If anyone asks me what have you done differently in 2009, then I would say, I was/am
an active member of SDN.
I would like to narrate my experience more in the form of answers to the questions.
* How did you start?
* Did the points / the SCN recognition program motivate you to contribute to SCN
and the community? What else motivates you? What did you get back beyond points?
- I started contributing to SDN forums in August 2009, by answering queries. When I
got my first reward point for one of my answer’s, I was thrilled!!!!
The ’Reward Points system’ encouraged me to participate more actively in forums.
What was the biggest benefit? Enhancing my knowledge. Now looking at SDN forums
is one of my daily routines.
* Did you collaborate with other members from the community? With whom?
Via what service?
- I have collaborated with different members mainly via SDN forums. From Aug 09
till date I have posted more than 100 answers in SDN forums. Being a CRM
functional consultant I learnt lot about CRM via SDN.
* How long did it take? How often did you try? What did help you? Or what did you
miss?
- The time taken for answering queries on SDN forums depended on the topics…
sometimes I would spend 30 minutes and sometimes a couple of days answering
queries!!! SDN helped me to increase my CRM product knowledge, immensely.
Of course when one is answering any query in an open forum like SDN, one will make
sure that he/she is giving correct information.
My contributions in SDN helped me, substantiate my CRM product knowledge.
* Any gaps, you identified? What content or topics are missing? What kinds of
collaboration are you still seeking? Just your topics not being properly addressed?
- New topic: One topic which can be introduced in SDN forums is
SAP Business Communications Management (BCM) in CRM area. SAP BCM
(http://www.sap.com/solutions/business-suite/crm/businesscommunications/index.epx)
is one of the SAP products which can be integrated with CRM application. It will be nice
to have a different forum for this, than discussing this topic in IC forum.
Open queries: In forums, many queries go unanswered. It would be nice if we ensure
these open queries are answered. We could probably have something like an
“SDN Forum Answering Day”, when all the top contributors/mentors will come together
and try to answer as many as the open queries possible.
Collaboration feature: If a user has SDN members as his/her favorite, it will be nice
to have an online status next to their name. An instant messaging feature will be
an added advantage.
* Did the distinct audiences / communities help you in finding the information
you needed, or would you prefer a single audience/community interface?
- The best part of SDN forums is the well defined structure. This helps one to find
the most relevant forum, and post their queries. Whenever, I have to search an
answer for a certain issue, I go to the respective forum and I search for the
relevant posts. Thanks to such a structured community set up, I have got answers
to most of my questions without having to post the query.
* What are your projects in 2010? What would be the right peer / consultant from
the community to help you with this? Is your next project going to require different
capabilities?
- BCM 6.0, new forum for BCM might be more helpful.
In 2009, I started with being active contributor in SDN forums. In 2010, I would want to
extend my contribution to other areas like Wiki, Blog and Articles etc.
Industry is moving towards a close knit collaborative mode and the content is gaining
more importance day by day. Keeping this in mind, I am sure SDN will become more
important to all people in SAP world.
