Jansi Rani Murugesan – SCN Member of the Month July 2012

Jansi Rani Murugesan is the SCN Member of the Month for July 2012. She is a Solution Manager expert who is active in the discussion forums and shares her knowledge in blogs that have received praise from fellow SCN members and also from SAP Mentors. Jansi is a kind person who seems to have things “under control”. She has achieved a certain life balance that I find amazing. When I spoke with her it was 5:30 am in Singapore and she was about to start her morning walk before getting ready to go to work. She works and shares knowledge on SCN every day, but she also has a life (yes, it is possible!): as you will see in the interview below, she has many hobbies and by keeping her life structured she gets to do it all: Walk, work, contribute on SCN, meditate and read. Impressive!

Jansi, can you tell us a bit about yourself, where you live, who you work for, and other things you would like to share with the community (hobbies, fun facts)?

I come from a small town in India called Madurai, in Tamil Nadu. It is also known as the “Temple City”. I got a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Sciences and two years after graduation I started my IT carrier working with TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) in Mumbai, India. As an SAP Basis consultant I worked on an SAP AG Internal Hosting project. After TCS I joined IBM in Chennai, India and now life brought me to Singapore where I work for Infineon Technologies Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.

On a personal level, I like to travel and learn about the culture and history of the places I visit. Currently I’m reading a book on the history of China 🙂 . I am also interested in architecture. I meditate regularly and like to exercise, I am currently learning Tai Chi.

Note from Laure: When Jansi told me that one of her productive hobbies is contributing on SCN, I started wondering if she had a life 😉 but it’s pretty clear that she does! After 7pm her work day is over and her spare time is spent on non-technical stuff.

When did you become a member of SCN and what brought you to this community?

I got introduced to SCN very early at the start of my career. It helped me a lot to understand SAP’s implementation strategy and today I am still learning on SCN. There are people that I don’t know and they don’t know me either, but they helped me without thinking of anything in return. I thank these people from the bottom of my heart. I decided I wanted to follow their footsteps and help my peers as well. When I was at TCS I was in SAP support and used an SAP user on SCN. May 2010 is when I left the company and started contributing under my own name.

How does SCN help you in your daily activities?

SCN is alive and authentic. It is great to engage in the community and help my peers without any pressure or constraints.

In addition to finding answers in the discussion forums, I read a lot of blogs that are very promising and they help me in my daily work.

How do you find the time to contribute to SCN?
When you practice meditation you start learning how to control your time. Every time I face a critical challenge I take a one-hour break to do something else, e.g. reading non-technical blogs, and I get back to the issue feeling energized and ready to overcome it. I save a lot of energy doing this.

Instead of trying to find time to contribute I am just using my spare time to help others.

You are very active in the discussion forums. Would you say you are the “problem solver” or the “problem seeker”?

I am neither the problem solver nor the problem seeker. I used to think about the world without problems, i.e. in my world a product without defects. I am trying to contribute to that motive in the sense that everyone wants a product that works.

In my blogs I collect and share experience about the technical problems I face and the solutions I found. This helps answer certain questions from the community that would otherwise be asked in the discussion forums. With these problems solved we can all spend our valuable time towards innovation and other enhancements.

I’m with you on that Jansi!

You started blogging last year (2011) but recently you’ve been blogging more frequently. Any reason why? Did you “just” realize how easy it was to blog? 😉

I didn’t realize I was blogging more often, it just happened naturally. Technical blogs are not easy to contribute: You need to be clear, concise and the blog must be “flowing” well. Sometimes you need to be innovative. I want everyone to benefit from my blog posts and I pay attention to things such as spelling and grammatical mistakes.

— Note from Laure: I wish everyone was doing that 😉

I started  blogging when I joined IBM but at that time I was not working directly with the end users. Now since I joined Infineon I am, and I really see how SAP helps them to solve their challenge every day.

— Note from Laure: I did not edit this, she really said that! If I had invented it you would have read “I see how SAP helps them run like never before” 😉

With this experience and connection to the end users, I have a lot to share in my blogs and I am very happy when my peers find them helpful.

What do you like most about the community in general?

By nature human, qualities are sharing, caring, motivating, helping, appreciating others. I feel sometimes that we have lost these core values in our daily lives; but communities like SCN help us keep these values alive inside ourselves. And being on SCN means being connected as one single family, the SAP Family.

SCN (with the new platform) is definitely a good place to network. I really like the functionalities such as liking, following and downloading content. That way I can easily track it.

Other than Solution Manager, are there areas of SCN that you follow and like to get updates from?

Yes, I follow SAP in-memory technology HANA. Congratulations SAP for the first anniversary of SAP HANA!

Note from Laure: Here I wanted to test my broad SAP knowledge and asked Jansi to explain what Solution Manager is, and I was glad to find out that I scored an A! Solution Manager is a tool that helps SAP customers manage the whole lifecycle of their implementation. According to Jansi, you can take care of a lot of things with Solution Manager: from the buying decision to the “end-of-life” decision, including orders, business process management, monitoring, upgrades, etc.

I heard that you attended the SAP Inside Track in India last year in 2011. Can you tell us what encouraged you to speak at the event and how the experience was?

When I got the first e-mail from Dipankar Saha, the organizer, I thought it was another regular meet-up. But later when he posted the event details in the wiki I saw that it was a well organized, professional event. It was hosted in Bangalore the month right after SAP Teched 2011 and on a weekend, so I grabbed the opportunity to see again all the new friends I had made at Teched. I had a great time sharing my knowledge and learning during that weekend. My presentation (listen to the replay here) was about QGate and ChaRM and how they work together in Solution Manager 7.1. I had just finished my research and shared it internally within IBM, and it was a rewarding experience to present it to the broader community. At the event I also met SAP Mentor Somnath Manna and Dipankar Saha in person, as well as Jim Spath, Tammy Powlas and Jon Reed virtually (it was midnight for them when they joined the event). One other highlight of the event was for me to win the SAP Solution manager 7.1 3^rd edition press book in a drawing!

Speaking at the Inside Track India was not my first speaker engagement, in the past I gave a lot of SAP trainings and other presentations; I even gave classes about meditation in other social communities. But during the Inside Track I really could feel how much exchange of knowledge there was, the sessions were all very interactive.

If a new member came to you and asked for your advice on how to be an active and respected member of SCN, what would you say?

Be a selfless, unconditional contributor. If you know the solution, just share with others, everyone needs your input.

Is there an SCN member you admire (OK… you can name a few)?

I admire not one but all the SCN members, even those who  just took two minutes of their valuable time to read about a problem and share their guidance (for instance check Ausra’s help in this thread, what a dedication!)

I thank my peers whenever have the opportunity.

Easy question: Mac or Windows?

I am windows girl 🙂

Are you on Twitter?
Yes, my twitter handle is @shivjansi. I tweet regularly and like to read what others post. I like following Vijay Vijayasankar’s tweets, it’s always good information.

Every month, a member of the SAP Community Network is recognized for exemplary behavior: sharing knowledge with peers, being helpful and taking on additional tasks to support community engagement. See the list of previous SCN Members of the Month.