Over the past many years, I’ve found that I’ve settled into somewhat of a routine come year end. The routine has taken on a few different forms, and had a few different aspects come and go as well.
This year this post coming a bit earlier is also about kicking off our #SAPCommunity24 that l_stodal blogged about this week as well. In fact this is the post for Day 1, we hope you enjoy the next 24 days of content!
The past couple though have kind of become “my thing,” my primary focus here at year end is one of reflection – more out of necessity, at least originally, as this is the time of the year where we gather stats, do lots of reporting and begin planning for 2023. As time has progressed this idea of reflection has also become almost therapeutic, it’s rewarding to think back over the year and what the team has accomplished – how all the extreme effort and hard work has paid off.
To mix things up a little bit this year (where as last year I simply posted) I thought it might be fun to include a little bit of how I “prepare” myself for the reflection, so for those of you with a sweet tooth this might be quite interesting. It also might cure that sweet tooth quickly.
From my childhood there were always two little treats that came up during the holiday times that now that I am an adult (my mom told me I was!) I get to make myself 😉
The first is Scottish Tablet, and there is a super quick and easy Microwave recipe that’ve I’ve tried a few… more than a few times and my neighbors love now as well. It’s been handed from one person to the next so I’m not sure about the original source.
Scottish Tablet (Microwave Recipe)
4 oz (113g) butter
1 lb (453g) caster sugar
1 Teaspoon vanilla
1 Tablespoon icing (powdered) sugar (sifted)
1 Tin (ca. 312ml) condensed milk
Large glass bowl
Melt butter on high (relative of course mine is 800W) for 1 minute
When melted, add condensed milk and sugar and mix
Put back in Microwave for 1 minute
Take out and stir with a wooden spoon
Put back in Microwave for 9 – 12 minutes (keep watching it so does not boil over. Keep opening the microwave door until mixture goes back down the bowl).
Once it turns caramel color take it out and mix in vanilla and sifted icing sugar
Pour into a greased tray or one lined with parchment paper.
It does not take long and so while that is working and you do need to keep an eye on it I’m usually throwing the first batch of Shortbread in the oven.
Being half Scottish many of my childhood treats as you can tell are from there, so when it’s time to sit down and reflect I tend to take comfort in those items and memories. A nice wee dram or even just a coffee or hot chocolate, a small plate of tablet with some shortbread and I sit down in a comfy chair and begin to review the year, accomplishments and think to the future. Living where I do, this time of the year tends to be overcast, dreary and often damp so it’s nice to think on these items to bring more of that positive vibe to things.
Like last year I do want to share some numbers, these will be slightly different as I’ll only be looking as of Nov 30:
- 45,000+ new questions posted 77% already with answers
- 7500+ new blog posts published
- 6+ million page views on those blog posts
- 93% of the blog posts liked and commented
- 315,000+ tutorials completed (1800+ tutorials available)
- Over 2 million page views on Topic pages
- 1500+ took the “Tour of the Community“
- 65 Community Calls with thousands of attendees and 100s of thousands of views
- 9000+ discussions, blog posts and articles in our Groups
- 80+ groups around interests, locations, and activities (most already being live and available with the majority going live January with the next migration)
We continue to work through open topics and issues as well, some things we've made hard decisions, some unpopular, on. As we explore technology, changes to technology and feature sets now available to us we will continue to evaluate the requests and continue to make decisions and communicate those decisions. As I said at the end of last year...
We’ve also a backlog of items with additional items pushing towards the 50 mark. These came in on so many various different channels that we’ve lost the overview in some cases of who requested or why they requested. We’ll need to be selective and more critical of the back log and requests going forward. 84 requests for feature modifications, changes or even complete stack overhauls is excessive.
Not everyone will be happy of course but we believe we've made some really good progress and focused on some very important topics, one big item that is coming is going to directly help every single member with multiple accounts from over the years, we are in final testing of that and will be rolling out a solution here shortly!
We also continue to work on migrations, bringing together multiple communities in the SAP ecosystem such as these two.
- Introducing the SAP Community Partner Group for SAP Ariba
- SAP Community Welcomes the SAP Human Capital Management Partner Delivery Group
In addition to that, one of probably, my most personal favourites has been the Career Corner.
A little bit of history, the SAP Community or rather SDN as it was known back then was my lifeline, it was how I understood what this thing called SAP was when I was randomly thrown onto the project before I was set to return to the US (was on a short project in Germany). Coming from a web developer background the community was perfect for me and made sense - I understood how to navigate, how to ask for help. The SAP Support system was like a puzzle to me with component names and things I simply had no background off. It was through my activities in the Community that I managed to upskill myself, transition my web skillset to those useful in an SAP space and started to create enhancements on top of Solution Manager and other DevOps related activities for my company. I was asked to stay longer and a 1 year project turned into 5. At the same time I really found my passion getting others involved in the community and was fortune enough to be in the right place, at the right time with the right willingness and managed to take a job with SAP itself to do none other than community engagement for SDN.
I often think back on those days and all the ones that followed as I journeyed through different parts of SAP in different roles and then found myself fortunate enough to be back with community all these years later. With projects like the Career Corner --- it's very exciting times indeed!
Another big highlight for me, having missed SAP TechEd 2021 due to a back injury was being able to participate this year in SAP TechEd 2022 - in particular the SAP TechEd Hands-On Lab in Las Vegas portion. One thing you probably all noticed was that this year more and more activity has been in and will continue to be in the SAP TechEd group (JOIN and subscribe now if you haven't) - January will be really cool in that group!
We also used a group for Devtoberfest this year, and a complete event listing integrated right here in the SAP Community. Another to join and subscribe too before 2023!
This year in particular many of you have gotten to know the amazing group of folks behind the scenes that help to make the SAP Community what is, who are dedicated to helping all of you do more in the community, to share your own experiences and to help each other!
The team launched a new area called the Welcome Corner this year, it's sole intent is to help every member new or not, get started in the community!
Such a simple question to get started with and so many folks have replied already. You may ask, what does it matter if I respond and say where I am from? Well one result of this has been the launching of all of these 🙂
Across 3 regions we have 16 location based groups, and are reviewing more and more requests. Is your city already there? Want to run your own city based Group?
The Welcome Corner offers much more though, new to blogging and want to get some tips and advice from others check out this thread! Or maybe you want to subscribe to get notified when the next SAP Community News is published?
All in all you are just one click away
Welcome all SAP Community members, start here!
The team has done an amazing job and as I sit here reflecting back over the year I'm honoured to be able to work with and inspired by the energy and passion they bring to what we do!
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