I often write little articles or stories online, because I simply enjoy telling a story. To spice things up a bit, I try to add a couple of pictures or drawings to each story I share. Most of these pictures and drawings are my own. I have a camera, I have pen and paper and I can play around a bit with MS Powerpoint or a paint program. Some of the pictures I use(d) however, where simply found via Google Image search.

I know a lot of us do that. We're technologists, or we have some knowledge of certain business area's, but very few of us are lawyers and have knowledge of copyright regulations.

Apparently this holds a very real risk. Today, I stumbled across an interesting article on image copyright and blogging.

Basically, you can get sued for using an image in one of your blogs. This lead me to quickly review all of my articles on SCN, my personal blog and anywhere else. A lot of the pictures I had been using were not mine, and even though I always referred the source with full credits, this still puts me in violation.

So I removed all pictures where I wasn't sure whether or not I was infringing someone's copyright, and I started replacing them by other public-use pictures.

Up to now, I never had any issues over using pictures in a blog (thank God) and if possible, I want to avoid such problems at all.

A good tip I received from a fellow social-medialist is using Google advanced search and only search for images "free to share".

But even better, is to only use your own artwork.

I know how a lot of other frequent bloggers, like me, use pictures to brighten their articles up a bit.

This information can be very useful for you as well.

This also means that, using pictures of Dilbert in a blog, is not allowed. Not even if you add credits and link to the original page.

As I know how we all love Dilbert and frequently quote him, we have to be careful when embedding one of the comics.

I'm not sure about putting the link to the original picture without embedding it though.

Anyone has an idea?

Another issue I encountered whilst reviewing my own articles, is that I can no longer edit my blogs in technology_innovation . If I can't edit my own material anymore, am I then still liable, or does scn assume responsibility at that point?

It also makes me wonder: If I take a picture of a copyrighted painting and I use that picture in my blog, am I then violating copyright?

Even better: suppose I take a picture of a Porsche and publish it: am I then violating the copyright of Porsche?

Today we’ll go ‘Behind the Scenes’ with Jason Cao, a longtime community manager, people motivator and coach on the SCN Collaboration Team. Jason is a self-proclaimed ‘stone soup maker’, read below to learn why.

Please share some personal details about yourself: I was born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and after an extremely long and rough trip bouncing around the South China Sea, my family and I were fortunate to call Vancouver, Canada, our new home. As a 7-year old, waking up to the amazing sights of English Bay is like meeting a new friend that I appreciate more and more as time goes by. Over 30 years later, I still call Vancouver my home, and some of the favorite things I like to do with my wife and 2 children include going crabbing in the summer, and skiing in the winter.

Gali: Jason also loves traveling. See a picture of him and his daughter on their last trip, taken at Kunst Historisches Museum in Vienna, Austria.  

Please share a bit about your special title: When my kids ask me what I do, I tell them “I make stone soup.” And then I tell them the old story of how several monks passing through a village on their journey find its residents shutting their doors and windows to them. With only a large pot and a few pieces of stone, the monks announce to the villagers their plan to cook a delicious “Stone Soup”. The curious villagers soon emerge from their homes, each offering to contribute something such as salt, vegetable, meats, for a chance to taste some of this soup. By evening, the Stone Soup is ready. The entire village emerges from their homes and gathers to enjoy a Stone Soup that each has contributed to creating.
“OK…so you’re a monk!” LOL they’ll learn in time.  

What do your daily responsibilities entail? As a Stone Soup-maker (aka Community Manager), I know that just because I have a large pot, it doesn’t guarantee me a delicious soup at the end of the day. The thing about making soup is that you need good ingredients, combined in just the right way, and you need time for the soup to cook. Rather than scouting for ingredients, I spend my time helping others realize that each contribution has value, and promoting an environment of active sharing and collaboration. To me, creating the right “Context” is more important than the “Content” when making soup. At the same time, I prefer Quality ingredients to Quantity; good Attitude over Aptitude with those I collaborate.

One of the ‘soups’ you are currently ‘cooking’ is the Social Reputation Program, would you be willing to share a bit about it? This year, I’m working with SAP’s thought leaders to help them expand and grow their online reputation. These are experts with numerous years of industry and business experience who are trusted advisors for many of SAP’s customers and partners. I’m glad to introduce these thought leaders to SCN, blogging, and the opportunity to engage with even more passionate SAP people. At the same time, our community benefits from high quality content shared by these experts. For example, these thought leaders have posted over 200 blogs in different topic spaces, with an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars!

Please share about an interesting project you’ve worked on: I’ve been blessed with many learning opportunities in life and at SAP – starting with an ounce of know-how in my brain, and a chest-full of pure curiosity and adventure in my heart. Recently, I took part in a Design Thinking Challenge for a local community partner in Vancouver, called Science World. Their challenge was to help Vancouver residents and visitors become aware and appreciate that science and technology exists all around them. This project was a great opportunity for SAP colleagues to showcase our technical expertise, while supporting a partner in our community. As a DT Coach, I appreciated the chance to practice my coaching skills and apply DT in a real-life scenario.

What would the community be surprised to learn about you? When I’m stressed and need to organize my thoughts, I clean, tidy and purge my home or workspace.

What brings you the most satisfaction in your role and why? I recently worked with a manager who thought that members of his team were wasting time with Social Media. When I asked him how he prefers his team to benefit from Social Media, he came up with some very tangible examples and ideas. This was an example of the things that bring me my greatest satisfaction – the opportunity to make a difference. In this case, turning a problem into a solution. I believe we can all learn to turn ordinary events into extraordinary outcomes. We are often held back by our own belief of what is possible and what is important. Every day, I am encouraged to see the difference many members are making on SCN, simply by sharing their knowledge and opinions with one another.

Please help us grow from your experience; share one tip/resource/guide/experience that you recommend after finding it helpful from personal experience. Play nice. One of the most basic rules we learned as children is often forgotten or neglected. I’ve found that when I am mindful of my actions, attitudes and words, I can influence what gets reflected back at me, namely respect, trust, and understanding.

What is your favorite element of the new gamification module? That would have to be the missions! They’re nicely designed to introduce new members to SCN. And while members achieve each mission and collect badges, their presence, reputation and network also grows. The missions also offer an important alternative to points and levels for recognizing our interests and expertise.

The next four questions are taken from the Actor Studio interview questions:

What is your favorite word:  Consider
Least favorite word: Must
What sound do you love: Waves
What profession other than yours would you love to attempt: Carpenter

In your BiF you were one of the only (if not the only) video blog. Any tips for those who would also like to try? Be bold. Be creative. Be yourself.

Gali: For those willing to try I recommend testing your skills in the “SCN and Me” video blog competition. Read Chip’s blog #SCNis10 for details.

I learned through your Blog it Forward that you can mimic. Who is your favorite person to imitate in your personal life and is there a well-known figure? I love to imitate my daughter, because she doesn’t get offended by this. I haven’t really tried public figures – maybe I should. It’s mostly animals. I like mimicking the dolphin, although my siblings describe this as one of the most annoying sounds coming out of my mouth.

I really liked the questions Jason asked of those he blogged it forward to and asked him to answer his own questions. 

