It's time for another July TechNet Guru winner!

Paul Turley is our Analysis Services/BI TechNet Guru for July! See the TechNet Guru Contributions for July 2013.

Paul is also an MVP and a member of the TechNet Wiki Advisory Board for SQL Server BI and Power BI content.

About Paul: Mentor with SolidQ; MVP, MCT, MCITP-BI, MCTS-BI, MCDBA, MCSD, MSF Practitioner. Author & co-author of Wrox Press Reporting Services Recipes, Professional SQL Server Reporting Services (2000, 2005, 2008 & 2012), Beginning T-SQL (2000, 2005 & 2008), MS Press SQL Server 2005 Integration Services Step-by-Step, Data Warehousing with SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services, & Professional Access 2000 Programming.

Here is the winning article:

We’ve Got The Power: “Power BI”, New Microsoft BI Suite Announced

 Now let's look at the winning articles:

SQL Server Analysis Services, PowerPivot Technical Guru - July 2013

Four entries for this category, but only three entrants, who all won a well deserved medal. Paul's article especially filled the ticket!

And here's an excerpt from the article:

Power View

For now, Power View in Excel 2013 ProPlus and Power View in SharePoint 2010 Enterprise and SharePoint 2013 Enterprise remain the same – the Silverlight-based drag-and-drop visual analytic tool.  With the addition of SQL Server 2012 CU4, Power View in SharePoint can be used with SharePoint published Power Pivot models, SSAS Tabular models and SSAS Multidimensional “cube” models.  There has been no news yet about a non-Silverlight replacement for the on-premise version of Power View.  The Microsoft teams and leadership have heard the requests and feedback, loud-and-clear, from the community and we can only guess that there is more is in-the-works but I make no forecast or assumptions about the eventual availability of an on-premise offering similar to Power BI for Office 365.

Power View add-in in Excel 2013 ProPlus:

Mobile UI/portal:

===================================

Read the rest here:

We’ve Got The Power: “Power BI”, New Microsoft BI Suite Announced

Thanks to Paul Turley for your great contribution to the TechNet Guru contest! You can read about all the July winners here: TechNet Guru Awards - July 2013

Also, for the August Guru competition, see TechNet Guru Contributions - August 2013.

Join me in congratulating Paul on this well-deserved win!

Are you a Wiki Ninja? http://technet.com/wiki

    - Ninja Ed

It's time for our final June TechNet Guru winner!

Congratulations to Tiziano Cacioppolini, our Windows Phone Guru winner for June 2013! To find all the competitors for June (and more information about this monthly contest), see the Wiki article: TechNet Guru Contributions for June 2013.

About Tiziano:  Web and software developer. Windows Phone enthusiast in Perugia, Italy.

Tiziano's Site:  http://tiziano.cacioppolini.it/

Tiziano won with this wonderful contribution:

Windows Phone 8 Development: Maps and Clusters

Here are our June contributors:   

Windows Phone Technical Guru - June 2013

Also, Isenthil grabs a medal for the second month in a row! Congrats to both winners!

Here's an excerpt from the article:

This code example demonstrates how to dynamically group pushpins in the map control.
There is a lot of code for Windows Phone 7, then I merged all what I need to create a project for WP8.

First of all you need some namespace declaration: for map control and for pushpins from WP Toolkit.

Welcome to Wednesday Wiki Life!

So why should you create a TechNet Wiki article when you can just link to an existing forum thread?

This blog post is part of the Social Synergy series.

Well, I think the need for a Wiki really hit me a few years back when I was searching for a solution to get my software installed. The clock was ticking, and I needed to get it done for my job. So I searched everywhere. I talked to every expert I could find. I found nothing. And then finally, when I almost gave up hope, I landed on a forum thread that was about something else. It was the same software, but they were troubleshooting some other issue. It was a long thread with 90 or posts on it. Well it came up from my keyword searches in Bing. But I thought, that's strange. This isn't the right topic. So I ran an IE search on the keywords I was looking for on that long page, and it popped me down to a few posts. I read the posts, re-read them, and slowly pieced together the context and what was being asked and answered. Then, once I figured it all out, I tried the solution, and that was it!

I found the solution! I installed my software! Finally!

So what happened was that somewhere in this long conversation where 20 or so people were troubleshooting one scenario, another person popped in. He asked his question out of context. And then, instead of splitting that off to a new thread or asking him to post it as a new thread, someone randomly knew the answer and started a conversation toward answering it. And then the conversation went on and on about the original topic, with a few posts about the new topic randomly interspersed. So I went in there and had to figure out what was going on and if the solution I was looking at was part of troubleshooting the problem that the thread was about or part of answering the question that I had.

And then the rest of the solution I was looking for was pieced together randomly in a few other posts, where two conversations were going on at the same time.

Could this have been easier to find if it was in its own forum thread? Sure.

But here's my point...

You are spending your time writing up some fantastic solutions. They are great answers that a lot of people need. But how many people are going to find and understand the solution when it's in the forum's context? Not enough. Especially since you didn't write the title of the thread... the original poster did. So what if the title doesn't get your solution the best SEO that it deserves? (Which is 99% of the cases.) The result is that people can't find your awesome solutions!

Think about the design of the forum concept. It exists to answer one person's question. It is based on a discussion system to get the one best answer to the one person asking the one question. That's what Forums are designed for!  The solutions are a conversation. Each new reader has to read your conversation, try to figure out the context, and then see which solution applies to them. And they often have done a lot of searching before they ever land on that page. The forums aren't designed to help new readers! They are designed to help the person who is asking the question! Something else has been optimized for new readers, and it happens to be in a collaborative authoring system... TechNet Wiki!!!

Now here is what you'd do to create a Wiki article:

1. You write up a fantastic solution in the forums.
2. You copy and paste the problem statement into a new Wiki article; you tweak it.
3. Then you copy and paste your solutions. You add a little more explanations.
4. You make the title awesome so that it gets great SEO.
5. Then you publish it and let the community help you keep it up to date (and maybe help fix any of your typos).

What you just did:

1. You made it so that far more people with the problem will actually read your solutions and benefit from them.
1. This will also get more cross-links than the forum thread would. So more people will find it by clicking AND searching!
2. Not only can your readers find and understand the solution faster, but they can also get access to other related information a lot more easily through cross-linking, search, and tags on TechNet Wiki than they would be able to in the forums.
3. You just helped your career. That's right. You might have just opened doors to a new future job. Examples:
1. Get a Job: How does TechNet Wiki help you find a Job and make your career?
2. Get Notoriety in your Career: Community Win–Wiki Accelerates Quality Content Distribution
4. You are opening up more opportunities to earn Recognition Points and Achievement Medals to further build your credibility. (As your credibility grows, people know you have quality solutions, because you've proven it.)
1. Just to let you know, the Recognition Points on the Wiki don't work like the Forums. The Forums are immediate but low scoring, because they don't accumulate with views. But the Wiki is a gradual snowball. Once the snowball is rolling, you can earn more points than you would have from your forum contributions.
2. At first thought, this might seem like a selfish motivation. However, you're building your credibility so people are more likely to read your stuff and get the solution implemented sooner. Also, if you're on a path for MVP, Moderator, or a leading Wiki Ninja, this will help get you there faster so that you can have an impact on your future products and have a bigger impact in helping the technical community in earning responsibilities and getting results!

And there you go. You can link to a Wiki article instead of answering the question over again. And you know that the reader will just land on that page and quickly get their answer (not like a forum thread).... because that's the way you designed the page!!!

And to top all of that... we even have a fun contest for transforming your forum posts into Wiki articles! See TechNet Guru Contributions.

Any questions or comments on this topic? I can add more info or correct it, depending on what you think.

Thanks!

   - Ninja Ed

Welcome back for another analysis of contributions to TechNet Wiki over the last week.

First up, the weekly leader board snapshot...

Congratulations to Maheshkumar for knocking Ed off the top spot this week.

As usual, here are the results of another weekly crawl over the updated articles feed.

Most Revisions Award   Who has made the most individual revisions

#1 Naomi  N with 135 revisions over 44 articles. Naomi leads the pack this week!

#2 Ed Price - MSFT with 134 revisions over 41 articles. Nice work Ed.

#3 Carsten Siemens with 117 revisions over a staggering 97 articles! Nice to see you again Carsten!

Most Articles Updated Award   Who has updated the most articles

Same names, different order for this award:

#1 Carsten Siemens with 97 articles

#2 Naomi  N with 44 articles

#3 Ed Price - MSFT with 41 articles

Most Updated Article Award   Largest amount of updated content in a single article

The article to have the most change this week was new arrival نصب CAS - قسمت اول  (fa-IR) by F.keshtkar. From what I can make out, this is a translation of http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/5452-using-system-center-2012-configuration-manager-part-1-installation-cas/ which explains in exquisite detail how to install System Center 2012 Configuration Manager in a LAB from scratch. As it is rightly attributed, it is IMO a welcome translation to TN Wiki.

Longest Article Award   Biggest article updated this week

This week's largest document to get some attention is Hybrid IT Infrastructure Design Considerations by Thomas W Shinder - MSFT. This is a superb guide, that "provides the enterprise architect and designer with a collection of critical design considerations that need to be addressed before beginning the design decisions process that will drive a hybrid IT cloud computing infrastructure implementation". Thanks for your recent tweaks to an outstanding document Thomas.

Most Revised Article Award   Article with the most revisions in a week

This week's most fiddled with article is another new arrival, BizTalk Developer Interview Questions and Answers - BizTalk Database by Maheshkumar S Tiwari, who made 31 revisions this week.

Second place has two winners - BizTalk Developer Interview Questions and Answers - Business Rule Engine by Maheshkumar S Tiwari and TechNet Guru Contributions - August 2013, by me - both receiving 20 revisions.

Smallest Significant Edit Award   Size isn't everything! Every edit counts.

Ignoring the addition of tags, this week's smallest but valuable tweak was to Guia de Sobrevivência: Project 2013 by Hezequias Vasconcelos.

His tweak was simply to add an extra link to an already awesome document. Tweaks and ongoing updates are what keep our wiki alive, up to date and relevant, and we thank you all for maintaining your work in this way. Thanks again Hezequias!

Most Popular Article Award   Collaboration is the name of the game!

The article to be updated by the most people this week is the Guru submissions article TechNet Guru Contributions - August 2013, by me with twelve people editing it this week!

An awesome collection of articles submitted from some true heroes of the coding community.

Loving everyone's work this week. Some nice solid contributions and mucho buff and polish!!

Best regards,
Pete Laker

Today's interview is with Danny van Dam!

Danny's Profile

Danny has over 120 Wiki edits and received the Wiki Editor III Gold Achievement Medal!

Who are you, where are you, and what do you do? What are your specialty technologies?

My name is Danny van Dam, I work for  Atos in the Netherlands for the Consulting and Technology unit as an Architect specialized in Desktop and Application Delivery with Microsoft and Citrix solutions. I plan, design and  implement solutions that include Windows Server 2012, Windows 2008 R2, Remote Desktop Services, VDI, Hyper-V 2008 R2/2012 , SCVMM, SCCM, App-V and Office 365.

In my spare time I blog on my Microsoft Technology blog  www.rds-support.eu, my Citrix Technology blog www.citrix-guru.com or my personal blog www.dannyvandam.net. I am also active on twitter (@dnyvandam) and provide public presentations about Microsoft and Citrix Technology at user group meetings.

What are your big projects right now? 

I am  currently working on a project to upgrade a large Remote Desktop Services/Citrix XenApp environment based on Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 R2/2012 RDS, Windows 7/8 VDI’s and Office 365. This project also includes App-V 5, SCCM, Citrix XenApp 6.5 and Citrix XenDesktop 7.

Internally at Atos I am the competence leader for the infrastructure workspace community for my unit where I also share a lot of the wiki goodness.   

With Microsoft Press I am discussing the possibility to work on a small pocket title for the beginning of next year. Their final planning and budget for next year will determine if I can start writing this book.

Before the end the year I would like to add MCSE: Private cloud to my list of certifications, I already achieved MCSE: Server Infrastructure and MCSE: Desktop Infrastructure certification and by adding Private cloud I will have all the MCSE certifications for the Microsoft solutions  I use the most in my daily job.

Beside the TechNet Wiki’s I am also active in the TechNet Training and Certification forum as an answerer/editor.

What is TechNet Wiki for? Who is it for?

The TechNet Wiki is a great place for everyone that uses Microsoft Technology to find more in-depth information and real-life experiences about Microsoft products and solutions beside the TechNet Forums and blogs.

What do you do with TechNet Wiki, and how does that fit into the rest of your job?

I use the TechNet Wiki’s to find answers, information and real-life experience about the Microsoft products I use and I will create a new wiki when I feel that something is missing or would be a valuable contribution to save others time in searching for the same answers. My job provide good opportunities to create new wiki’s for Remote Desktop Services, App-V, SCVMM, SCCM and for the TechNet Training and Certification forum  where I participate. 

What is it about TechNet Wiki that interests you?

The TechNet Wiki is the best place to look for how to guides and real-life experience information about products and solutions. The possibility for others to edit and update the wiki’s will keep the content valid. Blogs and public articles will usually not be updated by the publisher once they have been released. The TechNet Wiki is self-sustainable with a large community of Wiki Ninja’s and fanatics  that keep the content up to date and organized.

On what articles have you collaborated with other community members on #TNWiki? What was that experience like?

I have not yet collaborated with other community members on one topic but I do hope that I will have the opportunity to do this in the near future.  

What are your favorite Wiki articles you’ve contributed?

My Favorite articles I have contributed are Upgrade from MCSA/MCSE 2003 to MCSA: Server 2012 and Study guide for MCSE: Desktop Infrastructure. 

Who has impressed you in the Wiki community, and why?

Many of the Wiki Ninja’s have done some very impressive work, especially the ones that show up on the top contributors of the week leaderboard every week. It takes a lot of effort to get a high ranking for multiple weeks in a row. http://blogs.technet.com/b/wikininjas/archive/tags/top+contributors+of+the+week/

What does success look like for TechNet Wiki?

I would like to see every product and solution to have multiple wiki’s from getting started to advanced implementations and design specifics with an active community that will update the wiki ‘s on a regular basis including the best practices and knowledge from Microsoft MVP’s for all products.

Do you have any comments for product groups about TechNet Wiki?

It might be interesting to build a reward system for creating a wiki whenever a forum question has a marked answer if the answerer or moderator that identified the correct answer creates a wiki about the topic discussed. Something like ‘Forum answer to Wiki I/II/III Bronze/Silver/Gold”.  This might motivate more TechNet forum users to start writing wiki articles. :)

Thanks to Danny van Dam for all your contributions!

Please join me in thanking Danny and feel free to ask him any more questions!

Thanks!

   - Ninja Ed