A few years back, back in the Sitecore 7.x days, I started to work with Sitecore. I originated from the SharePoint community (take note of the capital “P”!), where there are SO many active bloggers. I think this was caused by a bit of the history. “Back in the SharePoint 2007 days” all the SharePoint info we got, came from google, or from reflector, as the documentation wasn’t always “that well written”. It appeared that there were a few persons actively blogging about their findings and through the years, the amount of people actively blogging, writing cool code or helping each other out, exploded, but you had (and still have) to find your ways to find all the information.

I see the same pattern happening in Sitecore. A lot of great functionality, a great product, but not every feature is always documented. As everyone tries to get the most out of the platform, people are seeking the boundaries of the product and finding out how stuff works. A lot of people are looking for help, a lot of people are blogging, but it's not always that evident to find the sources that you need. "Where is the community?" you might ask. And that’s exactly why I decided to write this blogpost.

A first free lesson: First lesson: SiteCore is written as Sitecore. Please take care of this, as most Sitecore community members are a bit sensitive to it ;).

Sitecore and the Community whereabouts

There are a few different places where the community gathers around, so if you are looking for information, try these places!

Your own blog!

Without people like you, a community doesn’t exist! Did you do something cool, noteworthy or do you just want to share your experiences? Write it down! Other people invest (valuable) time in their blogs to share their information with you, so why wouldn’t you do the same? To me, it started out to write things down that I shouldn’t forget. Why not share those notes with the community? Of course it may be hard to start, so check out the places below to get started.

Twitter

Engage actively in the Sitecore community by following this hashtag and account and post to twitter by using the #Sitecore hashtag

Follow the #sitecore hashtag in tweetdeck.twitter.com and you’ll read the latest news.
Follow @Sitecore – now explanation needed ;)

Sitecore Slack

https://Sitecorechat.slack.com – a very active community, although that the slack isn’t publicly available. Send a DM on twitter or LinkedIn to one of the following members to get access:

More info on Sitecore slack? Visit this page to find out how to join this community!

Community.Sitecore.net

https://Community.Sitecore.net - A forum hosted by Sitecore where community members can ask their questions regarding Sitecore

Sitecore on stackexchange?

Do you really want to start with your first contribution to the Sitecore community? Signup and commit yourself to the Sitecore community. We’ll get our own http://sitecore.stackexchange.com!

Join Conferences and usergroups

Tere are several usergroups througout the world and several yearly sitecore conferences. A few examples:

Sitecore symposium - Hosted by Sitecore, 1800 visitors (New Orleans, September 2016)
European Sitecore Conference - Community conference 350 visitors (Copenhagen, April 2016)

Usergroups

Dutch Sitecore Usgergroup (SUGNL)

Noteworthy places to find information

Sitecore blog feed

http://feeds.sitecore.net/Feed/LatestPosts - a sitecore feed managed by Sitecore with interesting topics

Sitecore technical blogs

http://www.sitecore.net/learn/blogs/technical-blogs.aspx - A list with a lot of (skilled) bloggers, but not complete, as a lot of new technical bloggers have been joined the community the last years

Blogfeed on Slack

https://sitecorechat.slack.com/messages/blogfeed/ - a broad collection of blogs, updated every minute of the day!

Summary

Getting involved into the community isn’t hard, you just need to find the right places. Find us on twitter, find us on slack and find us on the public forums!