John Muller of IBM put together a step-by-step video showing you how you can add a YouTube widget to your My developerWorks Connections Blog... and the 7:43 runtime is well spent.

Great video for those of you looking to extend your Connections-based weblogs and add whatever Google gadget -- not limited to YouTube -- you'd like!

Direct from IBM developerWorks, two webcasts featuring social Jazz and the opportunity to attend a Q&A with IBM Chief Scientist and co-author of UML Grady Booch to discuss social media and the future of software delivery.

Please join us for these upcoming IBM Working Smarter Web events.

Enriching the Jazz environment with social software
Date: Tuesday, August 25
Time: 1:00 p.m. (New York)

This interactive teleconference will answer your questions about combining social software (instant messaging, team wikis, blogs, and professional networks) with software delivery tools. Explore practical benefits of using Lotus Advanced Collaboration and IBM Jazz products to find a developer with unique skills fundamentally improving the effectiveness of an organization.

A conversation with Grady Booch
Date: Thursday, August 27
Time: 1:00 p.m. (New York)

Join Grady Booch in a freewheeling, interactive conversation on the future of software delivery in the current internet culture and new social media vehicles. Hear how software teams are responding to wikinomics and the democratization of ideas, how open source initiatives are changing software economics and how the software delivery team of the future will be more global, collaborative and transparent than ever before.

Both web conferences are a part of the IBM Working Smarter community initiatives, and are recommended (especially the Q&A with Booch) for anyone interested in extending their grasp of social media in the marketplace.

(Note: I'm a fan of NY Times Best-Selling hard-science horror author Scott Sigler, so this might be a little biased... but recommended nonetheless!)

In a keynote address at Balticon 2009 this past May, Scott Sigler - who has taken his give-it-away-for-free approach to marketing and viral fanbase seeding all the way to the New York Times Best-Sellers list - spoke about The Future of Content Delivery. Being a software developer, blogger, podcaster, and hobbyist author... I was more than a little interested to hear what Sigler's thoughts were on the subject.

Sigler's thoughts on the numbers game of the target consumer base and specifically the consumer technologies that define that consumer base find a near direct corollary in our own world of product development.

Simply put. If you create any products, be they Lotus Notes Client Applications, Domino Web Applications, IBM add-ons, SaaS or Cloud offerings, Web Applications, Mobile and Cellular Phone Applications, or anything even in that arena... I highly suggest that you listen to this keynote from Scott Sigler on The Future of Content Delivery!

(Note: There is harsh language sprinkled throughout the podcast, so you might want to use your headphones...)

Complete with customer and contributor testimonials and showcased Top Contributor and New Contributor profiles, the new developerWorks Lotus Wiki Home Page acts as a gateway into all of the IBM Lotus and IBM Websphere product family Wikis.

They even put a quote from some hack who thinks himself a guru of sorts:

"With technology, printed materials become dated before they're sent to the editor; improvement of application and technique change almost hourly. Content creation and community interaction--via mediums such as Product Wikis--are invaluable to establishing 'living documentation' which can evolve in tandem with its community."

The product wikis are an amazing resource to both customers, business partners, and even to IBMers who can quickly access best practices tutorials as well as a deep well of feature functionality for each Lotus and Websphere product.

This is why I cannot stress the importance of cross-posting article content: establishing the product wikis as an authoritative master resource for customers - be they product customers, the aforementioned business partners, or even the aforementioned IBMer - will do nothing but strengthen the product, empower the customer to extend their usage of the given product, allow the genius-level contributors to this Lotus Online Community to further establish themselves as subject matter experts, and ultimately benefit everyone involved.

Not contributing to the wikis today? You can use your IBM Sign-in and contribute something - there's a lot of room out there for contributions.

And if you're a blogger who is interested in cross-posting content - or anyone who has an idea for an article-length contribution - let me know and we'll chat - there's a Recognition Program eager to give you credit for your contributions!

This afternoon, while chatting with Joyce Davis about the agenda for our August 2009 Lotus Technical Information and Education Community Meeting, we had the following exchange:

Chris Toohey I worked on an article last night. Sure, might not be everyone's cup of tea but it's showcasing a development technique that will be the basis for future-proofing applications - regardless of the technology platform used. Readership so far is luke warm.

Joyce A Davis you posted it in the wiki?

Chris Toohey no, not too sure if it fits in there.

Chris Toohey it's stuff that, well, out of context would be confusing to say the least - it might be too niche.

Joyce A Davis Chris, nothing is too niche for the wikis. People won't read it if it's not interesting/important to them.

Chris Toohey ok, you've convinced me.

Admittedly, it wasn't a hard sell. I absolutely believe that the Domino Designer Wiki is an excellent resource for the greater Lotus Development community... but I was hesitant nonetheless.

I'll explain.

On my site, I can post whatever nonsense I want. I can post about some off-the-wall concept that's crawled into my brain that hour or bang out a few quick examples of the playground-level thing that I'm working on at the moment.

The idea of cross-posting my Now() + n series to the Domino Designer Wiki just never occurred to me, more because I felt that the Wiki is a location for more best practices approaches while (especially in this series) my work is often intended for non-RAD developers.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that I'm some uber-l33t coder or something like that - I just don't that most of the things I discuss here will really find their way into the day-to-day development practices for the occasional reader of this site.

Back to the point: Joyce is absolutely correct. The Domino Designer Wiki is the perfect place to put such an article. It's not only a concept that I believe it, but it's something that - if properly adopted - can save a developer countless hours of hack-work to achieve the ever-changing functionality that your customers demand.

So I plan to cross-post each of my Now() + n articles to the Domino Designer Wiki, and have started with my first: Leveraging MVC-style design techniques in Domino Application Development.

This way, my article not only has the potential to reach more readers, but I can work with the Domino Wiki Leads - as I mentioned the other day - and get developerWorks Author Achievement Recognition Program points... for something as simple as copy/pasting my own content.

And I'm not the only one doing this. Another member of our community - who has recently been producing some truly amazing content - is in talks with the program leads to ensure that the cross-posting of his content is recognized.

So whether you run your own website or not, just keep in mind that no content is too niche, too simple, or too "well everybody knows that!" for the IBM Domino Designer Wiki.