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Making Every Activity Count: Report Them One at a Time

By Kathryn DuPont posted 30 days ago

  
In our recent post, Reporting Advocacy Activities: How to Get Credit for the Advocacy You're Actually Doing, we talked about choosing the right activity category and providing enough context so evaluators can understand the impact of your advocacy.

This time, we're tackling another common reporting issue. An important one.... one that can affect how activities are reviewed, categorized, and credited: Submitting multiple advocacy activities in a single reporting entry.

We understand why it happens. Many IBM Champions and Rising Champions are incredibly active throughout the year. When you've written several blogs, spoken at events, participated in user groups, mentored community members, and created technical content, it can be tempting to combine everything into a single submission and move on.

Unfortunately, that's not how the reporting system is designed to work.

Rule of Thumb: One Activity = One Entry

The reporting form is built to capture, categorize, and evaluate individual advocacy activities.

That means:

✅ One blog post = one entry, with the date and link to the blog

✅ One conference presentation = one entry, with the name, date of the conference, and possibly the link to your speaker bio (if available) or the conference link

✅ One podcast appearance = one entry, with the name, date and link to the podcast

✅ One user group presentation = one entry, with the name and date of the user group

✅ One mentoring activity = one entry, with how many hours you spent, and who you mentored and the relevant IBM product

It also means, please do not give us:

❌ Five blog posts in one entry

❌ Three presentations and two podcasts in one entry

❌ "Here's everything I did this month" in one entry

❌  Copy/pasted email threads with IBMers

❌ Long entries with multiple URLs in the field

While the intent is understandable and seems efficient, bundling activities together creates challenges for both the review process and the reporting system behind it.

Why Does This Matter?

When multiple activities are submitted in a single entry:

  • Activities may belong in different categories (yes we track activities and categories and lots of other data)
  • Reviewers have difficulty evaluating each contribution individually - and this will delay your badging recognition 
  • Program metrics might become less accurate
  • Follow-up questions may become more likely
  • Some activities may not receive the level of review they deserve

Our goal is to recognize your advocacy fairly and consistently. The easiest way to help us do that is to give every activity its own submission.

If You Did 10 Activities...Please submit 10 entries. If you did 20 activities... Please submit 20 entries.

First of all, that's amazing. Congratulations! You are a star! 

Second, yes, we really do want them reported separately. Because we want to recognize you! 

We know this takes a few extra minutes, but those few minutes help ensure each activity can be reviewed on its own merits and receive appropriate consideration.

Think About It from an Evaluator's Perspective

Imagine receiving an entry that says:

Spoke at three conferences, published four blogs, participated in two user groups, mentored several people, and appeared on a podcast.

That's a lot of valuable advocacy.

But it's actually nine or ten distinct activities, each potentially belonging in a different category, with different audiences, impacts, links, and outcomes.

Now compare that to separate entries that clearly document each activity.

The second approach makes it easier to understand your contribution and easier to ensure every activity receives the attention it deserves.

Quality Reporting Helps Recognition

One of the most common concerns we hear is:

"I reported an activity, but I don't think it was counted."

In many cases, clear and complete reporting helps avoid that confusion. Yes, there may be times your activity also may not be counted, especially if it is part of your day job (we've been pretty clear about that for a while). 

However, submitting activities individually makes it easier for reviewers to understand what was done, evaluate it appropriately, and include it in the overall assessment of your advocacy contributions. And this is very important when we evaluate for IBM Champion status for next year! 

Simply put: The clearer your reporting, the clearer your impact (translation: the better and faster we can evaluate).

Here's what "good" looks like(ish)....

Here is a fictitious entry to give you a sense of how to do this right. 

What good advocacy activity reporting looks like

 

A Simple Rule to Remember

If an activity is important enough to receive credit, it's important enough to get its own entry.

We appreciate every blog you write, every presentation you deliver, every question you answer, every community you support, and every person you help.

Your advocacy is what makes this program successful.

By taking a little extra time to report activities individually, you're helping us ensure that every contribution has the best opportunity to be reviewed, understood, and recognized.

Thank you for everything you do, and thank you for helping us make every activity count. With this info, please make sure you report here
😉
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Comments

Morag Hughson
26 days ago

I feel I must be missing the pertinent point about your blog post above. I thought the post was telling us to only report one thing at a time in the form. Your answer seems to contradict your blog post. Am I misunderstanding something key here?

From your blog post I understood "report one thing per form".

From your answer I understood "report up to three things per form".

I'm clearly confused, what have I read wrong?

Kathryn DuPont
26 days ago

Thanks for responding @Morag Hughson Actually this year, people can submit up to three (3) activities on the form.

We ask that they select the appropriate category (act of advocacy), the associated product(s), a brief description of the activity (i.e., post on linkedIn), and a URL.  

They can do this for three separate activities... or they can do it for one activity.  

Each time they have new activities to report, they can follow the same process.  

Morag Hughson
29 days ago

Is it worth removing the ability to add more than one entry on the form? The only reason I have ever done more than one on the form is because of the question asking how many more acts of advocacy you have to report. The form appears to encourage multiple entries on the form?