Behind the Scenes: Audrey Stevenson

[former_member46]

Interested in getting to know who runs SCN?

On this, Community Manager Appreciation Day #CMAD we're introducing a new series, 'Behind the Scenes’ that gets up close to our special team members, showcasing their professional SCN roles as well as some of their personal interests.

Today it’s especially fitting to highlight oddss since she one of the best community managers! Audrey is a Senior Editor and Content Strategist at SAP. In her awesome Blog IT Forward (BIF) post which garnered 27 comments, Audrey shared several of her unique interests; her passion for motorcycles (including how she and her husband eloped on one!), her love of travel and living in different countries (4 of which were shared in her post) , her favorite projects (BPX…), and her colorful SAP career including ABAP translator, and more!

According to Audrey one of the reasons she enjoys her work is: “getting to dig out those hidden gems, the folks who have perhaps written their first blog post and done an impressive job” when I asked her to share what she looks for in a hidden gem she said:  These are pieces of content that are worthy of being posted on the SCN homepage, with an audience of several hundred thousand per week. A piece of content that I would label a “gem” has to appeal to a broad audience with many different areas of interest and expertise. Also it has to be written in a way that can be understood by that broad audience. When I find a piece like that, and it’s been recognized by a couple of members with some likes, comments or ratings, that’s a “gem”.

This activity takes time and patience. I’ve been with SCN almost 7 years, so I’m familiar with the names of a lot of members who blog on a fairly regular basis. As I look through the list of the blogs that have been posted in the last week, I skim the author column looking for new names. When I find a new name, I check the title of the blog post, and if it indicates a not-too-specific topic, I’ll dive in and start reading it, regardless of what particular space it’s in. For a first time author, I might ask marilyn.pratt to review and see if she shares my opinion that I've found a hidden gem to be featured on the homepage.

Although the process takes time, I feel it’s a privilege to connect the community with the newest voices who are sharing their thoughts and experiences, so I’m always looking for the hidden gems to feature alongside the content of our proven experts on the SCN homepage.

What is your favorite SCN space and feature, and why? There are two things that stand out for me that I like best about the new SCN: The first, it is much easier to create a blog post or a document. Incorporating photos or embedding YouTube videos is really straight forward now. This makes it easier for more people to contribute their thoughts and opinions in more interesting ways.

The second thing is Jive’s automated feed capabilities. As co-editor of the SCN homepage, I love the fact that we can include a feed of all blog posts by SAP Mentors, as well as a feed of the most popular blog posts from across the whole site.

It’s hard to pick any one space as my favorite, since my role as an editor is different than that of most of our community members. In my professional role, the most useful space is the Moderators and Space Editors space. Its only accessible to those in the community who moderate or oversee specific spaces. Following the posts there, helps me to continually learn new things from the wonderful folks who devote their time to keeping the community in shape.

What would the community be surprised to learn about you? My first real job in the technology industry was as a technical writer for Hewlett-Packard (HP), way back in 1988/89, in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. I worked in the networking division, writing installation guides for networking software, and I also wrote man pages! (Raise your hand if you know what a man page is.)*

*Gali: I did not :wink: if there are others like me please see wikipedia’s explanation for man page.

Please help us grow from your personal experience; share one tip/resource/guide/experience that you recommend: This is a great question, Gali, and I look forward to seeing the answer others give for this. One tip I would like to share is that SCN search is much, much, MUCH improved over when we launched last March. If you tried using search back then, you most probably were frustrated. I know I was. I myself have gone from rarely using it when we launched to using it regularly now. When I search for anything on SCN, I can use the filters on the left side of the search results page to narrow down the type of asset I want to see (blog post? document? discussion post?) and what space or spaces I want to see it in. It’s pretty powerful now, and helps me find a lot of content.

And one bonus tip for our blog readers, try clicking on Browse > Content > Blog Posts (from anywhere on the site) and then click Sort by Date Created. Its a great way to see the latest blogs written across the entire community! Remember the feed of all blog posts on the old SCN? Here it is on the new SCN. Try it!

For fun, the next four questions are taken from the Actor's Studio Interview Questions :smile:

What is your favorite word: Serendipity

Least favorite word: Torture

What sound do you love: Laughter (like the kind where something was so funny you and your friends can’t stop laughing and tears come and your stomach hurts because you’re laughing so hard)

What profession other than yours would you love to attempt: I’ve sometimes thought I’d like to become a social worker. They can have such a profound influence on families’ and children’s lives, and I have so much respect for the work they do.

Audrey is one of the people striving to continuously build our community. She has a no nonsense approach and truly cares which certainly
came across in quotes from the SCN team: 

• “Audrey is a super-dedicated colleague, who always thinks through problems and solutions inside-out!”
• “I really admire Audrey’s passion and commitment to delivering high quality work.  She inspires me to do my best and I really enjoy working with her!”
• “When it comes to finding a rational, innovative and usable solution, I know I can always get that from Audrey. She is analytical and thoughtful in her approach, and takes into consideration things that many don’t have the perspective to see. Our users have a much better  experience in large part because Audrey is looking out for their best interests. She is an incredibly valuable asset for our team."
• “Audrey is someone I can rely on for a straight forward answer on just about anything I can think of.  She’s a keen editorialist and has a sharp eye for maintaining enough consistency across SCN’s almost 500 spaces to ensure ease of use for our millions of users.  She’s definitely a role model and I’m really happy to call her a co-worker.”
• “Audrey is very experienced and a passionate community manager. She is smart and very precise with her strategic thinking. She always advocates for the community – for her, what truly matters is what is best for the community.”
• “Audrey has absolute integrity in that she always does what she says she will do, when she says she will do it. User-centricity is in her DNA.”

Follow Audrey on twitter @oddss