Hello, and welcome back to SharePoint Magazine.

We’ve been quiet for a long time, but now we’re back, stronger than ever. As you may have heard, SharePoint Magazine has joined forces with USPJ Academy and is now part of USPJA Publishing.

That means we’ll have a dedicated and highly motivated team to bring SharePoint Magazine to new heights in the future. In addition, we’ll have access to a world-class faculty to help us create the most compelling, interesting, and instructive articles on SharePoint.

What does this mean for you as a reader? Well, here is a list of some of the great new features you may come to love.

New Authors and Content

First of all, and immediately apparent, we’re reviving the magazine so you’ll get fresh articles on a regular basis, covering all aspects of SharePoint for all skill levels. We’ll be bringing in new authors as well, which means you’ll find an even broader scope of topics but also deeper articles within those topics.

If you are an aspiring author and want to give back to this great community, you should read up on our author information. We are always looking for good writers and well-founded opinions, so lend us your voice, and we will bring it to our audience.

Columns

We’re also introducing columns, a feature in which a small number of authors (or even one) write regular articles in a given field. These columns aren’t necessarily technical or even strictly SharePoint specific. For example, the first column, Dean’s Corner, is a column focused on learning and training benefits, authored initially by the Dean of USPJ Academy (which is me, apparent from the obvious disclaimer on these articles).

Conversations

Conversations is a think-tank for SharePoint, where a panel of hand-picked industry experts voice their opinion on matters of great importance to the SharePoint community. Each of these members will be invited to respond to topics within their chosen fields of expertise, and you can join the discussion in the forums afterward.

Forums

Speaking of forums, you’ll notice that we’ve put all commenting functionality for articles into a new forum. This forum is yours, as part of the community, and you’ll be able to comment and discuss articles, comment on the conversations, and learn from your fellow community members. Your host in the forums is our community manager, Arno Nel.

Reorganization

We have reorganized all the content to make it easier for you to find what you want. Better categorization and taxonomy will make it easier to find content. All articles are now in a single category tree, divided into our main focus areas: Developers, Administrators, and Business Users.

Further, you’ll find series that organize multiple articles in a given theme or topic. You’ll find these series in the top navigation as well, and they will be clearly marked as such inside the articles.

Articles will also follow stricter guidelines so that you’ll get exactly the right amount of content in each article without leaving things out or including too much.

Editorial Team and Author Training

To help our authors, we have a new team of editors who will work on the articles to ensure the quality of the content. There are three editors working on each and every article to ensure top quality. This editorial team comprises some incredibly skilled people who combined have more than 25 years of writing and editing experience.

All authors also go through a training program to help them better understand the editorial workflow at SPM and to offer tips and guidance to improve their writing. Even better, we will be working with selected authors to help them increase their skills even further through a new author mentoring program. Authors selected for this program will receive training and guidance from experienced authors and editors to help them increase the quality of their content.

Does that mean we’ll take content only from established writers? No! In fact, we’re already planning competitions and opportunities for aspiring authors looking to share their knowledge. If you want to get involved with writing for us, check out our author request form.

Competitions

We’ll be running regular competitions that allow you to win some absolutely great prizes. The first competition, to be launched in a couple of days, features an SPTechCon San Francisco experience with a grand prize valued at more than $2,500, including an SPTechCon ticket, a hotel stay at the conference hotel, a one-on-one training session with one of the USPJ Academy faculty, and a 13-issue bundle of USP Journal issues!

More of these competitions have already been planned, and you can look forward to some magnificent prizes and opportunities.

But Wait, There’s More…

These are just some of the changes coming to SharePoint Magazine now. However, we have already planned several new features and are working to implement them as soon as possible. It is important to us, though, that you let us know what you think, and a great place to do so is in the forums.

Also, keep in mind that because we are just reviving the magazine, we’re not going to start a race to get as much content as possible as soon as possible. We’re working diligently to update old content and to publish new content, but we do so at a pace that allows us to maintain our quality focus.

Oh, and if you would like to be kept up-to-date on when we’re launching these new features, make sure you sign up for the mailing list; follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; and of course, watch the web page.

Hang On, There’s Something Wrong With…

Found an error you say? You dare insinuate that we aren’t perfect?

Well, I’ve been in IT long enough to realize that there’s no perfect launch and that there are always going to be issues. This is an ongoing process, and we appreciate your feedback if you have any troubles. If you find issues, feel free to let us know, either in the forum or by email to pubeditor@uspja.com.

Also, if you have suggestions for new features or topic ideas, let us know.

Again, I’d like to welcome you all back and look forward to providing you some great content.

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