Have community events to be in the weekend? – A speakers perspective
It is now quite common that SAP Inside Tracks happen at a Saturday. The Friday before is often used for a code jam.
Attending an event on Saturday is convenient and cheap for the participants. No need to use holidays or arrange with the company or customer to get the free time needed. And often the event is hosted also in the own city.
This is different from the perspective of a speaker who attends multiple SAP Inside Tracks during the year. She or he has to pay for hotel and transportation himself.
Organizers of a SAP Inside Track are often happy to have speakers from other cities. Would it not be better for the work life balance of speakers (and attendees) if events are on working days whenever possible?
So I propose:
- SAP Inside Tracks should be more often on working days
- SAP Kids Tracks should remain on a Saturdays
If a SAP Kids Track is on a Saturday after the SAP Inside Track, it is possible to speak at a SAP Inside Track and then work as volunteer on a Kids Track.
What Do you think?
Hi Rainer,
I don't really see a difference between participants and speakers. Inside Tracks are community events where both speakers and participants are attending in their free time on their own cost.
At least for me it was always this way.
Hi Uwe,
it is quite common to have a SAP Code Jam on the Friday before the SAP Inside Track.
Why not switching the days from time to time?
Sometimes the Code Jam would be at Friday, the Inside Track Saturday, sometimes the Inside Track at Friday, the Code Jam Saturday?
The msg did this 2017 at their IT conference in Italy. The conference was held Friday 20 October 2017, the code jam was on Saturday.
Best Regards,
Rainer
There's two sides to every coin - if the Inside Track is on a weekday participants as well as organizers need to use vacation days, and locations will not be as readily available.
For me saturdays are working well.
But SAP Codejams are mostly on Fridays. Why is it not a problem to host them on a weekday?
Hi Rainer, I admire your altruism and desire to contribute to both adult and kids SAP Inside Track events in your own time. 🙂 It would be great to attend both events depending on what dependencies organizers have, and what roles are available.
For the SAP Inside Track events I had the pleasure of hosting in Vancouver, these events have been on a weekday for several reasons (reasons that come from borrowing a room at the SAP Labs Vancouver office):
These little details are from an organizer's perspective albeit a very specific case. For example, other organizers have higher show-up rates holding their events on the weekend.
We had the first Inside Track Kids on a separate day on Sunday - in fact, on Mother's Day! This was a concern for us, and in the end it was a blessing! Many parents agreed that this was a good opportunity to leave their darlings with us and enjoy a day of shopping, movies or whatever they were doing. We know because show-up rate was tremendous. I especially appreciate the adult volunteers who spent their day to lead workshops, supervise the children, and told the children repeatedly how passionate they were about technology! That is community and that is impactful!
I made some changes to my blog. I replaced the explanation of my personal situation with more general statements.
Hi Rainer
Changing the text of a blog, once it has received comments, is not a good idea. Instead, consider adding new paragraphs, clearly marking them for instance Edit or Update, possibly with a date as well. That way, there's never any doubt as to what is being commented on.
(You can always make small changes like fixing typos, of course.)
Regards,
Morten
Hi Morten,
is there a SAP Community Guideline for this? In my opinion the history should be kept in special applications. But a blog and also a comment should always be actual and correct. See also my blog about https://blogs.sap.com/2017/10/13/how-to-contribute-to-the-community-inventing-and-promoting-changes/
As I see, there is no option to display the history of a blog. I am not even able to do it myself when I edit the blog currently. But I have a screenshoot of the original version, so I am able to show what I changed below.
(Oliver Kohl to your information)
I made the follwing changes:
Before the paragraph starting with "So I propose..." I deleted the following paragraph:
"For some speakers a further problem comes up, they have to explain to their family that they will not be at home in the weekend. And this for each SAP Inside Track they want to participate. In my case this limits the number of SAP Inside Tracks I am able to attend."
I changed the paragraph starting with "If a SAP Kids Track...", the old version is: "If a SAP Kids Track is on a Saturday after the SAP Inside Track, it is possible to attend both events. I will do this as often as I get a free Saturday."
Best Regards,
Rainer
I don't think there is such a a guideline. But keep in mind that comments are written in the context of the blog. If that context changes, that also changes the meaning of the comments.
Regards,
Morten
Personal preference, I like that the changes are made in the blog. I can't always read all the comments. That's sad, because I learn from the comments. But when I'm already pressed for time, I do only read the blog.
Perhaps a comment with what changed? That may be a bit of a challenge for the blogger - because they might be at a place where they are short on time as well.
Again personal preference only!
Michelle
Weekday vs. Weekend
Do all people who attend use a workday or Holiday? I would argue that most people would use a normal work day and explain to the boss how it is free. It has these presentations that are valuable to the business.  You know everything that you do to promote teched. Only this is FREE! Or of a very low cost. If they hear that it would be easier to get the boss's permission.
Codejam - Perhaps that could be the day before. That would mean if I had to travel, I could justify a hotel.
The speaker... Well yes, they are speaking so they know their stuff. If they are a consultant or work for a consulting firm this is free advertisement. If not won't the above still apply? They may be able to justify it based on the content. Also the virtual speaker is always appreciated.
So really in summary, I think it should be on a weekday. Also to host an SAP Inside Track - anyone can do it. See this link for ideas how to create one!