SAP Inside Track News – Nov 2019

Hello SAP Inside Track enthusiasts!

This blog post might become a series, that depends very much on your feedback and comments. But more about this later.

For everybody who has never attended an SAP Inside Track until now: An SAP Inside Track is a local grassroots community event where SAP Community members come together to share knowledge about SAP related topics. The event is driven/organized by the community, low-cost, often sponsored or even free and very informal: everyone who is interested may take part. There are no rules,  but some guidelines and recommendations can help you to set up an SAP Inside Track.  Everyone  can profit or contribute: act as presenter, take part in discussions, exchange information, realize networking or enjoy the social get-togethers in the evening. Organizing  a  SIT may seem like a big task, but with the help of some SAP Community Network friends, it can be done with relatively little effort and with  a large impact.

One may ask: Who maintains these ‘guidelines and recommendations’? Whom can I ask for help, if I need these ‘SAP Community Network friends’?

Thanks for asking! There is a group of people forming the ‘sitCOUNCIL’. That sounds very formal, but it isn’t. Here is what we – because I am one of them – are doing: The sitCOUNCIL is a group which has been founded from active SAP Community contributors to support anyone within the community in organizing an SAP Inside Track or any other community driven event. They have been part of the SAP Community for a long time and have either great experience in running community events or have collected impressions by attending them over several years. They are available to consult, assist and help on any open question you may have. They are not trying to re-invent but will have an open mind for all questions, doubts and risks as they do know very well what the community has formed over the years.

Consult, assist and help are the key words! This what we want to do for the SAP community. And these are the 9 sitCOUNCIL members as of today:

• Christian Braukmueller
• Diego Dora
• Fausto Motter
• Florian Henninger
• Matthias Wild
• Melanie Schnabl
• Nilay Peksen
• Simon Kemp
• Svea Becker

In 2019 we had several invites from SIT organizers to give a short presentation about the work of the sitCOUNCIL. We are always very happy about this opportunity and of course we love to join as much community events as possible. But please be aware we do this on our own budget, so we might not be able to accept every invite.

But we want be very transparent in the work we do and so we discussed the idea to publish news and information about what we discuss in out monthly calls as blog posts for the SAP community.

In this blog post I want to share some insights about the topic ‘live streaming’.

Sharing is caring, right? Physical community events (e.g. SAP Stammtisch, Meet-Ups, Tech-Nights, SIT, …) are a very important element to strengthen the personal network and the personal relationship to other members. We all love to share the vibe of these events via Twitter or – if we can’t join this time – to stay connected with the locals on Twitter. But what about video streaming? Isn’t it about time to share the full content of every event with the global SAP community? Spoiler: There is no definite Yes or No.

Some SAP Inside Tracks started to have live streaming of the sessions already some years ago (SIT Munich in 2015), some do not plan to offer it. The work of the sitCOUNCIL in this case is not to ‘enforce’ a unique format for every event, but to share and link the technical possibilities on the web-sites and wiki, to consult about the benefits and risks and to help you to get connected to the right community members, if you need more information. It’s all about consult, assist and help.

Why this is a great thing to do:

• You include community members who can’t join in person.
• You can give the recorded sessions a 2nd live on a media platform. (e.g. OpenSIT)
• You love to play around with streaming technology.

What you need to consider:

• Do not underestimate the effort and the equipment you need.
• Be transparent about streaming. Not every speaker wants to be recorded. Highlight this in your ‘call for papers’.
• Is loosing the ‘local only’ attribute a drawback for your event? Discuss this with your event team!

All the Streaming Know-How is collected in this wiki page. Shout-out to Oliver Kohl and Gregor Wolf!

Finally, live streaming or not is the individual decision of the local SIT event team. It will not become a ‘must do’ element. You run a community event and you are free to decide what fit’s best for your location, your speaker line-up and the special local flair of your SAP Inside Track.

Now it is your turn – give feedback! How do you like this format? Did you learn something new and should we go on with regular news from the sitCOUNCIL?

btw, see you in January at sitWDF! 🙂

Matthias