When things come together...and yes, I now have a book area

In just a few days I have managed to build a new book section here on the site and update the support section that I use Jira Service Management for. It has been a burst of creative energy and I feel it was exactly what I needed. I am now tired, but filled with energy if that makes any sense.

For a while my book writing has been pretty much dead. I just did not enjoy the format and I felt I was stretching myself a bit thin with the very extensive content. In short, I have pretty much abandoned the writing and focused on writing articles here on the site instead. The idea was there that maybe I could create a database for it instead, but I was a bit hesitant due to the work involved to build a new layout.

On Friday however I just gave it a go, just to see how much work it would include. As it turned out it was not much that was needed and with some very small adjustments and a few icons designed I am pretty happy with the outcome. I feel I have a pretty solid base to work from, so now I just need to define the scope and start writing.

I have tossed up a basic skeleton, but I will break this down properly as soon as I have decided on the scope. I already have a basic process designed up and I will extend that a bit with more details. It is something that I have done multiple times in different organizations, so I have a basic idea on how deep I need to go in each area. The tricky part will be to not go to deep into detail, so I lose myself in them. I think that if I have a visual roadmap that will be a bit easier though.

I will probably add a few tidbits here and there that may be a bit out of scope though. Things like tips and tricks on how to manage teams or structure workshops for example. The advantage of working publicly like this is that I can get feedback directly, but also that I can write as much as I like and then decide what I want to put into an actual book when it is time to publish.

Last night, as I could not sleep, I also did some cleaning up in my Jira Instance. I created a new support section and created a new workflow for different requests. Then I disabled the support function here on the site and turned off the contact form that was active for some reason. The reason to do that is that I want to direct all incoming requests to Jira since I find the internal support function in Invision Community lacking a bit.

I now have a new setup, so I can receive and manage the different requests I have gotten lately. Strangely enough I get quite a few requests regarding sponsored articles and guest blogging, but also some work requests. This way I can manage them better using Jira Service Management as the engine.

Overall I feel that this is a great way to end 2020 and I might have one or two more things I want to build before the end of the year. I have already talked a bit about the database for Atlassian App reviews, but I think that the database might be possible to also use for other types of databases, like a database over JavaScript libraries or tools for the different sections. That would expand the site quite a bit, which is not a bad thing in my mind.

So, today I am filled with creative energy and I look forward to seeing what new, exciting things might happen in the future.