DominoKeys.com

“Mad props” to Ed Brill, who’s responsible for introducing me to the SlideShare.net website.

When I first saw the site I thought it was clever, but had a flaw that would make it short lived: I didn’t think that enough people would contribute presentations to it. I thought about how many presentations I’ve seen with a “confidential” disclaimer at the bottom and wondered how many people would really post helpful content to this site.

Not long after seeing it for the first time, they had a contest to find the best designed presentation. It was at that point that I thought my belief was being confirmed. I thought the site would become a design center and an ad space for people to store bland PowerPoint slides in the hopes that they drive some leads back to their company’s product or service.

And yes, it has a fair amount of that. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how many people have contributed truly unique content that’s helpful to others. If you work in IT, design or marketing – I highly suggest spending some time looking through this site. I’m confident you’ll find something helpful!

With sites like this, I’m reminded of some of the unwritten rules of on-line communities. One of which is that if you take something from it, you really ought to give something back. With that in mind, I set up a profile and published a presentation of mine that gives a great example of how to use “Lean” (often referred to as “Lean Manufacturing”) techniques applied to an IT system that most people would agree could use some improvement.