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Author's profile photo Former Member
Former Member
August 14, 2003 Less than a 1 minute read

Launch of the SAP Developer Network-Part 1

OK– So I’m the marketing guy for SDN, but the good news is that I’m the ONLY marketing guy for SDN. From the very beginning, SAP decided that SDN would be a “Marketing Free Zone” and that we’d insulate the techies on SDN from the standard marketing crap that gets churned out and that we’d only post valuable techie information on the site.

So far, we’ve been able to keep to that direction. The challenge we face is “How do we tell people about all the cool stuff on SDN without “marketing” to them?” Obviously, the SAP TechEd events are filled with our core group of users and we’re planning on some great stuff to let everyone know about SDN at the shows. But we’re still trying to reach out to even more people than that. So here’s your chance to tell those “idiots” in marketing how to do their jobs.

Tell me how we should connect with all the “techies” out there in the SAP ecosystem. We’re not selling anything, we’re not charging money and we’re offering a whole lot of value. So how should we communicate that to several hundred thousand people and get them excited about SDN?

Part 2 will deal with the actual launch plan at TechEd in Vegas and Basel, so stay tuned. JW

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      Author's profile photo Benny Schaich-Lebek
      Benny Schaich-Lebek
      Hi Jeff,
      nice to have you here. If you want tips for the SDN, that should be quite easy.
      I ran a CompuServe forum for techies in the early 90's and found out that the greatest value for them was the ability to communicate with each other.
      This means that it only works if there is a "critical mass" of people contributing, so it is worth for people coming back. That should be possible with the large mass of target developers we have. I would organize some info email (only to registered community users of course) that goes out to groups of a couple thousand in every few days.
      Concerning other content, this has some value (I'm scheduled to produce some of this) but is not that important as the community forum. All techies know that your special question on this special issue cannot be answered by any collateral document, it maybe as special as you want. This in general only helps for an entrance to a product.
      If I have such a problem, I always go to the forum of the software and search it with one or two keywords and this is always my most successfull approach. Also, if I want to know about general issues (how long does it take to work into this etc.) I go to the forum.
      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Hi Jeff,
      what about Students. SAP know how is interesting for them, too.
      Maybe distribute some flyers with a CD of WebAS 6.30 at the universities, where you tell them about SDN.
      Maybe add also a condome to the CD.
      The condome for safer *** and the CD with Web AS to get a safe job.
      OR
      The condome for safer *** and the Web AS for a safe Application Sever.

      I think we currently positioning us as a safe haven for customers...
      Regards
      Michael