Sharing Knowledge Is Not That Hard - Blogs

former_member183750 · ‎2013 Jun 21

Purpose

This Blog is a continuation of a series of wikis under the heading of Sharing Knowledge Is Not That Hard. The blog discusses Blogs, which are one of the many tools available to us for sharing knowledge.

Overview

Blogs can be created directly in any SAP SCN Space. Blogs will typically use a free flow prose, usually reflecting the author’s personal views, solutions and so on.

How to Blog

A good definition of a Blog is provided by Jason Lax in the Jive Document The Difference Between a Discussion, Blog Post, Document and Wiki. In a nutshell blogs are where you express your point of view or share your thoughts on something. It's your soap box to stand on if you want to bring something to the attention of other community members or just share with them your ideas or experiences. Even if you just want to vent, this may be the better medium than a Discussion in one of the SAP SCN Spaces. Bonus: Moderators of each SCN Space can add the Document to "Featured Content" and "Related Resources.

While Blogs are a personal view of the world, keeping them professional, well organized and well structured is always a good idea. One of the best descriptions of what a Blog should look like was authored by SAP’s own Jeanne Carboni in her blog titled Build Better Blogs. This should be a required reading by anyone interested in blogging on SCN or any other place for that matter. And yeah, I did read the blog to see if this blog conforms to Jeanne’s recommendations – at least in part :smile: . Another excellent description on what a blog should look like is The Blueprint for the Perfect Blog Post (Infographic). And finally, the wiki Getting Started With Blogs will, well help you get on the right track.

Why to Blog - on SCN or Elsewhere

Other than blogs being your own soap box, are there other reasons to cerate blogs? Here is a short list I came up with. Again as with most lists, I suspect it's far from complete, but it's a start:

No template to follow
Blogs live in their SCN Space
Anyone registered with SAP SCN can create a Blog
Blogs are published as soon they are done - No Moderator approval required
Blogs can only be modified by the author
Comments by readers are allowed – or not, your choice
Count of views is available at the end of every Blog
Can be viewed in PDF format
Can have email notifications when commented on
Blogs can be saved as Personal blog or as belonging to a specific SAP SCN Space.

Why not to Blog

No template to follow
Blogs are published as soon they are done - No Moderator approval required (However a process does exist for Blog moderation when needed. See Community Blog Moderation – Together We Can for more details
Blogs can only be modified by the author
Anyone registered with SAP SCN can create a Blog

My Experiences

Blogs are one of my most favorite knowledge communication tools. However, I have warmed up to Jive Documents recently as I find I prefer to write in a more of a technical style. One day, given the time, I would like to rewrite a number of my past blogs into Jive Documents - just because I think they will look and read better. Others like blogs because of the minimal Moderator intervention and the ability to use their own style of writing.