Are You in the Know?
SCN is one of the most active communities in the world! And if you’ve been paying attention, you’re already aware that change is coming soon, big, exciting change. Hopefully you’ve read Maggie Fox‘s blog announcing the Future of Community and One Digital Experience.
Even if you have, you probably still have questions about what’s changing and when – and how it’s going to impact you and your use of the SCN web site. The core project team is working hard to make sure your questions get answered. We are releasing regular blog posts describing what’s coming, what’s changing and what’s going away. Many of our most involved project team members have already weighed in, with posts from familiar names like Jeanne Carboni, Marilyn Pratt, and Oliver Kohl. More are planned to be released every month from our other subject matter experts, who will share details about what’s coming, and answer all your questions on important topics like tags, reputation, content migration, moderation, gamification, questions and answers, and more.
Our goal is to be transparent about what is coming, share key decisions as they are made, and keep the lines of communication open for feedback, input and ongoing improvement. The best way for you to stay In the Know on this important topic, is to follow the Communication Overview for #1DXCOMMDEST Krysten Gentile published in April and which she regularly updates as new communications are released.
We think it’s so important that you stay In the Know, we’ve created a mission around it. All you have to do is bookmark or follow Krysten’s document to be notified when there are updates, and you’ll get your badge that tells the rest of the community you are listening and getting ready for the new Community Experience.
Special thanks to Jeanne Carboni Audrey Stevenson, Krysten Gentile, Jodi Fleischman and Sajid Amir for their help in launching this mission!
Will "In the Know" be a part of the List of SCN Missions ?
Yes, I updated it today. Thanks!
Hi Caroleigh,
It doesn't seem to be working correctly, unless I misunderstood the requirements. It says "read and follow" Krysten's document. Does that mean "track in communications?" Does that mean "bookmark?" Or something else?
Cheers,
Matt
why not just sticking to the words?
Well, if it's supposed to be a badge that people can earn... I tried both those things, a couple days ago actually, and it hasn't worked for me. But, I can see that it has clearly worked for some people, so I'm curious.
Hi Matt,
did you press the
button. Think that was why Jürgen says "sticking to the words". Follow, not track or bookmark. 😉
Best Regards,
Florian
do you see it in your profile at this place: _http://scn.sap.com/people/matt.fraser/content?filterID=following
Nope.
Hi Matt,
Could you try it again? Just like Florian illustrated, you should see a Follow button on Krysten's document: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-63650 (unless you already had followed it, you would see a Following button)
Once you've clicked Follow, I can check the logs and see what's going on. I went back a few days and didn't see the follow event for you for Krysten's document. Did you happen to view and follow before the launch of the mission on Monday?
We'll get to the bottom of this:)
Lol. You know, I have ignored the 'Follow' button on documents, blogs, and discussions for a long time, to the point I don't even see it anymore, because it doesn't actually do anything (the only way to get updates, besides commenting, is to 'Track in Communications;' 'Follow' doesn't achieve this, unless things have changed recently).
So, now I am "following", "tracking", and "liking", and I have the badge now.
Sorry, I feel a bit dumb this afternoon.
I had this conversation a long time ago with someone else, when I opened a discussion about how 'Follow' was broken because it didn't actually result in getting updates, and that's when I was told to 'Track' instead.
Anyway, thanks for bearing with me.
Following is the soft version of tracking in communications.
I follow a few logistics forums, but do not want to see them in my communication stream.
If I feel lucky, then I click the Activity icon and check the content that I am "only" following.
I am glad we got to the bottom of it, and don't you worry, this is all good input. And from my perspective, no user experience, or user interface, or mission requirement should ever make you feel dumb.
I see this as a nice opportunity... to capture your confusion and ask you -- how would you prefer / expect to receive notifications such as this - a document has been updated with content that is probably relevant to you. What's the best way to bring new updates to your attention? An email? Via your activity stream? Something else?
Follow and bookmark and commenting lead to different types of "updates." If it's not clear, let's try to make it more apparent. What are you expecting? What would you prefer?
Caroleigh
PS - Hoping to hear from Matt, but also others:) As we redesign the Community Destination, all input is valued and welcome.
