In September 2012, we incorporated PowerShell.org, Inc., and founded PowerShell.org. Our goal was to provide a solid Q&A forum, and to act as a portal to the rest of the PowerShell community.
By any measure, we’ve had a great first showing.
We have more than a dozen shareholders in PowerShell.org, Inc., making this the first community-owned PowerShell organization ever. We’ve signed on three Platinum sponsors - CBT Nuggets, SAPIEN Technologies, and Interface Technical Training. We’re now funded for 2-3 years of operation, including providing (upon request), gift cards to help local user groups pay for pizza and other monthly meeting expenses.
PowerShell.org is now taking an average of 18,000 visits per month from more than 12,000 unique visitors, with a total of almost 57,000 monthly page views. Our forums have helped more than 760 people answer more than 850 questions.
Microsoft’s Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, has handed off the Scripting Games for 2013, and we’re preparing for a small-scale “Winter Scripting Camp” trial run that will include a purpose-built platform for reviewing events, submitting entries, and judging. And by the looks of things, that platform will run on PowerShell itself.
We’ve announced our first PowerShell Summit North America, and have completely sold out. We’re already doing initial planning for 2014, aiming for a larger venue and hoping to accommodate twice as many attendees, and to fully cover speaker travel expenses.
We’ve launched PowerShell People, accessible via PowerShell.net, where you can write a PowerShell script to create and post your own profile and “brag” page about your PowerShell activities and accomplishments.
We’ve launched three free PowerShell.org-branded ebooks, and are preparing to launch our PowerShell.org TechLetter monthly (!!!) e-mail newsletter complete with feature articles, news updates, and more. That’s by (free) subscription only, so sign up if you haven’t done so already! We’ve also had help from Jason Hofferle on our new Books page, rounding up all the free and commercial PowerShell books out there.
It’s been a whirlwind year, and it’s all thanks to you for supporting it. By asking questions in the forums, offering answers, creating your People page, registering for the Summit, signing up for the Newsletter - all of these little activities spur us all on to new heights, and we appreciate all the feedback you’ve offered. There will be more to come - follow the community on Twitter (and the Summit too, while you’re at it) for the latest announcements.If you’d like to contribute, just drop a note in the Suggestion Box forum - whether you want to help monitor a discussion forum, write book reviews, or whatever, there’s always room to contribute.
There have been some setbacks. Will Steele, who had volunteered to populate our Events page, has had to step down due to health problems. Will has been a great contributor to the site and to the overall community, and we miss him. Our thoughts are with him and his family this holiday season.
As we all wind down and look forward to the New Year, I wanted to personally express my gratitude to everyone who’s helped make all of this happen. Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and I’ll see you again in 2013!
Don Jones
President and CEO, PowerShell.org, Inc.