What inspires you?  Personal stories inspire me. Tell me where you went for your summer vacation, and I might be interested. Tell me how you survived without your luggage, and I will retell your story to many others.

What have you accomplished recently that you're really proud of? I’ve set a goal to improve my relationship with my son this summer. I’m not sure such a goal can be quantified and measured. It just makes me happy see where our relationship is now, and think about what it can be in the future.

If you could be a superhero, who would you be? The Flash. Did you know he can pass through solid objects just by speeding up his body’s molecules? Cool!

Jason is a true people person; a motivating coach, who always has a kind word of encouragement. Read more in the following quotes from the SCN team:

• “Jason is involved with coaching, which suits him perfectly. In almost all his interactions with people, he’s looking to help them perform better and give a great effort. In doing that, he has an uncanny ability to make people feel empowered and to give them space to try new things. He operates with a great deal of class and integrity, and I’m glad to be able to work with him.”
• “Jason is always at the ready with helpful advice and thoughtful insight, no matter what project he’s addressing.”
• "Articulate, an infectious smile, always one of the first to give feedback and a compliment…who wouldn't have anything nice to say about working with Jason?"
• “Jason is a very dedicated and passionate Community Manager who is a pleasure to work with. His strong commitment to the SCN community is something I really admire and strive to replicate.”
• “Jason Cao is a genuine person. He has the utmost concern for integrity and quality in everything he does. He is organized, self-motivated, and forward thinking, and this shows in both his deliverables as well as he ongoing contributions. Jason sets a great example for coaching in his work with the SCN Social Reputation sessions. He has been able to bring additional members into SCN, and motivates them to contribute quality content.”

Follow Jason on twitter @JayChaos

Jason’s handle is unique, I asked for the story behind it: Our family pronounces our last name like the letters K-O (just think Knock-Out). “Chaos” has been a nickname used by schoolmates for my brother and me, because of the way our name sounds (and hopefully not because of any erratic behavior ;-)) .

I invite you to visit ‘Behind the Scenes’ with additional SCN Team members.

Hi All,

Does scn community reputation(points and levels etc) helps in getting job or hikes in companies??

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Rakesh.

Happy Birthday, SAP Community Network, or, to give it it's original name (which gives you a clue to its origins) the SAP Developer Network - SDN.

Finding myself sending birthday greetings to an inanimate, virtual object is a little odd. Am I going mad? Well, no madder than usual, but certainly older.

I can't believe it's been ten years since SCN was born. I was around at the time, and having played a part in pre-SCN SAP communities (which I wrote a little bit about in this post from 2005: The SAP Developer Community 10 Years Ago ) I was honoured to be asked to help prototype "a new online community for SAP developers". This was a collaboration between O'Reilly Media, for whom I've written a couple of books, and SAP. Chief SAP Mentor herder and all round superstar Mark Finnern was involved too, and it was with Mark and also my old friend and partner in code-crime Piers Harding that I began to fill the fledgling community with content.

The content was sometimes controversial - I love the fact that when publishing this particular document - Real Web Services with REST and ICF - SAP put a disclaimer at the top saying I wasn't speaking for them and (effectively) they didn't fully agree with what I was saying :-)

(Update: link to document corrected, and the disclaimer is still there! "DJ Adams is not an SAP employee and the opinions he expresses in this article do not reflect the official opinion or positioning of SAP").

But the content was there, and I wrote my first blog post "The SAP/MySQL Partnership" in this community in May 2003. It was the second blog post ever in this community (Mark wrote the first one), and the first blog post from a non-SAP employee.

The SAP Community Network has grown beyond what I think anyone could have imagined; it's the foundation for SAP's social, developer and outreach activities and has become a universe unto itself. Sometimes that's a bad thing, but most of the time it's a good thing. My favourite moment in SCN's lifetime is actually from way back, in the days when SAP had initially decided to keep all the content behind an authentication firewall. That wasn't good for the Web, and it certainly wasn't good for SCN. It was marooned on a small island, with no future. After a small campaign (I went to Walldorf and spoke at a meetup - pictures and slides are here), we got SAP to change their mind and now SCN is a part of the Web, indexed properly by Google, and it's a much better place for it.

So once again, congratulations to SCN on reaching 10 years, and exceeding all expectations. It's mostly down to a great number of heroes at SAP too numerous to mention, plus great community leaders and players like you.

Keep it up!

I am writing this short post to give you an update since today is July 31 and many of you know that it's the end of the usual, annual SCN Topic Leaders contest period.

For those who don't know about it, we recognized the top 3 contributors in various categories in the past years, selecting them for the points they earned in a topic between August 1 and July 31 the following year.

This year our intention is to continue providing the list of SCN Topic Leaders, thanking them for their contributions and giving them a well-deserved recognition. There will be some changes in how we select the Topic Leaders because a lot has changed since last year, including the recent addition of gamification (missions, badges) that brought many other ways to shine than just with points. The criterium will still be highly based on points.

Early August I will be working with Audrey Stevenson to finalize an updated Topic Leader recognition program based on contribution points and taking into account the new environment (Jive and Gamification). Then, we will need another few days - maybe a week - to come up with the list. Please be patient as the effort is very manual this year.

Stay tuned!

I've been blogged forward - Blog It Forward : Mohammed Yakub Shah and blog-it-forward--arindam-mondal. So I thought I'd better get on with it.

Intro

I like a good intro - a good intro, like ACDACEbACDCA sticks in your head, though it could get your thrown out of guitar shops.

I'm English, have lived in Switzerland for over ten years and speak three languages fairly fluently - all though for two of those, it's often fluent gibberish. I've got a degree in Maths and Computer Science, and started working as a systems programmer on an Amdahl mainframe, running VM, using languages like rexx and exec2. I've been doing sappy stuff since 1997, so that's what? 16 years! I started as a PP consultant, but nowadays do technical stuff on R/3 (which young people like to call ECC) and BW. There seems to be a gap between the functional and basis groups - a need for technical understanding of how SAP works underneath the application level, but not quite at the database/os level, which Basis usually operatres at. That's the gap I try to fill. Some call me "guru for everything". Well... I try.

I'm a freelancer and work for a few different clients around Europe. I tend to work part-time or do short projects - so if you need some expertise... I also have developed a few products. I'm particular proud of "RoleBuilder" which I developed in conjunction with my good friend Julius von dem Bussche of http://www.xiting.ch/, There's even an OSS note about it.

Fun facts

I enjoy amateur dramatics, reading and I'm currently studying for a degree in divinity on a distance learning course with the University of London. This gives me a student card, which means I can get student reductions for all kinds of things!

Here's some videos for my dramatic efforts. Lyrics and vocals by me. The tunes though you may recognise. This first one is from five or six years ago.

This one is from last year. I got to play the bad guy. It sounded better live, I can assure you.

Next year, I'm hoping to direct a version of Snow White, using a script that my daughter and other members of my family have been developing.

...small pause... I'm baking bread and the rolls are ready to go into the oven. Today is the Swiss National Day, so it's a day off for me.

Those questions

What would you be if not an SAP Consultant ?

