…and the tween shall inherit the earth…
In the beginning there was TechNet and there was MSDN. Separate technical content on different Microsoft websites for developers and IT Pros. Then, one day not too long ago, some folks in each camp, primarily the ones involved in using Windows Powershell, said “Hey, there are some things, sometimes a lot of things, that are similar between our two tribes!” At Microsoft, we dubbed this new audience the “tweeners – the folks who were “in-between” IT Pro and Dev audience definitions, because they were interested in information in both silos.
This group will own the cloud.
The TechNet Wiki is an interesting “tween space for content, in that it is open to all – devs, IT Pros, and tweeners. Content is not as rigidly constrained as on TechNet or MSDN. In many ways, it is an ideal place for technical content.
On the process-side, for a while now folks involved in content development have adapted software development processes and tools to content development. For example, when a piece of content goes out for “technical review” – this can be seen similar to sending new code to “test”. “Bugs” are found/counted/reported/fixed in documentation, similar to the way these things are handled in software development.
An interesting process methodology in software development is called AGILE.
Consider this – the TechNet wiki is like “agile” for content. This wiki article explains -Agile Content Engineering At A Glance.
Thoughts? leave comments on this blog, or, better yet, go edit the wiki article: