Blogging was a thing in the recent past that was used as a way to have a voice in a community. Many in our community will say that they used their blog as a way to remember things for themselves, and have had the experience where when searching for an answer to a problem have been presented with their own blog post in a set of Google search results!

As tools have changed blogging isn’t as common anymore, but the need to solve problems remains. While one can get a lot of answers from Stack Overflow there is a place for blogging as a way to help others, demonstrate expertise and share answers to problems you’ve solved yourself.

The OpenNTF Blogathon is a community event to encourage as many members of our community as possible to start sharing your knowledge / ideas / solutions / questions again. You can write on any topic and for any length, but we suggest that people who are just getting started to keep it small to begin with. A lot of little tips and tricks will eventually turn into a comprehensive reference for the community.

It’s not just blogging. YouTube videos count too. Whatever way you like to document and share something you have learned with the community is great!

If you don’t already have a blog, you can send your post to OpenNTF and we can post it to our blog on your behalf, or post a video on our YouTube channel to share. If you would like to start a blog, we recommend using GitHub Pages.

It is really important for us to underscore that any kind of sharing is relevant and any kind of content is useful. Share what you know! Do not let the idea that someone else has already written on a particular topic deter you from also writing on that topic. Seeing the same problem from a different perspective is always helpful.

For everyone who participates OpenNTF will amplify your post(s) on Discord and Collaboration Today, and will send you a digital badge.

To participate, after you have your content ready, post a link on the OpenNTF Discord server, in the #blogathon channel. Or contact us there if you have content that you would like OpenNTF to host for you.

Plus, this counts if you are considering a nomination as an HCL Ambassador, and the nomination period opens in October.

Contact us on Discord for more information.

Recognizing members of our community that have done something useful for the community itself has been one of the topics on the top of our heads as Directors this year.

We talked extensively about this in various Board Meetings and the unanimous consensus was that OpenNTF needed to do something to recognize the individuals who make a contribution, be that by submitting a project or a snippet, speaking in our webinars and in general doing voluntary work for the benefit of the community. We thought about several alternatives and we ended up with two options, which we submitted to the Annual General Meeting in June 2023.

The first option was to give out something tangible, a shirt, a mug, a USB key…. any kind of thing that you might receive at a conference or user group meeting that has a logo on it. While these are fun, we all already have piles of these items that sit unused and gathering dust.

The second option was to issue digital badges, like HCL does with Ambassadors and people who pass a certification exam. This option requires some work on our side, but has the advantage of being virtual.

The consensus from the AGM was to go with the second option.

As a result, we have developed a set of digital badges to hand out to recognize contributions to the community.

We have started with 4 designs, with a 5th to come shortly:

• Contributor This goes to individuals who contribute a Project to OpenNFT.
• Weibnar Presenter This goes to anyone who presents at an OpenNTF webinar.
• CT Moderator This goes to the people who help with the operation of and moderating content for the Collaboration Today website.
• Director This goes to anyone who volunteers to sit a term on the OpenNTF Board.

This list is not immutable and we may add other categories as we deem necessary or according to suggestions our members may give us. We issue digital badges using Canvas Badges (https://badgr.com) which is the same used by HCL for Ambassadors and exam badges.

Below are the badges we will issue.