Community Involvement – What’s in it for me?

Microsoft is running a contest on the MSDN SharePoint Developer Forum where they will be awarding prizes to the top contributors in the forum for each month.

The MSDN SharePoint Developer forum is also a great place for customers to get their questions answered by the community.

Monthly prizes include Xbox 360 Arcade, a Zune 120Gb and 3x 7” Digital Photo Frames.

More details here: http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/archive/2009/02/27/microsoft-sharepoint-developer-forum-challenge-march-april-and-may-2009.aspx

What are the benefits of getting involved in the community – “What’s in it for me?”

·         By putting your knowledge to the test in the community you learn develop from the experts themselves

·         Access to a network of other community leaders.

·         Recognition by peers as an expert in the technology you choose to evangelize.

·         Role model for others aspiring to learn in your field

·         Boost your career development

·         Community involvement is a step in the right direction for awards such as the Microsoft Valued Professional (MVP)

Podcasting Kit for SharePoint

Podcasting is taking over! Companies around the world are integrating Podcasting Kit for SharePoint (PKS). This is a free add-in that can be downloaded from CodePlex and integrated with your environment. A few key features are:

·         Users can easily share content when they create a podcast

·         It will allow your users to download and watch podcast via their PC or mobile device.

·         Integrated Silverlight viewer that enables you to view the podcast without downloading

·         A subscription service utilizing RSS will notify your users when new material is available

·         Users will have the ability to rate, leave comments and search material

·         Integrated Zune software that helps users manage the content they want to consume

And many more features to come… thanks to the CodePlex and Academy Mobile community.

PKS has been integrated at Microsoft as Academy Mobile and has been very successful.  An image of how it looks can be found below:

 

During the TechReady event earlier this month I had the pleasure of starring in a podcast to promote Academy Mobile.

 

Paolos Angels

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Additional links about PKS are:

·         http://www.codeplex.com/pks

·         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D3g1A5ocik