Hi Caroleigh,
When I follow any document or thread, I do not see any separate notification whenever there is any sort of update/comment in that thread. However I can see that in the activity list (it may be because I am already following the community of that thread).
IMO, follow a thread should notify you if there is any update/comment in that thread.
Yes, I know that 'track in communication' works almost the same way but having 'follow' and 'track in communication' both is bit confusing. 🙂
Regards,
Ekansh
What makes you confused ? Follow does mean you can see notification only under Activity tab and track in communication means you can see the notification under Communication tab.
Follow thread works same as Follow space.
Activity of space that you follow shows up in activity stream.
Activity of thread that you follow shows up in activity stream.
Following a thread of space that you already follow is meaningless.
Yes, and this is why I never follow threads/discussions. If I want to actually notice the continuing conversation, but haven't yet felt inspired to leave my own comment, I click 'Track in Communications.'
Caroleigh,
As I 'Follow' several spaces and over a hundred individuals (though not all of them are very active), my Activity stream can get quite busy, so it's easy to miss things there. This is especially true if I'm away from SCN for more than a day, at which point it is essentially pointless to go back through the whole stream looking for relevant posts. So, if I really want to ensure I don't miss something in a discussion, I click on 'Track in Communications' (or simply comment on the discussion, which achieves the same thing). I have email notifications turned off except for direct messages and @ mentions -- I figure those indicate when people are really trying to specifically reach me -- because otherwise my email inbox gets a bit cluttered, and besides I check my Communications tab every day anyway. Since Communications highlights unread comments, it's easy to keep up on things there.
Some time ago I had some confusion about all this, and I thought that clicking 'Follow' on a discussion would cause the updates to show up in Communications, which of course is not how it works. I actually reported it as a bug at the time, and that's when the 'Track' button was pointed out to me (it's not as obvious as 'Follow'). From that point on, I managed to shift gears mentally and where before the 'Track' button had been essentially invisible to me, now the 'Follow' button became so (for posts -- not for spaces or people). So, when you said to follow the document, I really thought you meant to track it, and thus my confusion. 🙂
So, to answer your question... I'm not sure! I don't really want to receive emails for anything that isn't specifically directed at me personally, but not everyone feels the same, so the ability to personalize this is key (and seems to work well in the current platform). I find the Communications tab works well, but not perfectly -- older content drops off and becomes hard to find, which is where Bookmarks come in. I'd like to be able to better organize my bookmarks into groups, though -- right now they seem a bit of a jumbled mess, and so I tend to just go straight to search instead. The Activity stream feels a bit like the Facebook newsfeed... nice for getting an overview on what's going on, and useful throughout the day when regularly checked, but quickly a disorganized heap if left unchecked for a while and so not a reliable way to be proactively notified of something important. But, it's good enough for less-critical notifications, those that are useful or interesting but won't really impact me if I miss them.
I think the Activity stream is best for notifications on items that may be relevant to me, but I didn't necessarily specifically choose proactive notification for. The Communications stream is best for those things that I reach out and choose to be notified on -- anything else showing up in there looks like spam unless it's of urgent and system-wide importance. Which is pretty much how both these streams operate today.
The WordPress Reader has a somewhat similar way of staying current on followed blogs, but if you follow a bunch of blogs it becomes easily unmanageable. It does have a pretty good tool for managing email notifications, however. I'm curious how that is going to play out for SCN.
Now you know, why the mission is called "In the know". Because you found out, how to get it. 😉
In order to give fair consideration to member preferences around following and bookmarking, we have updated the mission so either event will satisfy the mission requirement. Now you can bookmark OR follow Krysten's document to earn the In the Know badge. Thank you for all the feedback, we will keep it in mind.
Actually when I read the document a month ago, I did both just in case ! 🙂
Don't take this the wrong way, but if to achieve the badge you need to "follow" why does it say "book-mark", or is it part of the gamification mission...to figure that out?
Great attention to detail, Leslee. Either action, follow or bookmark, will trigger the mission. We kept if flexible to accommodate member preferences, as each has a different impact on notification type. Caroleigh