You could call it flaunting, I agree completely and I stand and live by the term “Social Networking”
If you have read my previous post on How important is Social Networking for the SAP Procurement Consultant, this is a sequel to that and has the same DNA and message.
Let me give you the million dollar approach on how the engines help me evangelize with like minded folks in the Sourcing and Procurement space.
The Blog is a story-line of my journey from the time I took the shot of the Social Networking pill to get the wilder side of my Procurement thoughts into play. I still continue to do what I do best i.e. implement SAP’s Procurement portfolio of solutions. So read more on what I have gained in-terms of tangible experience.
…Lets get to work folks!!!!!
An example of me using SDN, Twitter and linkedin.com regularly to evangelize and collaborate on the SAP Procurement Suite
1) I write a Blog on SDN and the leads are the group “Procurement and SRM” and also the front page of SAP Sourcing http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/bpx/sourcing(On the home page of SDN, you will see a statement “The Social Network for SAP Professionals”, indeed it is.
2) With a single click using the share button, I push it onto twitter.
3) 2-3 people on a daily basis follow me based on the category of the post that I have laid out, for example if the Blog focussed sustainable sourcing and procurement, I get at least 10 relevant sustainability related followers following me on twitter, I back track and follow them and get into a larger social group that are discussing the similar relevant topics.
4) I re-tweet their tweets and it’s a chain reaction from there, I get a lot of leads, questions on SAP Procurement area etc.
5) I ensure that effective hash tags like #SAP #SAPSRM, #SAPCLM, #SAPSPM, #SAPSourcing are all blended into my tweets and with a mention of @Sap_Procurement
6) I parallely create a discussion link of the same on linkedin.comand tweet it from there, also all my 700+ group members have a chance to collaborate from there and discuss and solve some really interesting top notch Sourcing, Contract, Procurement and spend related threads
7) There is an option where I also collaborate from inside linked in sharing document using the huddle workspaces integration engines, that way we are all on the same page of discussion.
Just by sharing experience and collaborating, am easily impregnated into the Social Media side of Sourcing and Procurementand the key tangible output of the exercise is “sheer collaboration” and “cross-customer, cross-industry” know-how and more importantly staying latest with what’s happening. It’s necessary to evangelize, but more importantly it’s necessary to evangelize in way that result in something interesting to the outside world that seeks collaboration for a “sense of purpose”
This is a very small example extract of what I do daily. Being an SME in the Sourcing, Spend and Procurement space, I have also helped folks that work with me supporting SAP Procurement solutions to register with SAP ASUG, SAP Insider, SAP SDN / BPX and SIG (Sourcing interest Group).
There is a truck load full of initiatives out there and with a larger breadth of Procurement audience, it would make relevant benchmarking easier and be more eventful and result oriented for the target audience, in our case, folks that manage the “SAP Supplier Relationship and SAP Procurement suite of applications”
Some facts about the social networking pill, you would easily relate to from the diagram below, you will understand the various platforms available for you to collaborate and pull out tangible inclines.
How to use RSS feeds more effectively to tune into some really important SAP Procurement discussions
Use Google Reader and put your RSS feeds as a “new subscription”
How?
1) login to SDN home page www.sdn.sap.com, search for the “Procurement and SRM” Blog category, I have made it easier
2) Add http://feeds.feedburner.com/sap/zrOOthis feed to your Google reader, your Google engine will tell you, “hey there is a new post of your interest and relevance, please read J
3) In the picture below, you can notice a Blue “Add Subscription”, just paste the feed into that….boom, you have your feeds flushing in immediately and then on a regular push basis, it’s the beauty of the technology called RSS (Really Simple Syndication: goes by its name, really simple J )
4) As an SAP Procurement consultant at bare minimum, you need to have feeds from “Procurement and SRM”, feed from Spend Matters, from SIG and http://www.sap.com/index.epx#/solutions/business-process/supplier-relationship-management.epx
It would look something like this, incase you have never used reader to streamline your interest areas to be funneled into one dash-board
How Social Networking has improved my Procurement footprint (Do I have any metrics to justify?)
- I started my linkedin.com SAP Sourcing and CLM group in 2008 fall with 2 members, but now I have 654 active members with 40 active discussion threads and 120 archived threads 60% of which were a demonstration of “sheer collaboration”
- I started tweeting with the avatar @tridipchakra in 2010 fall and started with one follower, my wife J and today I have 869 result oriented tweets, I follow 73 relevant twitter users and channels and I have 66 followers and was even more thrilled when @Sap_Procurement @JDA @nathomson @cognizant_india @marilynpratt @SAPinsider followed me back, these are folks I look upto and are my mentors. I then realized that my messages are complimenting and sharing best practices in the area of SAP Procurement solutions. My initiative’s and tweets became effective when I understood the way to use twitter and penetrate into the chain of thoughts of “procurement thought leaders”
- I am tuned into every ASUG Procurement webinar and also into every SIG webinar (http://www.sig.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=5670)
My message
Don’t get me wrong, my focus has not shifted from my core which is implementing, upgrading, rolling out SAP’s procurement suite of solutions like SAP SRM, SAP Sourcing, SAP CLM, SRM MDM Catalog, SAP SPM, I still love doing it and doing it for a living, but what has actually changed is the attitude to share, collaborate and also get the best out of the industry thought leaders, am sure that, reading my excerpt.
In the blogs to come on how much more am trying to extract from the Social Networking side of the equation and continuing to do what I do best which is SAP, I would decipher into small packets of “how to paragraphs”. So that all the dope doesn’t get you hallucinating and confused.
These will come in small packages and good things come to people who wait every 2 weeks for my post J
Happy reading folks, hope you will take the “Social Networking pill” to experience it…let me know how it feels and what transformation it brought to you.
Follow us on twitter @Sap_Procurement @tridipchakra
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