Easy. Actor. Or possibly director. Definitely something theatrical. On the facebook page of my old school for people of my decade, there's a photo of myself between two class mates, during a production of the Jack Rosenthal play "P'tang Yang Kipper-Bang". One of them runs a "Shakespeare in the Park" group in L.A. The other is a fairly well know serious actor in BBC Television.

What was the most fun project you ever participated in and why?

I think the most fun was an implementation in Paris. I was working with a chap, who's now doing very well as a CIO in a very large company. You know how nice it is to work with brilliant people? Well, he's one of them. He was my deputy, and we had a great time managing a team of 15 hand-picked French developers, regularly performing technical miracles. He also did impressions of David Brent from "The Office", during project management meetings. I was the only one who realised he was doing impressions... hard to keep a straight face sometimes.

What are the best experiences that you had while being part of this community?

Meeting up with people in real life. I've made so many contacts through SCN.

What I find a bit creepy is all these emails I get about people following me. I feel stalked!

What are the hobbies or activities that you enjoy most?

I think I've answered that above. In addition, I enjoy skiing, swimming, baking, cooking, playing games with my wife and my fairly grown up kids (the youngest is 16, the oldest will be 22!).

I'd like to blog forward to

Julius von dem Bussche

Venkat B

Eventually though, like a pyramid selling syndicate, we'll run out of people to blog forward to

My questions are:

1. What's the last good book you read?

2. Which actor would you like to play you in the biopic of your life?

Purpose

This blog is a continuation of a series of blogs under the heading of Sharing Knowledge Is Not That HardSharing Knowledge Is Not That Hard. The blog discusses SCN Discussions, which are one of the many tools available to us for sharing knowledge..

Overview

SCN Discussions can be thought of as equivalent to the forums SAP used to have on the SDN platform. Each Space on the new Jive 5 SCN platform allows for discussions to occur between customers and SAP contributors

.

SCN Discussions - How to

A short description of the purpose for a Discussion is provided by Jason Lax in the Jive Document; The Difference Between a Discussion, Blog Post, Document and Wiki:

Use a discussion to ask a question, ask for suggestions or report a problem. (Also known as a 'forum thread' or 'thread.') Replies can be marked as helpful or correct.

Before engaging on the SCN Discussions, read the SCN Rules of Engagement. These define the best practices, behaviors and more in order to retain professional look and feel to the SCN Spaces. In a nut shell; be nice, be helpful. To help you get started, see the Blog Where do I ask my question? (Posting New Discussions). And if you are interested become an SCN Moderators See SCN Discussions Moderator Top Guidelines for more details.  As a Moderator you have more responsibilities, but you also have more power to keep the SCN Spaces clean and professional.  To find the Space you have expertise or interest in, consult the SCN Site Index. 

Why to SCN Discussions

• No template
• Free flow, but professional
• Great source of easy KBAs (see Best Ways to Share Knowledge – KBAs)
• In many cases, it’s easier, more efficient  and more direct  to provide basic information and troubleshooting steps in a Discussion than over the phone
• Cheaper that a one off phone incident
• By responding to one question, the answer is exposed to tens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of others looking for the same information
• Highly Collaborative

Why Not SCN Discussions

?

Related Content

Related Documents

Share Your Knowledge in SCN Topic Spaces

Everything I know about... SCN Tips and Tricks

SCN Discussions Moderator Top Guidelines

Share Your Knowledge in SCN Topic Spaces

Sharing Knowledge Is Not That Hard - Basic Tips

Sharing Knowledge Is Not That Hard – Blogs

Sharing Knowledge Is Not That Hard - Wikis

Sharing Knowledge Is Not That Hard - Jive Documents

Sharing Knowledge Is Not That Hard – SCN Discussions

Sharing Knowledge Is Not That Hard - Knowledge Base Articles

Sharing Knowledge Is Not That Hard - Articles

Sharing Knowledge Is Not That Hard - SAP Idea Place

SAP Community Network is a gamified community where members can complete missions, earn points and badges. Badges represent certain achievements such as being onboarded, an active blogger, an influencer or thought leader, someone who shares knowledge via documents or in the discussions, etc.

This document lists all the SCN badges that are available for people to earn.

Visit your profile, reputation tab, "Missions" area to learn more about these missions:

- Requirements to complete the mission (hover over the mission card, click the gear button to see the flip side)

                         front side:                                                                                                             flip side:

- Who recently completed the mission

- How many points you get for completing the mission

Site-wide missions:

Space-specific missions:

Type of Mission	Space	Mission Name	Badge	Mission Description	Progression Mission?	Pre-requisite	Level Requirement?
Challenge	SAP Lumira	Accept the Data Geek Challenge		Accept the Data Geek Challenge. Click the gear to flip the tile and find out how.	Yes

2013 marks the 10th anniversary of the SAP Community Network!

To kick off our milestone journey and celebrate the year 2003, we asked founding member, Ziv Carthy to reflect on 10 years of SCN.

See what Ziv had to say here:

To be a part of the celebration, check out Chip Rodger’s blog!

I never thought I would do a video conference at 7:30am one morning (I'm not the early bird type), and record it on top of that! But I did, and it was fun. David Clavey is the Member of the Month for August 2013, and this time I did a video interview for a change, asking the regular questions that you have come to know. David is a nice guy, he shared his collection of hats with me - and the community. He’s done a lot in his life and doesn’t seem to want to stop any time soon ;-) We talked a lot about mobility - well, he did the talking, he's the expert - and he was kind enough to share about his hardware hobbies.

David, can you tell us a bit about yourself, where you live, who you work for, and other things you would like to share with the community (hobbies, fun facts)?

I live in Dunstable, a small town 30 miles north of London. The town goes back to Roman times and is the intersection of a Roman paved road and an ancient Briton road which runs along the Chiltern hills. There were two monasteries and a Royal palace 500 years ago, frequently visited by mediaeval Kings and Queens. Today it has two theaters, a zoo, hill top walks/runs, a glider club and me

From age 14 onwards I have lived in Dunstable, but previously I lived in Cumbria (English lake district). Julie my wife and I have 5 children, but only one still at home. I am an active Christian and a member of Christ Church Dunstable, and also a member of Dunstable downs radio club which coincides with my hobbies of electronics, embedded commuting, radio and HAB – High altitude Balloon experiments. I love most gadgets.

Being a Cumbrian I have always enjoyed walking, sailing and canoeing. I am an ex-marathon runner and ex-fitness instructor. For example I completed the London marathon in 2004.

I work for Capgemini in Holborn, London. Although most days I am not in the office but either working from home or visiting a customer. My role is “Mobility Lead” within the SAP business group of Capgemini, but I also currently support Europe as a Technical architect for Managed Mobility for 50% of my time. I also have strong links with Mobility guys in other parts of the business in the UK, Europe, USA and India. So a strong mobility team but scattered too many locations.

Before you joined Capgemini you were with Sybase. You stayed there for a few of years and then you left a few months after SAP acquired Sybase. Any thoughts you want to share about that time – the pre-SAP days? And how was it becoming suddenly part of a big company like SAP?

