BIRT Exchange Forum: Ray Gans - Viewing Profile

I'm pleased to announce the members of the BIRT Exchange Community Leaderboard for April 2013. The purpose of this Leaderboard is to honor the top contributors to BIRT Exchange each month and to have a little fun. Scores are also posted on the BIRT Exchange Connect page. You can recognize past and current Leaderboard members by special badges on their forum and DevShare posts:


To determine the leaders, each contribution made by a BIRT Exchange member is assigned a weighted point score that roughly corresponds to its effort/value. For example, starting a forum topic by asking a question will score you 1 point and answering someone's question scores 3 points. Members with the top summed scores each month are declared the leaders for that month and posted to the Leaderboard. Over time we evolve the scoring system as needed for fairness and value to the community. We even give a point for voting on the BIRT Exchange Community home page polls (but make sure you're logged in so it will be assigned to you).

So please contribute to BIRT Exchange. It's not difficult to get a decent score and we'd love to see you on the Leaderboard next month!

You can find details on the Community Leaderboard Wiki. If you have any suggestions or comments, please add them to this blog post (they're worth 2 points).

If you'll be in the central Germany area on the evening of May 16, don't miss the BIRT User Group Mannheim meeting at 6:00pm. BIRT User Groups are excellent opportunities to improve your BIRT skills, learn new things and network with other BIRT users in your area. New, intermediate and expert BIRT users and developers are all welcome.

Agenda:

• 6-7pm: High performance BIRT reports. This presentation describes some common pitfalls on your way to creating high performance reports. It covers ineffective interactions with the report engine API and points out some bad decisions that can lead to poor report design.
  
• 7-8pm: Networking. Get to know other BIRT enthusiasts. Discuss features of the latest BIRT release and talk about topics and presentations for the next meeting.

The meeting is totally free of charge. Snacks and drinks will be provided -- as well as a DZone BIRT cheat-sheet handout and some nice doorprizes!

You can get additional information and register for this meeting by clicking here.

If you don't live close to any of the existing BIRT User Groups and would be interested in seeing one formed in you area, please contact me.

We are still looking for more developers to build new BIRT plug-ins as part of the Plug In 2 BIRT contest. There are less than two weeks left before the deadline -- but that's plenty of time to get your code built and submitted.

You say you've never built a plug-in before?
No problem, they are easier to build than you might think! The contest web site has lots of tutorials and examples to help you get started. Plus you'll find a wealth of ideas and suggestions there for plug-ins that many BIRT users have asked for.

Take a look and give it a shot for a chance to win an iPad (we're giving 3 away). We'd love to see what you can come up with.

Last month I had the honor along with Nobby Akiha (our Marketing SVP at Actuate) of doing a presentation on Developer Advocacy at the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference (DRC). Advocacy is a growing marketing trend that organizes and provides incentives to people who talk positively about a company and its technologies, products or services. In particular, advocates are a company's greatest fans.

My talk centered on the group of select BIRT developers we're identifying at Actuate and our objectives to give them credit when they talk about BIRT and provide them with interesting and effective ways of doing so. We're using a cool gamified infrastructure hosted by Influitive to provide the recruitment, recognition and organization of these developers. Advocates are given opt-in challenges that are simple or complex tasks to promote BIRT within their social and/or professional spheres of influence. Plus I try to make it fun and rewarding! Completed challenges give a weighted number of "points" for the advocate based on the level of effort required, badges are awarded for special achievements, and people are placed on a Leaderboard for some fun competition.

Some of the challenges I've designed ask advocates to comment on blogs or articles, start on-line conversations about data reporting and visualization, answer questions about BIRT, provide us with feedback on training materials and even just fill out their BIRT Exchange profiles so others get to know them better. In thanks for their advocacy we will reward them in ways meaningful to them like increasing their professional or personal on-line capital or giving them access to events or other areas of interest.


In fact, the good people at Influitive were kind enough to build a custom site for the DRC that I used to create gamified challenges for the attendees so they could experience what an advocacy program was like for themselves. The challenges ranged from simple tweeting during the conference to joining the DRC LinkedIn group, liking Evans Data on Facebook, taking quizzes, reading and commenting on blogs and providing feedback about the conference.

The DRC itself was very rewarding and as usual I was very impressed by the speakers, insights and the wealth of information I received. I highly encourage anyone who is a developer relations professional to attend this unique annual event. Evans Data always provides the latest look into what developers like and dislike, what motivates them and the best ways to get their attention. Did you know hat 42% of the developers Evans surveyed are developing mobile apps (half of the developers moonlight). Another interesting tidbit is that most developers rely on vendors as the most credible sources for emerging technologies (i.e., not their peers) -- this is a big change in past years.

Take a look at the conference site for a list of the speakers and topics discussed. Also please feel free to post a comment if you want to find out more about what we're doing for BIRT advocacy at Actuate.

This introductory training series is designed for those unfamiliar or just getting started with BIRT. During the day you will hear about technical strategies and opportunities that will help you anticipate and address future business needs –plus– learn how to develop rich information applications for your users through hands-on training that covers Eclipse and Actuate BIRT features.

These Roadshows are great ways to learn more about BIRT whether you're an Eclipse open source developer or an Actuate customer. Lunch is provided as well as giveaways and door prizes so you can expect an informative day with a chance to meet other BIRT users in your area and have a little fun.

Don't miss this opportunity to take part in one of these exciting events.