team Took Ownership
of the User Support Forums
Michael Torok
2. Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! How a Tech
Pubs Team Took Ownership of the User
Support Forums
Michael Torok
3. Who am I?
Michael Torok
michael.torok@solarwinds.com
@MickTorok
Director of Community at Solarwinds
formerly and not so long ago
Director of Information Development
Why is community important to me?
» Helps the business
» Helps your department
» Helps you do your job
» Helps you grow and expand
» Helps you gain experience that can only help you
secure another position when necessary
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 3 -
4. Where does ID fit in the post life cycle?
Reach out
Problem
to
or Idea
Community
Moderated
and
Reviewed
by ID
Customer’s Internal and
idea External
heard/problem Help Found
solved by ID
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 4 -
5. Who needs to be on board?
Support
Product Management
Development
Sales
Your Management, if you aren’t the lead or
manager
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 5 -
6. Support needs to be on board
Your biggest advocate, initially, will probably be
the Support org.
» Why?
• They are on the hook, whether directly or indirectly, for
supporting questions in the forums.
• Support, in almost every company I’ve been in, does not
refer as often as they could to the documentation.
• Our release schedule requires constant support training
• They are rarely staffed any better than ID departments
» Working with Support, you can show both your own
business impact and cost savings. We will get to that
in a later slide, but this is very important both as a
motivation and a justification.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 6 -
7. Product Management needs to be on board
Product management
» At SolarWinds, the Product Management team uses
our community site to more fully engage with the
needs and wants of our varied customer base.
» PM will need to trust your judgment and your
interaction level.
• You may well find yourself proving this for a while. We
did.
• Double team with the PMs on their own threads.
Ensure you are over checking, rather than under
notifying about posts that seem important.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 7 -
8. Product Management needs to be on board
There are forum threads specifically targeted at
pulling feedback from customers and to
communicate development’s next steps back to
them.
» These threads are included in the regular user forums,
and you can imagine how some inquisitive, angry, or
helpful customers don’t self-edit.
http://tinyurl.com/7vrq2pa & http://tinyurl.com/8xmmo3h
» Posts can be found all over the forums that lead to PM
interaction. Does the product do XYZ? When will the
product do XYZ?
» Why make them search? We help them find and identify
these posts, then we help move posts to the appropriate
places.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 8 -
9. Product Management needs to be on board
What do we gain?
» We see where the product is heading and why.
» We can become better user advocates for features.
» We can also see what might have been missed in
documentation by monitoring the “Does the product
do xyz” posts.
» We can get input into the product roadmap as the
trust in our interaction and knowledge of customer
wants/needs grows.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 9 -
10. Development needs to be on board
Development
» When things get out of your depth on the boards, you
will need someone to contact.
» Dev is key to successful engagement on the boards,
they lend you the ability to get the right answers from
the technical source.
» Dev must be on board, as there will be many
questions that you cannot answer.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 10 -
11. Development needs to be on board
What do we gain?
» Become the facilitator for the community.
» Strengthen the bond between yourself and your
audiences, both dev and the end user.
» We gain knowledge and can possibly answer the
same question next time without dev help.
You continue to provide a buffer between dev
and the end user.
» Though, in the best case scenario, this wall begins to
crumble.
» We have numerous developers now that are active in
the community, directly interacting with customers.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 11 -
12. Sales/Technical Sales needs to be on board
Sales Engineers
» Maybe they are not called SEs in other businesses,
but these are the technical sales people.
» When a person is running into a licensing limit or if
the person is pre-sales and testing a product out,
these are your go-to folks.
» Yes, if the sale is big enough, this might warrant post
sales development involvement, but usually you start
here with a technical sales person.
» These may also be the people you reach out to
instead of support in the case of pre-sales.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 12 -
13. Sales/Technical Sales needs to be on board
What we gain
» Valuable insight into the way a product might be
used or is going to be used in someone’s
environment.
» Are we documenting to the situation customers are
trying to put the product to use in? Offering
everything we can? http://tinyurl.com/7n4thmq
» Scenarios, use-case based doc… SEs are a
panacea of information about the users and uses of
your products. How is the software used in highly
restricted networks? How is your online help made
available? Is your web console being made publically
available? Was it made to be?
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 13 -
14. What is the role of Information Development?
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 14 -
15. Why be involved?
Community is a huge influence generator
» You can drive customer engagement
» You can drive customer satisfaction
» You can add another avenue to your education
routes, documentation, videos, training, and
knowledge base.
