Though I can't be present, I want to congratulate and thank the attendees, presenters, and organizers of the SDL Web Developer Summit 2017 in India. Your initiative in wielding the "Midas Rule" leverages the strength of a growing, vibrant "local" community* to take advantage of knowledge sharing.

The Midas Rule

I coined the term the "Midas Rule" in response to enthusiasm I saw in the PowerTools open source reboot (which has since moved to the Alchemy Web Store). Several people wanted to help but each felt the need to ask permission. So I encouraged them to get started with the following point:

"Whoever touches something first (takes initiative) and cares the most gets to decide what to do with it."

By taking this kind of initiative, the SDL Web Developer Summit India participants have created an annual globally-visible event supported by SDL and partners.

Out of maybe dozens of Tridionauts I've worked with from India, I've noticed some have deep expertise in fairly specific topics. I'm not sure if it's common, but a few described CVs that reflected a broad set of skills across a large variety of technologies and even specific parts of software. One colleague lamented and laughed about being a "Content Porter expert" for a year because he figured out how it worked first and got most to all of the content porter jobs for a given project. 

Unique Strengths and Opportunities

This kind of deep expertise creates both strengths and opportunities.

• There's strength in having a broad view of different technologies and deep expertise in specific functionality.
• The online and offline technical communities offer the opportunity to share and learn from others.

The challenge is bringing this strength and opportunity together to share what you're good at and learn from others to find work that appeals to you.

When I joined SDL I had a background in Content Delivery, XSLT, and functional topics but DWT templating was mostly new to me. That was the "hard" part. I've since found some in the Tridion developer community that also had similar backgrounds where templating is the hard part. As an enterprise content management system, SDL Web crosses several domains and technologies where you might not get a chance to work with everything. Finding familiar patterns and connecting these seemingly "new" concepts in different contexts is a great way to learn and teach others. 

Don't Wait

Don't wait for permission to join the community. Don't assume we only need technical expertise. We need functional, infrastructure, and project perspectives. We need examples and lessons learned. Of course respect intellectual property, share general approaches over implementation-specific code, and post the occasional rant in constructive ways.

My first post was hard (scary even), but I eventually realized it didn't matter that I wasn't a developer, or where I was from, or the fact that I was new in a given role. If I could help, I tried to share. Some 300+ blog posts later and hundreds of questions and answers on Tridion Stack Exchange, the hardest part of sharing is making the commitment and having the discipline to continue sharing. At some point, we might find ourselves sharing less, which is a good opportunity to encourage others to share more.

Here are seven tips to consider as you attend this year's events from the SDL Web Developer Summit in India to TDS in Amsterdam in May.

1. Get the free SDL Web developer license. Nuno Linhares made these specifically available for the community to help those new to our software as well as reward and encourage sharing.
2. Learn about DXA. Create a module or meet others to collaborate on a module.
3. Bring your unique perspective. Where are the QA experts, business analysts, and project managers? Can we see more types of Tridionauts in the MVP community award program?
4. Make contacts. Find a mentor or become a mentor. 
5. Thank others for sharing. Citing a specific example is a great way to thank and encourage the types of sharing that have helped you.
6. Blog about the event. You don't have to write much. You can share code.
7. Ask questions. Answer questions.

The world is getting smaller. We need stronger connections and deeper understanding more than ever. Thank you for reading and good luck on another successful event!

*I don't know the actual size of the Indian Tridion developer community, but using "local" to describe a country that is the third of size of the United States with four times the population is a bit of an understatement.