“Request-A-Blog” from a SAP Mentor

I recently wrote a Mapping one corner of the world – Two Patterns: Consumption vs. Integration about the new focus on lightweight consumption in SAP products and DJ Adams commented on this blog about a particular aspect of this change. I was intrigued about the topic and I thought “Wouldn’t it be cool to ask DJ to write a blog about a topic that was of special interest to me.”

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When this thought came to me, I started to think about it in more general terms.  The SAP Mentor Initiative all have specialties (listed here and here) in which they are experts. Wouldn’t it be great if users could request blogs from these individuals?  Note that I said blogs rather than forum posts. Forum posts allow people to examine particular technical problems. A blog post usually focuses more on someone’s opinion about an issue.   Thorsten’s infamous “Kiss of Death” Kiss of Death for Web Dynpro Java – The Follow-Up Questions is one excellent example of one blog that would fit this category.  

A new analyst firm “Constellation Research” has just emerged in which bloggers play a major role. One blog commented about this firm and said that “These bloggers are now the new analysts”.  Inasmuch as most SAP Mentors are bloggers, SAP Mentors could also become more like analysts who examine a particular issue based on an external request.

Many Mentors already have prolific blogging histories. What would be different is that other community members could request that a SAP Mentor blog on a particular topic.  These community members could be SAP employees or other users.  This idea also might increase the interaction between SAP Mentors and the community at large.

Of course, particular SAP Mentors could refuse to blog about a particular topic or if they are busy, might blog about it later.

Ideal would be a wiki page in the SAP Mentors section where such requests could be created.  Of course, this wiki page should have such rights so that everyone can add their requests.

I’ve created a wiki page where users can add their requests.  I’m hoping that mentors will also look at this page. I’ve added my first request for DJ Adams to blog about the difference between resource and service orientation enterprise software.