SAP Inside Track Wroclaw 2018 from the organizer’s perspective

On May 19 we had our 4th SAP Inside Track organized here in Wrocław, Poland (#sitWRO 2018).

The road to it was as usual. I found this chart in some old article online about 10 years ago, yet it is still applicable and universal.

A few months in advance you start thinking about organizing the next SIT. You talk to people, you hear them saying it is a good idea. So, you keep building up the “Let’s do it” energy until you reach the point 1 and announcing to the whole world “Yes, we will have SAP Inside Track in Wrocław this year again, and it will be on the date XYZ“. And even more: “We will have SIT Kids part for participant’s children to learn programming with Snap!”

And then immediately after you announce it, the doubts start piling up “Will we have enough people willing to share their experience? Will it be interesting for participants? Will participants come and participate? Will kids survive 7 hours without getting bored?” etc. You are slightly sliding down to a point 2, where you ask yourself “Why am I even doing this?”

But then you see first registrations coming, first speakers submitting their great proposals, you get the sponsor for the place, budget seems to be balanced. The confidence returns and you are happy and excited at point 3. At this point you have 80% of work done.

And then Pareto Rule hits. All of the sudden you find that the remaining 20% of work may require even 80% of effort. Organizing it on top of your professional and family duties, you may even loose for a moment the light at the end of a tunnel.

The books from Espresso Tutorials are sent to Warsaw, because of your mistake in a zip code sent to the publisher… Two days before you still cannot find any reasonable place for an evening get-together… The Wi-Fi happens to block ports required for SAP CodeJam the following day… Then you got a tweet that one of foreign speakers had delayed plane and missed connected flight… The day before you see emails with participant cancellations popping in your mailbox, although all badges are already printed and food ordered… At some point (point 4) you are asking yourself “Why am I doing this? Is it worth it?” and “Never again” comes to your mind.

And then the night before, when you have a first beer with participants old and new, talk to them, laugh and walk to show the city, the energy curve starts climbing again.

That same last night final details of kids’ workshop are ironed out with Former Member.

In the morning we arrive to the Capgemini office, who hosts and sponsors the event, to find that the location is ready, delicious breakfast is waiting, participants are arriving, discussions already started in coffee corners!

Paweł did a great job the night before as well, so we can kick off the SIT with traditional selfie.

And so the full day of learning, networking, discussions and fun begins! [Some presentations are already available at the event’s wiki page, and more are coming]

While in parallel kids are coding their first programs in Snap!…

…which they later present to SIT participants. Grzegorz, Tomek, you did great job with kids!

SIT Family photo.

Thank you speakers: Oliver Kohl, Jarosław Zdanowski, Michal Korzen, Rainer Winkler, Anne Johnson, Morten Wittrock, Sylwia Ganiec, Maciej Suder, Frank Schuler, Bartosz Jarkowski, Waldemar Falinski, Łukasz Pęgiel (left to right on the picture), Ingo Bräuninger, Tomasz Wilk (who left before the picture was taken).

Special thanks are as well for sponsors and contributors: Capgemini, SAP Mentors program, SAP Developer Relations and Espresso Tutorials!

Motivation is back to point 5 and blogs like My first SAP Inside Track from Bartosz, or tweets like “#SITWRO was a pleasant experience, to say the least! Very happy about the visit!!” by Anne Johnson and “Thanks @PawelGrzekowiak @Sygyzmundovych for organizing #sitWRO I’m proud to be a part of #SAPCommunity …” by Krzysztof Spychalski are just the icing on the cake (or wisienka na torcie as we would say in Polish).

See you next time at 5th sitWRO! In the meantime, join our local SAP Community Meetups (with 550 members and growing), if living in Wrocław or visiting the city often.

-Vitaliy (aka @Sygyzmundovych)

PS. The complete photo-story can be found here.