Many people wonder, if it is a good idea to mention their SDN contributions in the CV/ resume. The people wonder, if it could help them to find a better job (or a contract), to get some advantage at the interview or any "real" value for their professional SAP career.
Even the people, who are currently happily employed, wonder about it. They wonder, if their boss would like their contributions, the attitude and dedication, if would appreciate it and understand the value for the personal performance, personal development and time and cost savings. Or the opposite...
I wonder about it myself and asked some of you, the members of the Community, to help me find the answer, to share some pieces of experience or stories of yours and how you feel about it.
You can find the thread here: Role of a SCN/SDN contributions in your CV together with all the answers I cite here (or am going to cite in the second part) to support my own thoughts. It would be cool, if you would come and comment on the thread or this blog to fine-tune the "conclusion".
The career is an important thing for all of us. But there is one more reason why I wonder about this value. We, the active contributors, spend dozens of hours here, put much effort, time and knowledge to create the valuable content but (except the contributions from other, that help us learn) don´t get anything back.
Ok, ok, I can imagine what you think about now. It is not true. We get the feeling of being important; we get the feeling of having some knowledge, which could be unique from some points of view. We find friends; we find help, when we get into troubles. But all the value we get back is very "indirect"
(by the way, there is a nice young women, who is interested in the "real" value of the SDN contributions as well. Meet Sarah Otner and Community and Reputation: Sarah Otner introduced by Craig).
Time ago, the contributors got the T-shirts. The T-shirts are very "material", a "direct" value back one gets. People keep mentioning that souvenirs are far better than the virtual points. For example check the comment by Mr. Holger Stumm below the blog chip.rodgers/blog/2010/08/04/announcing-the-new-scn-contributor-recognition-program (by Mr. Rodgers), where Holger comments:... I still want a chance for Gold Members to convert SDN points into golf balls with SAP logo. (Another source about various souvenirs wanted by the people/me is the thread about The SDN diploma).
Back to the topic. My idea is to find a way, how our contributions could help us get back something more "direct" or "material" than the SDN points. I know many people who say the points are not important for them all the time. Yes, why would one care for the points, if they are ...useless?
But if the number of points would mean, that the man/woman has contributed some valuable content and was rewarded the points for this value, through this points he/she has built some SDN reputation (again: people say you cannot judge a man through his points. That is true. But one way or the other, people "with points" know people "with points" and one can estimate the experience and the skill set of a person you know from his/her contributions and judge if he is a nice man/woman or a points gamer), woulnd´t it be a great value for all of us?
If your contributions could help you in your career, then even the guys, who don´t care about the points (cheers Harald), would be interested. Or not? We all do care about our career, or you don´t?
So... have I attracted your attention? In the second part I am going to share the real thoughts of the people I know, my friend and people I thing very highly about and some people I don´t know yet and would like to know (maybe some potential new SDN stars...?). Maybe I am going to mention the thoughts of yours, if you shared them with the rest of the community here or in the mentioned discussion thread.
Regards Otto
