Introducing a serious mission with a fun twist: Hitchhiker

If you saw any SAP Community members out and about this past Saturday carrying towels, it was likely because Saturday was Towel Day. Once a year, on May 25, serious fans of the author Douglas Adams and his iconic work of science fiction, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,”  honor the author and his oeuvre by carrying a towel around with them.

Here in the SAP Community, we celebrated Towel Day by launching a new mission involving another icon of Doug Adams fame: the number 42. (In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the answer given by the supercomputer to “the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.”)

It all started a while back, with an off-hand comment by community member Joachim Rees, who noted that he had recently seen the number of answers he’d provided in the community reach 42 in his profile. Here’s a screen shot of the comments between Joachim, Steffi Warnecke, and Simone Milese, as they did some “thinking out loud” about missions they could imagine around this:

Their exchange sparked the idea in our team. How could we take this creative spark and turn it into a flame, design a real mission around it? Well, good things come to those who wait, and after some time had passed, we found ourselves in a position to actually create a mission that would be worthy of inclusion in our mission set on SAP Community, and be fun and motivating at the same time.

And so, the Hitchhiker mission was born.

To achieve this mission and earn this badge, you need to answer a lot of questions correctly–meaning: you need your answers to be accepted. 42 answers, to be specific. And that means 42 answers accepted from the time the mission appears in your Available Missions list in your profile. (Answers accepted before the mission appeared in your Available Missions list do not count.)

Can’t see the Hitchhiker mission in your profile? Take any of the following actions in the SAP Community, and the mission will be automatically assigned to you:

• Upload a profile photo
• Like some content
• Vote on some content
• Ask a question
• Answer a question
• Comment on some content
• Publish a blogpost
• Follow a member, a tag, or a content item
• Update the “About me” text, spoken languages, or Elsewhere links in your profile

Now, “Don’t Panic!” There’s no time limit on this mission; whenever you reach the magical number of 42 answers being accepted, you too can display your intergalactic badge with pride.