Interview with a WikiNinja: Tim Macaulay

Who are you?
Tim Macaulay (Technet Profile)

Where are you (from)?
Charlotte, NC

What do you do?
Support Escalation Engineer for Microsoft CTS Security Identity Team

Besides your work on the Wiki, where do you contribute? (Forums, blog?)
I place links to all of my wiki posts on our external team blog (blogs.msdn.com/ms-identity-support), and the TechNet Community Forums (Forefront Identity Manager 2010).

What’s your favorite quote?
Just do it!

Why this quote?
Two reasons: (1) I like to accept a challenge head on! (2) If I spend five minutes griping, or finding a way out of something then I have wasted five minutes towards the resolution.

What are your specialty technologies? Name max 5.
Specialty is Forefront Identity Manager 2010.

Background in Windows Installer, Active Directory, and Development (C#, VB)

What do you do with TechNet Wiki ? (Hey, keep it short!)
Provide customer facing content on issues that we have encountered troubleshot and resolved within support. Provide troubleshooter wiki posts that provide information on how to troubleshoot specific issues and/or error messages.

How does your Wiki work fit into the rest of your job?
Allows me to share my knowledge with customers who do not call into support.

What is it about TechNet Wiki that interests you? Define it with a few key words.
The ability to deliver quick content to my customer base that does and does not call into support.

On what articles have you spend the most of your time?
I have spent a lot of time writing TechNet Wiki articles on the FIM Synchronization Service Engine and GalSync related issues.

What are your top 5 favorite articles?
Not sure I have a top 5 favorite. But ones that I refer to the most are:

1. Resource Wiki Pages, like FIM Resources Page, GalSync Resources Wiki, PCNS-Password Synchronization Resource Wiki, SSPR Resource Wiki, Run Profiles Resource Wiki, FIM Landing Page )

2. Troubleshooting stopped-dll-exception: connecting to remote server failed with the following error message: winrm cannot process the request

3. Setting up GalSync to provision to Exchange 2010

4. Setting up GalSync to provision to Exchange 2007

What are the top topics regarding Technet Wiki that need more attention & development?

1. The Wiki editor. I find it frustrating sometimes to work in the wiki editor. It would be nice to be able to take a Microsoft Word Blog Post document and be able to publish the content from the word document.

2. Statistics. I have not found an easy way to tell what pages are being viewed the most from the content published.

Who has impressed you in the Wiki community, and why?
Peter Geelen. His contributions, and information in the technology space I contribute.

What does success look like for TechNet Wiki?
I have had great success with TechNet Wiki. I would like to see it further evolve, and provide easier routes to publish data to the TechNet Wiki.

Technet Wiki is (highlight 1 on each line)

1. Job / Fun

2. Easy / hard to work with

3. Sharing Experience / Passion

4. Teaching / Learning

5. Sharing / gathering knowledge

6. Open / closed platform

7. Personal / Community driven

8. For newbies / specialists

9. Quick win / long term investment

10. Developer / ITPro

[Ka-jah Shakaah!]
The Security & Identity Ninja.

Peter Geelen     
peter@fim2010.com Premier Field Engineer - Security & Identity at Microsoft
CISSP, CISA, MCT

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/geelenp