Hello World! Three Easy Ways to Get Started with SAP Community
Unless you are part of the SAP Community team, you may not know that a few years back I was an editorial content person, behind the scenes, publishing the homepage for the BPX Community (and co-editing the then-SDN homepage). When I first became involved with Community, I was shy about publishing anything with my own name on it, preferring to hide behind an anonymous web page.
(Not really) me hiding behind a screen
It took courage to post anything with my own name on it, and it took the inimitable Marilyn Pratt to encourage me to dip my toe into the world of contributing. I began timidly, posting interviews and podcasts on behalf of other community members so I could highlight them on the homepage (we did that sort of thing back then), and posting content about the community pages themselves—meta content essentially. (For a real blast from the past, check out this old blog post from BPX days.)
Are you feeling shy about posting in the Community? Do you just read and absorb instead? Do you worry that you don’t have knowledge to share that will interest anyone here? You probably have more to share than you think, but overcoming that mental barrier can be difficult. You have to be willing to open yourself up to contribute, and that can be intimidating.
So here are three small things you can do to get started here, things that can help you get your feet wet, help you get a little more comfortable before you start posting a blog or answering questions (that is, after you have read our Rules of Engagement):
- Follow another person in the Community.
This is one of the simplest things you can do in the Community to get started. Do you enjoy consuming the blog posts of a particular Community member? Do you look forward to answers by a certain person in the Q&A area? Simply click on that person’s name in the blog post or the answer and it will take you to their profile. Once you are on the person’s profile, you can click Follow to get their posts in your own activity stream. - Fill out your own profile; specifically, add a photo.
When you add a photo to your profile, it humanizes you; you’re no longer just a placeholder image, you’re a real person. If you then choose to participate, your photo appears as an avatar on your posts, drawing readers to and into your content. You can even go a step further and fill out the bio section of your profile, to help other members get a sense of who you are and what your area of expertise is, but having a photo is really key. (To add a photo to your profile, go to https://people.sap.com/ and click Edit in the photo area on the top left.) - Put a Like, or post a comment, on a piece of content that you enjoyed.
This is a good way to “start small” and dip your toe into the world of engaging and posting. If you’re anything like me, or like the three Members of the Month I interviewed a few weeks back, you’ll find that once you start participating and you receive some positive feedback yourself, you’ll begin to feel that hesitancy fade, and before you know it you’ll feel comfortable enough to try sharing your knowledge by answering a question or maybe writing a full blog post. And then, be careful; participation can become addicting!
As an added bonus, if you complete number 1 described above, and you then also follow Jamie Cantrell’s blog post about blogger levels, you’ll earn that cool, purple Hello World! badge that you see many other Community members earning in my Weekly Mission & Badge Roundup posts. It’s that easy to get involved and join the fun, so what are you waiting for?
Already done these things and thinking about maybe going even further and writing a blog post? Follow the advice of DJ Adams in Monday morning thoughts: on starting blogging.
Great ideas! Remember if you are lurking around, if you help just one person - it was worth the time.
Here's some hints from me:
Not enough reasons??? Stay lurking until you find something that you really want to respond to. We are here - for the most part - because we love SAP. So anything you write really isn't a bad thing. Unless you write you hate it without giving a reason. Unless you are happy making others feel bad about their answers. Then those are probably things you should keep to yourself.
I love what I do. I like to share and spread that love around. I hope you do too! It's not fun being here otherwise.
OK - so I really like what I do. I would love to be independently wealthy!
Great blog Audrey!
Wow, Michelle, I think your comment took my blog post to a whole other level now. Great tips there! Between you and DJ Adams writing about joining the world of those who post in SAP Community, I'm hoping to see more interesting posts from new bloggers.
Great summary and useful tips.
Thank you
I used to benefit a lot and contribute a little bit in the older format of SCN. I find the new format a maze. Is there any way to access specific ERP module based content ( issue resolution , Wki etc ) for Materials management. production Finance etc?
Thanks
Ajit Kumar
Hey Ajit,
You can try monitoring this Topic Page: https://www.sap.com/community/topics/materials-management.html
There you will see links for all questions and blogs that are being published in this topic. You can follow those respectively I believe.
There are also ways to get email notifications for each new question or blog post being published. In addition, you can also find RSS links near content you want to follow.
Thanks,
Sajid Amir
Thanks. The link should be helpful. I am not really looking for emails
Ajit
very useful tips , Thanks
Thank you very much for your help.
Very useful information. Many Thanks