Using the TechNet Gallery to publish your content

Back in June, Andrea Bichsel blogged about the TechNet Wiki and how you can join with only a Windows Live ID and contribute written content about SharePoint 2010 Products. 

Another venue for publishing your content is the TechNet Gallery, which can hold all kinds of content (scripts, videos, code files) in addition to written content in the form of uploaded white papers. Here are some examples of community members who have published their content as white papers in the TechNet Gallery:

When publishing written content, the choice between the TechNet Wiki and the TechNet Gallery is not necessarily an either/or choice. Both venues have their advantages:

  • Content in the TechNet Wiki is easy for the community to correct, modify, or extend over time
  • Content in the TechNet Gallery can be more easily printed, customized for personal use, or shared offline (such as an attachment in an email message or a file in a folder)

In some cases, it is appropriate to post content in both places: in the TechNet Gallery for a self-contained, portable, and printable version and in the TechNet Wiki for a version that can be more easily discovered and augmented by the community. The original author of both cross-links to each version so that readers of the white paper know how to modify the community version in the TechNet Wiki and readers of the TechNet Wiki topic know how to obtain the self-contained version for printing, customization, or offline sharing. Here is an example: SSAS: Explaining the GetClusterCharacteristics Stored Procedure for Sequence Clustering Models

For more information, see Ed Price’s blog post titled "Should I use the Gallery or TechNet Wiki?" to determine the right publication venue(s). Regardless of the venue, your community content helps us on the writing team determine customer issues and possible content gaps that we can address in the SharePoint Server 2010 Technical Library on TechNet.

Here's hoping I see some of your great content in the Wiki, the Gallery, or both!

To get started with SharePoint Server 2010 or to verify that the content that you intend to publish is not already in the TechNet Library, see the following resources:

 

Joe Davies
Principal Writer
SharePoint Platform and Infrastructure Writing Team