Change Happens
I don't call my professional blog (and my personal web site) Process of Change, for no reason. Change, and lots of it, is about the only thing we can count on in this life. Well, yes, there is always the proverbial death and taxes. But I've heard rumors about taxes, and if there's anything to Kurzweil's view, death may be rif'd soon enough.
Anyway, we (the Microsoft.com Communities Team) have been re-organized into the MSDN/TechNet organization. That's why I've not been doing as much blogging as usual. Re-organizations cost time in terms of adjustment.
The prevailing view is that "community" should be surfaced first on the TechNet/MSDN properties. Needless to say that does change priorities. Delivering first to TechNet/MSDN will require some refactoring.
It also changes focus. The communities team was all about enabling community (any, many, Microsoft technology-focused communities), but owned, or more accurately hosted, no community of its own. MSDN/TechNet, on the other hand, are by charter responsible for IT professional and developer community all up. And it seems some of us may have the opportunity to influence the direction that takes. While exactly how that influence shapes up remains to be seen, I can't deny the magnitude of the opportunity. If we do this right, we could have a bigger impact, and make it sooner, than would have otherwise been the case.
In my studies I've come across a British (evolutionary) biologist by the name of J.B.S. Haldane. One of his more quotable quotes sums up the experience the communities team has had over the past year. "There are four stages of acceptance: 1) this is worthless nonsense; 2) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view; 3) this is true, but quite unimportant; 4) I've always said so."