I was 5 years with Sybase, the company flew me to Toronto to interview me – that impressed me. I was a professional services consultant at Sybase - consulting and supporting most of their mobility products – Onebridge, SQL Anywhere/Mobilink/Ultralite, SUP, Afaria. The job involved many mobile worker customer solutions such as home visit nursing, fire engine/bus maintenance, telecom engineer systems. I was a year in the company when SAP bought Sybase, it did not really effect me much at the time as I was still delivering a major field service project in Dubai.

You’ve been a mobility consultant for years now, is there an industry that you like working with? And one that you find particularly challenging?

I enjoy all aspects of Mobility, from the start 27 years ago when it was about bar code scanning a docking stations to do comms. At Symbol I was involved in some pre-WiFi radio communications for communicating on-the-fly. This then changed to Mobile Worker type applications (e.g. Field Service and Delivery) based on GSM and WiFi and later 3G. I love working with mobile worker type applications; usually the end users love what you are doing because you are providing them with up-to-date information and cutting the paperwork.

I don’t find any industry area challenging other than when you start talking App’s the customer thinks they only cost $1 each ! Bespoke development is still expensive, even using hybrid technology.

Eventually there will be no such think as mobility as all computer interaction devices will be mobile. Who wants to sit at a desk anyway, even a portable PC is still a largely desk tethered device, it’s just portable between desks! I look forward to the day I can go for a hill walk and still be “at work”.

Your LinkedIn profile mentions that you know Morse. How did that happen? ;-)

As with most people I have changed career many times. I initially trained to be a Merchant Navy Radio Officer, i.e. the guy who operates the Radio on ship, and fixes the Radar and any other hi-tech electronics equipment on the ship, even the toaster! Oh and the last one off the ship when it sinks SOS…

After that I worked for Marconi again in electronics, then McDonnell Douglas but this time testing and repairing wardrobe-sized computers. Then I moved into CIM – computer integrated manufacturing which I setup within an electronics factory – Robots / CAD / CAE / Chip place machine / ATE Automatic test equipment.

Since moving into software, electronics and Radio have remained my hobby. And you never quite forget Morse, very useful for long distance communications. Recently I have passed my Amateur Radio exams so again I can legally transmit.

Now let’s talk about SAP and the community. When did you become a member of SCN and what brought you to this community?

I became a member of SCN when I joined Capgemini two years ago, but initially only looked things up but did not contribute. Then last year at TechEd Las Vegas I attended InnoJam and the penny dropped that it was a community not just of SAP employees but of everyone involved in SAP. I had lots to say about mobility so I joined in….

How do you find the time to contribute to SCN?

During my working day I am often browsing SCN and the Web for answers to questions.

I set aside 15 minutes every morning before work starts for blogging on SCN or answering questions on SCN. I find that answering people’s questions keeps me sharp as a consultant.

What do you like most about the community in general?

The extended support that having a community brings. You feel that here are people genuinely trying to help each other even though in real life they are in competing companies. Interesting – but it works.

If a new member came to you and asked for your advice on how to be an active and respected member of SCN, what would you say?

Look though all the different places and decide which places you want to be at. If you search for an answer and find it in a space, that’s where you need to be.

If you have something to say then write a blog, I like small blogs rather than large wordy blogs. I like pictures too, say it with pictures rather than words.

If you have a question, go ahead ask it even if it feels dumb! Everyone is willing to help and nobody will judge.

If you have a random thought, put it on the Coffee Corner.

Is there an SCN member you admire (OK… you can name a few)?

If the mobility places I like most of the guys who appear on the top 10.

Jitendra Kumar Kansal, Midhun VP, Daniel van Leeuwen, Carolyn Fitton , Joe Granda , Milja GillespieTahir Öz, Joanna Chan.

Of these Daniel gives the best technical answers, he goes into a level of detail that I can never achieve. Impressive.

You attended an SAP Code Jam in London in May this year. How was the event ?

Brilliant, the only gripe I have is the food at other events appears to be better when you look at what people shared on the Facebook page. The event is a mix of technology (HANA for instance) and socializing (meeting people that you chatted with on SCN).

What technology recently had you most enthusiastic about?

The whole UI5 and Fiori area, there is a lot of interest in this among Capgemini’s customers. I am patiently waiting to see what SMP 3.0 brings to mobility and the offline Fiori apps (presumably hybrid)

Hana is also quite exciting, but for me only for connecting to from mobility.

What do you think about the introduction of game mechanics on SCN one month ago? I saw you’ve earned a couple of badges already.

Yes it was fun when it first came out, but the badges are harder to earn now. They are good because they make you try areas of SCN that you may not have used before, and they encourage people in those areas. I definitely see a lot more activity now that gamification is on SCN.

Easy question: Mac/iOS or Windows? Or Android?

All of them - My main computer is a MacBook, but duel boots also into Windows 8 for development reasons.

I loved the Windows 8 RT when it first came out, could have taken over the world if it had been cheaper. (See my blog)

Android is OK, works as well as Windows Mobile did. But I find some of its features annoying and non user friendly.

I love the iPad. The ultimate in user friendly, the only computer my wife can use.

Are you on Twitter?

Yep, @dclavey, but I mainly tweet my or other interesting SCN blogs. Same goes for LinkedIn and Facebook.

Every month, a member of the SAP Community Network is recognized for exemplary behavior: sharing knowledge with peers, being helpful and taking on additional tasks to support community engagement. See the list of previous SCN Members of the Month.

Every month, a member of the SAP Community Network is recognized for exemplary behavior: sharing knowledge with peers, being helpful and taking on additional tasks to support community engagement. See more details about the program in the announcement blog.

It seems that the rules have been changed such that any document for which the essence can be found else where on the web are now deleted.  So have gone many of mine.

I would state that I have almost never seen a document posted here where I couldn't find the information somewhere else on the web.  I think this really needs much clarification!

Neal

Please see this thread [Project system material |/thread/1989630 [original link is broken]; I had asked the user to search in internet and forum and all I get is an insulting reply

please shut and do your own things

Is it really an offense to tell someone to search the forum or in google ?

This document will get updated on a regular base to reflect the latest bug fixes and feature enhancements that have been provided to the SCN platform. Please be aware that it will not contain all the work done during the implementation time of a release but mostly bugs and features visible or important to our community.

We also maintain a SCN Known Issues List which tracks all issues reported by the community members.

