Author news: What is Next Hop?

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Next HopSusan S. Bradley here, senior project manager on the Communications Server team. Welcome to Next Hop! Next Hop is the Microsoft Office Communications Server team’s customer response channel—a new medium to rapidly publish the information you need, when you need it.

This is the same team that produced Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Resource Kit  (Microsoft Press, 2009; ISBN: 9780735626355; 880 pages) and Programming for Unified Communications with Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (Microsoft Press, 2009; ISBN: 9780735626232; 416 pages).

Next Hop provides pertinent, short-format, technical articles between major releases of the product and associated product documentation (technical library content, the Resource Kit book, whitepapers, and tools).

In coming months, Next Hop will highlight the knowledge of experts in the Office Communications Server community. As we grow, we’ll bring you knowledge from internal and external experts, such as the Communications Server engineering team and our Most Valuable Professional (MVP) community.

In addition to publishing great content by contributing authors, Next Hop will keep a pulse on the community. The Communications Server Blog Roll and @DrRez Twitter feed highlights the activities of other sites and blogs focused on Communications Server. Our plan is to support, encourage, and evangelize all the great content that is being written on Communications Server.

Next Hop brings you fresh articles every week. Many of our article ideas will come from none other than YOU. We look forward to lively engagement with our readers. Most articles will be between 2-7 pages, so 5-10 minutes of reading is all that’s required at any one time.

Next Hop will point you to a wealth of information on the latest version of Communications Server. You’ll find late breaking information under Hot Topics, getting started information under Jump Drive, troubleshooting information under Quick Fix, and technical deep dives under Dr. Rez. Each of our key topic areas is supported by an RSS feed, so you will always be able to easily access the information you need most.

At least two new articles post weekly to Next Hop. Read them and tell us how we are doing, what helps you, and what additional information you want to see.

Here’s what we have published so far:

If we’re not hitting the mark, let us know. We’ll use your feedback to improve what we deliver.

To tell us how we are doing and what you want us to write about next:

E-mail us: Nexthop [at] microsoft.com

Tweet us: https://www.twitter.com/DrRez