ID teams can only gain from what they invest
Real interaction with a large cross section of
your customer base
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 15 -
16. Why be involved?
Metric answered questions as support ticket
avoidance
» Metric incoming How To tickets against forum
interaction/posts
Customer interaction allows for ID teams to learn
what it really is like in the field without having to
engage in costly customer visits.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 16 -
17. What can you expect from the community?
Feedback
» You will hear whether you are doing a good job or
not
» You can expect criticism to be immediate and, at
times, abrupt – be wary of verifying versus
suggesting answers
» You will also be surprised by how many people, if
you have a healthy community, defend your brand.
http://tinyurl.com/7cbxtdo
Issues will be found. No quality assurance team
can do the job and cover the many different
ways in which your product will be used.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 17 -
18. What can you expect from the community?
If you are responsive, they will be also
I have found the SW Community incredibly
responsive to calls for polls or requests for
opinions.
» They drive many of the features added to our
products.
» The community can lend you opinions and credibility
around other changes: should doc be online only?
Do you need more videos or graphics or
walkthroughs? Where can you get scenarios?
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 18 -
19. What do you have to know?
You need to understand what you are trying to
do in and with your community
» Is it a marketing initiative?
» Is it primarily a support alternative?
» Are you raising brand awareness and creating
advocates?
You need to know your material and have a
clear escalation path.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 19 -
20. What do you have to know?
You need to have guidelines. If you do not have
a community manager or director, you may well
help create these.
» What is considered offensive behavior? There is a
difference between criticism, even harsh criticism,
and being a bully or threatening.
» Need to have clear rules about language and SPAM.
» Need to make it clear that certain behaviors will have
repercussions. We have a zero tolerance rule for
SPAM. It is deleted and the user account is also
deleted.
» Even some of our MVPs on the SWI Community site
have had to be reminded about professionalism.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 20 -
21. Who are your customers?
This is one of the most important things you
learn. You will find you have many and your role
will expand.
All of the people you need to enlist for
escalation/help/advice are also your customers.
» End users
» Development
» Support
» QA
» Product management
» Sales
» Usability/Ux/UI Design
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 21 -
22. What do your customers gain?
End users gain a vocal advocate in your
company.
Development will want to see the feedback you
are seeing about features and what is or is not
working.
Support will want to know when they are being
called out on the boards and will hopefully work
to defuse some of those posts.
QA needs the same information as
development. They may see scenarios they
never thought of writing test cases for. They
may get the backing to hire to fill testing gaps.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 22 -
23. What do your customers gain?
Product management will definitely want to
engage with customers wanting more from your
products.
Sales will want to know of people having demo
issues or requesting demonstrations.
Usability/Ux can use the community as a place
to easily recruit customers for walkthroughs.
You can make the bridge between feature
requestors and new feature wireframe and
paper testing.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 23 -
24. What do you gain?
Job growth
Job satisfaction
Defense against “nobody reads the doc”
A group of people you can call on for feedback
and help
You gain another avenue through which your
skills and knowledge help others to succeed.
- Slide 24 -
Mine Mine Mine Mine
25. What do you gain?
You gain a solid role in a growing area of
interaction for many companies. One that is not
going away and can only expand.
You can expand your own knowledge of how the
audience uses your product or services which
can only help you succeed in writing to them or
designing documentation sets for them.
You gain visibility in your company.
- Slide 25 -
Mine Mine Mine Mine
26. How do you take control?
Take the initiative.
Split your team up and have them spend time in
the boards.
Start posting answers or referring people to
your other materials.
Become a recognized knowledge source within
the community. (http://tinyurl.com/7y6mrq7)
Don’t just give people doc links. Engage with
them and make sure that you circle back after
providing information. Close the loop.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 26 -
27. How do you take control?
Help the community change product plans,
become an advocate for your users and show
management that the community can help with
difficult decisions and priorities.
Help your community feel like they influence
your decisions as a company.
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 27 -
28. ROI
Incoming support case drop
Knowledge base case increase
One group that acts as the grand filter and
knows the boards very well
One group that becomes well known both
internally and externally for both knowledge and
interaction (something we are not always good
at conveying)
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 28 -
29. ROI
Really become a user advocate with the
data and proof to back up the claim.
Track posts your ID team interacts on.
Track the number of posts that avoided
support calls (answer provided and customer
happy).
Track customer suggestions
Track features driven from community
Mine Mine Mine Mine - Slide 29 -