Release 08-06-2013

• FIX COMM-665 - Action Buttons In Moderation Panel No Longer Visible With Long URL In Message
• FIX COMM-2369 - Security Issue In User/Email Confirmation Screen
• FIX COMM-2210 - Guest Attributed As Modifier Of Documents

Release 07-22-2013

• FIX COMM-1975 - Country And Alternative Email Type Not Saved In User Profile
• FIX COMM-2192 - Original Author Is Showing As The Last Editor, Impacts Moderation

Release 07-08-2013

• FIX COMM-2284 - Vertical Alignment Issue With Widgets On Root Page
• FIX COMM-2385 - Content Deletion Generates Wrong Notification Message, Duplicates Sentence
• NEW COMM-2100 - List Space Moderators & Space Editors Under People Tab Of Space
• NEW COMM-2193 - Show Info About Moderation Approach To Moderated User When Creating Content
• NEW COMM-2282 - Enable The Activity Indicator
• NEW COMM-2325 - Extend Auto Login Session To Full Workday
• NEW COMM-2358 - Update Answered And Unanswered Icons In Discussion Threads

Release 06-16-2013

• FIX COMM-2337 - Spelling Mistake In Time Zone Settings For New Delhi
• FIX COMM-2329 - Posts Marked For Moderation Not Found In Queue
• FIX COMM-2328 - New User Wizard Welcome Email Should Not Be Sent
• FIX COMM-2217 - Content Rejected Because Of Abuse Appears In Search Results
• FIX COMM-2316 - Users With More Than 30 Points Are Being Pre-moderated
• FIXSCN-184 - Content Link Missing In Reputation History
• FIXSCN-183 - Discussion Titles In Reputation History Show Encoded Values Instead Of Accents
• NEW COMM-2311 - Show User's Drafts In Personal Content Left Hand Navigation
• NEW COMM-2193 - Show Info About Moderation Approach in Moderation Message To Moderated User When Creating Content
• NEW COMM-2102 - Notifications Sent For Actions Taken By Moderators
• NEW COMM-2085 - Move Newsletter Preferences From Old BC To New SCN

Release 05-26-2013

• NEW COMM-1798 - Show Role Badges Of Author In Discussions
• NEW COMM-2022 - Space Editor to Edit Overview Page
• NEW COMM-2023 - Space Moderator to Move Blogs
• NEW COMM-2216 - Make Full Navigation Tabs Clickable

Release 05-20-2013

• FIX COMM-2250 - Autologin Sends Unintended Activation Mails
• FIX COMM-2246 - Logged Error In sap-social-buttons.ftl Due To IE Check
• FIX COMM-2143 - Error Page When Moderator Moves Content To Another Space.
• NEW COMM-2271 - Disable Required Moderation Of Profile Photos By System Admins

Release 05-05-2013

• FIX COMM-2081 - Apply Browse Performance Improvements
• FIX COMM-2191 - Fix Moderation Queue Performance Issues
• FIX COMM-2216 - Extend Navigation Tabs Click Area
• FIX COMM-2218 - Fix Styles For Tag Autocomplete Popup
• NEW COMM-2027 - Moderation Console

Release 04-24-2013

• FIX COMM-1369 Post Appearing Twice in a Space
• FIX COMM-2080 SCN: S-User Is Able To Edit First And Last Name In User Profile.
• FIX COMM-2167 Private And Rejected SCN Content Appearing In SCN Site Search Results (Guest Login)
• NEW COMM-2136 Restrict Access / Contribution Of Private Content (Documents / Threads / Polls)

Release 04-14-2013

• FIX COMM-2004 Documents And Polls Can Be Visible Before Approval By Moderator
• FIX COMM-2080 - SCN: S-User Is Able To Edit First And Last Name In User Profile.
• FIX COMM-2142 Meta Description On SCN Homepage and Overview Pages No Longer Render
• FIX COMM-2147 Content With Tags Is Bypassing Moderation Queue
• NEW COMM-2022 Add Ability For Space Editor to Edit Overview Page
• NEW COMM-2023 Add Ability For Space Moderator to Move Blogs
• NEW COMM-2024 Moderator Signature Should Be Enabled By Default For Edit/Move Content

Release 04-03-2013 (SPAM Mitigation)

• FIX COMM-1380 S-User Is Able To Edit Locked Fields In SCN User Profile
• FIX COMM-2002 Draft Documents And Blogs Are Published When Approved In Moderation Queue
• FIX COMM-1924 Unauthorised Message When Creating A Discussion While Being Moderate
• FIX COMM-2011 User Can Set Himself For Approval On Document, Circumventing Moderation Process
• FIX COMM-2013 User Can Circumvent Moderation By Publish > Edit > Save Action
• FIX COMM-2014 Moderation Console: Cannot See "View in Context" When Filters Applied
• NEWCOMM-2040 Update Virusscanner Cookbook To Latest Version
• NEWCOMM-2058 Implement White List For LDAP Groups To Allow Registration

Release 03-17-2013 (Preparation For Gamification)

• FIX COMM-2003 - Points And Badges Not Showing In User Profile And Profile Popup
• NEW COMM-1686 - Added Advanced User Search Tools For Community Admins
• NEW COMM-1996 - Implement White List For Groups To Not Go To Moderation

Release 03-13-2013 (SPAM Mitigation)

• FIX COMM-1494 - Duplicate Accounts May Get Created During Login
• FIX COMM-1841 - Slow Query On Check For Entitlements
• NEWCOMM-1908 - New Site Wide Moderation Based On Points Threshold
• NEWCOMM-1945 - Toggle Ability To Create SCN Account

Release 02-10-2013

• FIX COMM-641 - Branch In Discussions Doesn't Work
• FIX COMM-1293 - User Email Address Not Replicated From SAP IDS
• FIX COMM-1289 - Enable Auto Login With Remember Me Flag Set
• FIX COMM-1313 - Improve Login Performance With SAP IDS
• FIX COMM-1448 - Fix For Mismatch In ViewCount Figures
• FIX COMM-1636 - Replace SAP Community Network Logo With NON-BETA Version
• FIX COMM-1676 - Performance Improvements For Mobile Activities Stream
• FIX COMM-1699 - Remove SCN Own ToU and Privacy Policy Checks
• NEW COMM-971 - Install Static Content Upload Plugin
• NEW COMM-1013 - Apple Touch Icon For Home Screen
• NEW COMM-1193 - Activating the Profanity Filter

Release 01-20-2013

• FIX COMM-1071 - Possibility Of Images Disappearing From Content Due To Bug In Jive Clean Up Task
• FIXSCNSBS-1589 - "Object expected" JS Error When Browsing Content Using IE8
• FIX COMM-642 - 404 Page Does Not Show Proper SCN Layout
• FIX COMM-649 - Formatted Text Widget Error: "The list is empty"
• FIX COMM-822 - Merge Space Functionality Not Working
• FIX COMM-1025 - Unpublished, Draft And Deleted Content Appearing In SCN Search Results
• FIX COMM-1370 - KM Content Not Synced Into SAP Inside Track Space
• NEW COMM-1193 - Activation Of Profanity Filter

Release 12-16-2012

• FIXCOMM-1358 - Profile Reputation Tab: Tooltip Is Missing
• FIX COMM-962 - Slow SQL Queries For Username Lookup
• FIX COMM-1112 - Dependency On Omniture JS Files For Finishing Page Loading
• FIX COMM-1164 - Login Links Outside Of Masthead Show IDS Login Page In Full Screen Mode
• FIX COMM-1192 - Home Page Feature Rotation Speed And Black Overlay Box
• FIX COMM-1194 - JS Errors When Using HTTPS
• FIX COMM-1207 - Communications Stream AJAX Call Triggered For Anonymous Users
• FIX COMM-1311 - Activity Page Returns Unexpected Error For Global Moderators
• NEW COMM-1013 - Apple Touch Icon For IOS Home Screen

