SCN is a living and vibrant community and most of the projects, most of the SAP teams I know can't live without the collective brain and knowledge of sdn. "Why don't you look it up at sdn" is something that is regularly heard at least 10 times before lunch.
And I am proud to be part of the community, proud of my 250 pt T-Shirt even if the bright orange color is ugly and also a little bit more proud, that I am now promoted as advanced blogger.
But the reaction of the people around me, in the projects, when I talked about my "promotion" , was a real bummer. "Don't you have a life" was most often the immediate response. "I got something more interesting to do after hours" was another quote.
These where the same people that always have an window open on their PCs with sdn running next to their SAPGUIS, ABAPs and Web Screens.
Speaking about information gathering, preaching about collaboration about the value of the community. And (now I am feeling defensive) - yes, I do have a life and friends - exactly because I value community and social behavior. A community of this size and this depth of knowledge can only live and thrive if GIVE and TAKE is in a healthy balance. Those who contribute, organize or add value to the community should be looked at as a great part of the community, just like a friend who helped you out with something.
And I encountered this Community and Reputation: Sarah Otner, which I think is a very important question.
Like in most communities, you can't do much about the "leecher" and "lurker" (geek slang for people who only take out of communities) and of course, everybody is busy in their daily tasks and not everybody is a writer, blogger or hotline afficionado.
But hey, without all of us who spend the one or the other evening or weekend, just because we think that such a community has a value beyond pure business does not mean we are "these geeks from high school".
On the other hand, we ARE all geeks and this is the beauty of sdn. But coming to age and reason as a geek, this means also that anticipating "GIVING" means also adding value and knowledge, and this means value for all of us.
Next time, you tell your coworker not to waste time writing for sdn, just think what additional time you had to spent in front of a SAP screen if there was no sdn at all to get a nice and welcomed timely advice.
