Thanks for your interest in blogging at JMP Blog, JMPer Cable and JMP Challenge!
Blog posts are a friendly, informal, timely way to provide helpful, interesting information to people who may or may not be JMP users.
Why do people blog?
Many in JMP Development write posts to help users notice and use the JMP capabilities they created. Many JMP SEs write posts to show users and potential users what JMP is capable of doing and how to do it -- sometimes step by step. Many people write simply to show analysis and visualization of interesting real-world data. Some write to share how they use JMP in their personal lives. Others blog to bring attention to JMP resources.
Why does JMP encourage blogging?
Blog posts are written by smart, friendly people who share their personality and voice in their writing. This humanizes JMP. But ultimately, we believe in providing useful information to an audience who cares about JMP, data analysis, data visualization, statistics, science, research, experimentation, etc.
Start here:
Blog Submission and Review Process (updated 08/10/21):
- Propose blog idea to blog editor @arati_mejdal.
- Write your draft in Word.
- Get a technical review of your draft from a peer if your topic is technical.
- Send your draft as a Word document via email to @AmyStuart for editing
- Create your post using the edited version in JMP Blog, JMPer Cable or JMP Challenge and click Send for Review.
Let Arati Mejdal know your post is awaiting review (notifications are not working as of Oct. 27, 2021). She will edit, add tags, links, etc., and schedule for publication. If your post has data visualizations, she will send your post to Xan Gregg for review.
For non-English posts: Please create the draft in JMP Blog, JMPer Cable or JMP Challenge and then email @arati_mejdal to let her know when you would like the post published.
Best practices for Bloggers:
- Decide before you start writing whether your post is for JMP users only (JMPer Cable blog) or anyone who is interested in quantitative analysis, DOE, data viz, predictive modeling, dashboarding, etc. (JMP Blog). JMP Challenge blog is for offering analytics challenges to JMP users.
- Discuss with the editor whether there are any red flags, like copyright or trademark issues. Be wary of referring to high-profile events such the World Cup, Olympics, NCAA tournaments and the like.
- Be careful about the data you plan to use in your analysis; consider whether you have permission to use the data. Avoid using data we have to ask for permission to use or pay to use.
- You may not use any copyrighted images without permission. You may usually use images from Wikipedia, with attribution. Do not copy and paste text from Wikipedia or anywhere (except text written by SAS and JMP), as that is considered plagiarism. Properly attribute sources of information, including quotes, images and data. If needed, editor consults with SAS Legal for help on copyright and trademark issues.
- If a post has data visualizations, the editor sends your draft to Xan Gregg to do a review of the visualizations.
- Images should be no wider than 850 pixels. Caption (if desired) should be entered in the Caption field when inserting the image into the blog post. When you are done entering text and images, save it, review the look of the blog post by scrolling down to the preview area. (It’s not a very faithful representation, unfortunately.)
- You and the social media manager promote the blog post in social media and/or via email as widely as possible once it is published.
- You respond to comments as quickly as possible. Even saying “thank you” can be a good response. Responding to comments encourages further interaction. Editor reminds bloggers who don’t respond to comments to please do so.
- If major edits are needed after publication, please discuss them with editor. But go ahead and make minor edits on your own. (You can edit by logging in to the Community, clicking the red triangle on your post and choosing Edit.)
- Make sure your Community profile is complete with info and a nice pic.
Other blogging details:
- All SAS and JMP employees automatically have permission to blog.
- Blogger should add a photo, bio and other details to his or her profile in the Community.
- Editor gives tutorial on blogging in the Community via Teams/Zoom, phone or in person, as needed.
- The PPT deck shows step by step how to create a draft blog post for these blogs and how to fill out your Community profile.
Thanks for blogging!