Release 11-18-2012

• FIX COMM-839 - No Email Notifications For Blog Posts And Blog Comments In Followed Spaces
• FIX COMM-909 - SCN Compatibility Issues With Internet Explorer 10 In Windows 8
• FIX COMM-521 - Add "Site Index" Link To Footer
• FIX COMM-636 - Reporting Abuse Shows Up In Activity Stream
• FIX COMM-647 - Migrated KM Content In SCN Will Not Be Indexed Completely
• FIX COMM-934 - Upload of Community Image into Sub-Subspace Fails Without Error
• FIX COMM-1039 - Problems With Creation, Editing, Moving And Permissions Of External Resources

Release 10-28-2012

• FIX COMM-949 - Draft Blog Posts Appear In SCN Search Results
• FIX COMM-885 - Unpublished, Draft And Deleted Content Appearing In SCN Search Results

Release 10-07-2012

• FIX COMM-704 - Missing Mapping For Standard Profile Properties
• FIX COMM-879 - Format Not Valid Error In SCN Profile When Maintaining Alternative Email Address
• FIX COMM-917 - Empty Error Message Shown When Trying To Login With Duplicate Email Address
• NEW COMM-152 - Enable Trending People/Content Widget In Activity Page

Release 09-30-2012 (Business Center Forum Migration)

• FIX COMM-30 - Moderator Gets Listed As Author Of Content After Moderating It
• FIX COMM-634 - Possibility To Save XSS Code In Profile Fields
• FIX COMM-704 - Missing Mapping For Standard Profile Properties
• FIX COMM-856 - Adding / Changing Space Image Doesn't Work
• NEW COMM-440 - Migration Of BC Forums
• NEW COMM-797 - Implementation To Handle Additional Secondary SCN User IDs Per Profile
• NEW COMM-853 - Disable Possibility To Change Email Address In Initial Username Confirmation Page
• NEW COMM-881 - Disable Possibility To Change Email Address In User Profile Page (links to Change email address, Change password and Change newsletter subscriptions now in the right hand Actions area)

Release 09-16-2012

• FIX COMM-28 - System Announcement Sends Mass Mails to Users
• FIX COMM-589 - Improve Healthcheck To Cover Additional Failure Scenarios
• FIX COMM-593 - Input validation in the profile update action
• FIX COMM-605 - Some Metadata Are Missing And Do Not Get Display For Users
• FIX COMM-759 - Escaping Of HTML Not Working Correctly For Custom Meta Tags
• FIX COMM-790 - Avoid Browser Popup Security Warning During Login Process
• NEW COMM-152 - Enable Popularity Widgets
• NEW COMM-597 - Decouple Header Navigation Change From Application Deployment
• NEW COMM-741 - Add Social Sharing Counts

Release 08-26-2012

• FIXMOCPS-1359 - 'Remember me' Functionality Broken On SCN
• FIX COMM-361 - OOM Situation On App Servers Due To Bookmark Handling Bug
• FIX COMM-435 - Rejecting An Abuse Report No Longer Removes The Content
• FIX COMM-633 - Redundant Information Showing In Abstract Of Search Results
• FIX COMM-497 - Jive Cover Page For KM Assets Displays Wrong Action Button Text
• FIX COMM-499 - Jive Cover Page For Content Type sdn-tv - Link Should Open In Correct Size Window
• FIX COMM-500 - Jive Cover Page For Content Type sdn_code_sample - Missing Content Type Information
• FIX COMM-698 - NumberFormatException On Space Meta Data When Editing Thread (Thanks Abesh Bhattacharjee!)
• FIX COMM-737 - Truncated Text In Social Shares When Title Contains Special Characters
• CHANGE COMM-375 - Enhance Results For Omniture Reporting
• CHANGE COMM-469 - Enhance Search Facet With "Collaboration Areas"
• CHANGE COMM-545 - Enhance Reliability Of SCN Landscape Virtualization

Release 08-05-2012

• FIXCOMM-581 - Attributes Don't Get Saved When Updating Profile
• FIX COMM-495 - Cannot View Threads With Specific User
• FIX COMM-540 - Delete Points From Wiki To SCN Which Were Loaded More Than Once
• FIX COMM-595 - Legal Footer Is Missing From Emails Generated By The System
• FIX COMM-424 - Filtering Errors In Some Spaces
• FIX COMM-593 - Input Validation In Profile Update Action
• NEW COMM-400 - Social Sharing On Content Pages

Release 07-22-2012

• FIX COMM-31 - Verify & Deploy Fix For Text Filtering With Solr Cluster -> Filter by Text is back!
• FIX COMM-267 - Link To NetWeaver Cloud Developer Tools License Does Not Log In Automatically
• FIX COMM-291 - Users Can't Be Found With @ Auto Completion
• FIX COMM-329 - Restore Missing Blogs That Got Lost After Space Merge
• FIX COMM-384 - Remove KM Initiated Duplicates From Search Results
• FIX COMM-514 - Unexpected Login Popup When Trying To Access Public SCN Portal KM Assets
• NEWCOMM-305 - Provide Search Link For Additional Results After Browse Content

Release 06-24-2012

• FIX COMM-34 - Removing Un-needed KM Content From Search
• FIX COMM-242- Scrollbars Showing In Discussion Threads With Normal Size Content
• FIX COMM-348 - Reflect Space Permission Change In The Search Results
• FIX COMM-369 - Problems with points deletion for a resource rejected due to an abuse report
• FIX COMM-370 - Number of Points in the upper bar is updated with delay
• FIX COMM-371 - Wrong calculation of Points upon 5-star share of Blog Post
• FIX COMM-430 - Reputation Tab: Some information is not displayed
• NEW COMM-301 - Show Spaces At Top Of Search Results
• NEW COMM-431 - Move Blogs And Documents To Bottom Of Create Menu

Release 06-10-2012

• FIX COMM-88 - Fix invalid KM links sent to TREX
• FIX COMM-242- Scrollbars Showing In Discussion Threads With Normal Size Content

Release 05-27-2012

• FIX COMM-30 - Moderator Gets Listed As Author Of Content After Moderating It
• FIX COMM-33 - Un-follow People and Spaces Not Working
• FIX COMM-220 - Discussions With Attachments Don't Show Actual Message Text
• FIX COMM-221 - Users in China Cannot Login to New SCN Using User Name & Password
• FIX COMM-240 - Service user shouldn't get points assigned
• FIX COMM-241 - Incorrect record upon points assignment for 'someone likes your comment'
• FIXSCNSBS-1509 - "Stop tracking" button does not work

Release 05-06-2012

• FIX SCNSBS-1716 - MouseOver / MouseOut Event In Discussion Thread Adds White Space in IE9
• FIX SCNSBS-831 - Top Contributor Widget: Link "Learn more... " Pointing To SCN Homepage
• FIX SCNSBS-1702 - Corrupted Layout In Browse People Page With Long Usernames
• FIX SCNSBS-1585 - Points Disabled In A Space Not Working All The Time
• FIX SCNSBS-1551 - New Users Get Sometimes Stuck During Registration On Personal Data Page.
• FIX SCNSBS-1777 - Follow Status "Awaiting Approval" Although No Required Approval Configured
• FIX SCNSBS-1740 - Wrong Date Format In Send System Mails
• FIX SCNSBS-1733 - Upper Border Of Content Thumbnail Disappears When Viewing Additional Options In Chrome
• FIX SCNSBS-1039 - Ad Appears With Gray Background On Tags Page
• CHANGE SCNSBS-1643 - Configure To Hide Content After 2 Abuse Reports
• CHANGE SCNSBS-1668 - Configure Spell Checker With Common SAP Terms

Release 04-22-2012

• FIX SCNSBS-1559 - Missing Forums To Be Migrated (ERP HCM Payroll Spain Forum and Portal KMC)
• FIX SCNSBS-1684 - Broken Display of Thumbnail View In Chrome
• FIX SCNSBS-1715 - Navigation Control For "Next Item" In Pagination Not Showing Correctly
• FIX SCNSBS-1606 - KM Documents Show SAP User As Author
• FIX SCNSBS-1610 - Failed Documents In TREX Search
• FIX SCNSBS-1646 - Some Asset Types Not Correctly Indexed / Displayed In Search Results
• FIX SCNSBS-1669 - New Indexes For Browse Content
• FIX SCNSBS-1530 - Redirects For Blog Categories Broken
• FIX SCNSBS-1466 - Like Points Stay Even After Content Has Been Deleted
• FIX SCNSBS-1575 - Change Email Notification Text For "Not Active Contributor"
• FIX SCNSBS-1634 - No Redirect From Old BC URL To User Profile In Some Cases
• FIX SCNSBS-1672 - Update URL Mapping Table For Blog Post Redirects
• FIX SCNSBS-1358 - Some JSON Resources Are Not Marked As Cache Able
• FIX SCNSBS-1691 - H1 Text Overlaps When In Editing Mode
• CHANGE SCNSBS-1688 - Move To Dedicated Solr Server

Release 04-02-2012

• FIXSCNSBS-1641 - Code Formatting Doubles Bottom Margin In Edit Mode
• FIX SCNSBS-1661 - UI Bug In New SCN Theme Impacts Content Rendering, Adds White Space
• FIX SCNSBS-1646 - Raise Max Number Of Images Per Blog Post/Document To 30
• FIX SCNSBS-1635 - Broken Layout Rendering Of 'Like' Button User's Own Documents/Blog Posts
• FIX SCNSBS-1613 - Do Not Render Duplicate Results For Blog Comments, Bookmarks (Search)
• FIX SCNSBS-1601 - Logon To WIKI Redirects User Always To WIKI Homepage
• FIX SCNSBS-1596 - Blog Posts Appear In Search Results With Modification Date (Search)
• FIX SCNSBS-1583 - System Announcement Sends Mass Mails to Users
• FIX SCNSBS-1542 - Error When Assigning Points For Wiki Contribution If User Not Existent In New SCN
• FIX SCNSBS-1526 - Improve Performance Of "Browse Content" Queries
• FIX SCNSBS-1288 - Corrupt Layout In Content Browser List View When Using IE

Release 03-26-2012

• SCNSBS-1624: Change Default Content Browser View to Details for All Registered Users
• SCNSBS-1605: Remigrate Missing Blog Post Images (Preparations)
• SCNSBS-1577: Users Get Points After Editing Documents / Blog Posts
• SCNSBS-1504: Redirect Of Old URL Not Working After Blog Post Moved To Topic Space

Release 03-21-2012

• SCNSBS-1612: Disable Text Filtering in Browse Content Area (Mitigation on Performance Issues)
• SCNSBS-1546: Disabled Internal Search Page (Mitigation on Performance Issue)
• SCNSBS-1527: Bugfixes on TREX Search Indexing

Release 03-19-2012

• SCNSBS-1580: Author / Admin Email Address Showing in Blog RSS Feed as Author Information
• SCNSBS-1562: Improvements on Application Memory Consumption
• SCNSBS-1555: Variation of Old Forum Message URL is not Redirecting to New SCN Message URL
• SCNSBS-1546: Remove Incorrect Links to Old Search Page
• SCNSBS-1525: Remove "Join Date" in User Profile, Duplicate to "Member Since"
• SCNSBS-1506: Redirect Loop at Login Leads to Error at "/sso-updateconfirm"
• SCNSBS-1477: NullPointerException When Updating User Profile Creation Date

If you’re new to SCN (or if you’re an “old timer” but you missed the announcement about gamification when it launched in April), you may have noticed colorful badges on other people’s profiles, or the badge for completion of the SCN Survey that ran on the SCN homepage for a while: .

Or maybe you clicked on the dropdown arrow next to your lifepoints at the top of the page and saw “Next Mission” in your mini profile and it sparked your curiosity.

Regardless of how or where you noticed the badges, if you’re wondering what they are for and how people are earning them,here are a few tips for seeing the missions that are available to YOU to complete on SCN, and where to find the requirements for completing them.

Where Do I See My Missions?

First stop: your user profile.

To get there, start by logging in. Once you’re logged in, it’s easy to go to your user profile: simply click on your name at the top of any page on SCN.

On the Bio tab of your user profile, you will see all of the badges for the missions that are available (except the hidden ones—see more about those below). The badges that are brightly colored are for missions you have already earned, and the ones that are grayed out are for missions that you have not yet earned.

Here is the Bio tab of Nic Smith, one of the SAP folks who runs the Data Geek Challenge with its cool missions and badges .

Note: Some missions are hidden, “surprise” missions that you may earn without knowing it just by acting in a positive, appropriate way in the community (and I can’t say more or I’ll give away the secrets ).

The next stop in mission exploration is the Reputation tab in your profile. To get there from the Bio tab, simply click on the “Reputation” tab.

Once you’re on the Reputation tab, click on the Missions link on the left-hand side.

Now you’re in the Missions section of your Reputation tab.

In this section, you can see which missions and badges you already earned, as well as those missions and badges that are currently available to you to earn (except the hidden ones, of course), along with the percentage of completion you’ve already achieved on them.

You can sort the list by using the dropdown menu above the Lifetime Points display in the Achievement bar.

To see the missions available to you that you haven’t completed yet, select “Show unearned missions first” from the dropdown menu.

You see a "tile" for each available mission that includes:

• the name of the mission
• the badge
• the mission description
• who recently earned this mission
• your own completion percentage for this mission

How Do I See What the Mission Requirements Are?

To find out what steps you have to take to complete an available mission, place your cursor over the lower right corner of the mission tile and a “gear” image will appear. Click this gear image to “flip” the tile and show the requirements.

Now you can see what steps you still need to take to complete the mission, as well as which steps you have already completed.

And that’s all there is to it! Now you’re ready to start engaging (or continue engaging) in the community with a little bit of extra fun.

Before you know it, you’ll be saying “mission accomplished!”

Note: for a full list of all missions, see the List of SCN Missions.

Hi,

Is there a way to remove your followers?

Greetings

As part of the 10 year anniversary celebration of SCN, I’d like to go back in history a bit and celebrate how far SCN has come from a simple idea to the amazing community that it is today.

SCN began with what many people told me at the time was a “crazy” idea.  SAP was expanding out of the applications space that had made us what we were into the technology space with the launch of SAP NetWeaver.  In order to do that, we had to build a virtual community to connect the physical community of techies working globally in the SAP world. We had to proactively share a great deal of knowledge and at the same time, gather a huge amount of feedback on our technology as it was being used for the first time at customers.  Lets just say that at that time, SAP wasn’t known as the most “open” of software companies and that providing millions of outsiders a “back door” into our product experts and laying out all the problems people had with our solutions in public wasn’t seen as the huge benefit that the last 10 years have proven it to be.

Such a crazy idea attracted quite a few characters, like myself, who were just crazy enough to dive in head first and commit our passion to making it a reality.  SCN is proof that a committed, passionate and talented team can do what many people thought was impossible.  As it is today, the early days of building SCN was a team effort and it’s a great example of how a few committed individuals can have a massive impact on the success of a large organization.  I don’t think anyone could imagine what SAP would be like today without the vibrant SCN community driving us forward. 

Back in 2010, Martin Gillet caught up with me at SAP TechEd Berlin and got me to explain how SCN got started, so have a look.

So, thanks to everyone back in the early days who helped make this “little” idea blossom into the most amazing community in the technology industry.  It is a phenomenal example of passionate global teamwork and I’m very proud to have had a role in bringing the community to life.  But I’m even more proud of how the SCN members have embraced and expanded the community over the past decade into the incredible resource that it is today.  It really “takes a village” to raise a community and the SAP community has continually surprised us with its innovation and surpassed our craziest dreams of success.

Happy 10^th Birthday SCN!

Folks,

Now that the clever headline (*) got you here, let’s talk about some “submishunz” on Idea Place that totally deserve your attention and an up-vote, shall we? In no particular order I present to you:

• Enable "Insert picture" button in comments submitted by Steffi Warnecke. If we had this on SCN, you would totally be able to comment on this blog with your own funny picture.
• Track Tags in Communications by Jason Lax. Don’t know about you, but my own Communications page is just a hot mess of all kinds of information streams, so really any improvement in this would be very welcome.
• Limit number of open discussions allowed by Fire Fighter. Such limit actually existed on the “old SDN” (it was 10 open questions, I believe) and I'm still confused as to why we have to submit something that just got lost in migration as some new “idea”. But if that’s what it takes – heck, it’s not like I’ve never had an argument myself with the users regarding “break-fix vs. enhancement”.
• A related entry, also from FF: Prompt or message indicating number of open discussions. If you're wondering what's the big whoop about the open discussions, please read the blog How to close a discussion and why by Jürgen L.
• Items with no replies by yours truly. This is another “lost in translation” item (a forum filter that we had on SDN).
• Despite being once rejected, my good old idea Dislike/Thumbs down button has been gathering steam again lately. Know that if you ever clicked thumbs up / thumbs down on a YouTube video, you’re legally obligated to go vote on this idea.
• Another very cool up-and-coming idea (also mine, mine, mine!) for a new Insufficient detail button in Discussions. Read more on its origins in the comments to the blog Wouldn't it be Great if People Wanted to Get Their Questions Answered - more rant by Neal Wilhite.
• Update: just posted new idea Report Abuse - add 'Failed to search'. Not sure for how long we were going to pretend this didn't exist on SDN and was not the most frequent reason for hitting that button.

Note that I have not included many great ideas that have already passed the ‘Submitted’ stage and (keeping my fingers crossed!) might be implemented at some point. Here is a link to the other ideas that are in ‘Submitted’ status. Please feel free to check it out and vote/comment. Note that now we need at least 15 ‘up’ votes to get an idea considered by SAP.

Yes, there is still no auto-logon on Idea Place (although you may logon with a certificate and S-user) and its’ intuitive and friendly user interface looks like it was brought to you by the creators of the SAP GRC system. But if we don’t vote on ideas then they won’t be implemented for sure, so let’s try to make some lemonade with what we have!

(*) Before anyone calls the Grammar Police - the headline is an homage to the famous I can has cheezburger meme. Thanks, Osvaldo Lopez for reminding me to think globally.

Disclaimer: the image used is my original compilation based on an image with 'free to use and modify' license, according to Google search. The image of The Most Interesting Man in the World from Dos Equis commercials (played ad nauseam on TV in the US) is used here in accordance with fair use license for the purposes of parody.

Hi All,

Does scn community reputation(points and levels etc) helps in getting job or hikes in companies??

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Rakesh.

It was end of 2002. Exactly 5 weeks before Christmas. I was a consultant at SAP doing portal and KM development for customers. My previous project assignment just finished successfully when my manager asked me to come to his office. “There is a project, where SAP plans to set-up a community on the internet. Base on SAP portal. They are looking for someone who can develop an enhanced upload tool for documents. It is estimated with 5 weeks. Can you take that?” So this is how my story with SCN started. I did that tool and out of the 5 weeks assignment my story of more than 10 years with SCN started.

Before the official launch of the “SAP Developer Network” (SDN) a lot of tools and to be developed and system integrated. The first version that went live was based on SAP Enterprise Portal 5. Some webpages, a search on the document library, the capability to blog and a first version of a discussion forum. This blog by Chip Rodgers shows some nice screenshots and links how SDN looked these days. For the launched as beta version you had to be registered to use any of the platform. So we build the first version of the registration and I was one of the first users registered in early 2003.

SDN Beta registiration screen in early 2003

Even though the platform as changed over the last 10 years a lot you can still find the content of that time. E.g the first blog and first discussion thread.

If someone would have told me in 2003 that in 10 years’ time this platform has more than 2 million unique visitors per month I would not have believed this person. In the early days a number of 100,000 users that could be on the platform at some stage sounded so far away that we could not imaging even that number at some stage.

Looking back at the last 10 years I still can remember a lot of fantastic but also stressful moments. Moments where we celebrated big success like migration to new platforms, roll out of new functionality and integrations of new platforms (forums, Wiki, Media Solutions and of course the big migration in early 2012 to the current platform. But also challenging moments. Moments in the early days when the system performance was suffering as the landscape could not be enhanced that fast as the community was growing. Moments when the site went down due to an incident. But in general I recall all the great moments. Moments when we received the feedback from the community how happy they are with the site and how happy they are whenever we improved and enhanced the platform.

My role has changed in the past 10 years. From one of the guys doing to coding to a project manager that was responsible for a lot of the big changes on the platform to a manager of a team. This team has also grown over the years. We are not only working on SCN but also on other internal and external web based solution for SAP. Nevertheless SCN is still one of the biggest areas where the team and I are working on. There is no day in the office were I do not have interactions with SCN.

Am I proud of what happened in the last 10 years? Yes! I am very proud of the achievements we had as a team that could support the grows of the community. I am proud that I could help SCN in various roles and enable the community. I still recall the TechEd presentation I did in 2009. It was a room packed with hundreds of people who were keen on getting insides on the platform and how we operate it. This was definitely one of the many moments in the last 10 years I will never forget.

Congratulations SCN! Congratulations to all users that used the system in the last 10 years. Congratulations to all team members that worked on the platform in the last 10 years. And of course thanks a lot to all the team members that helped evolving the platform and its content in the last 10 years.

Quite often in the past weeks I asked myself: How could SCN be look like in another 10 years? Is it another decade of moments and achievements we could not image right now? The more I think about it the more I am confident it will be. I am pretty sure that the community and its platform will expand and further grow. This is my wish for SCN and its future: Be what it is right now – one of the best communities in the world. Develop into areas that we cannot even image right now.