Welcome Corner Blog Posts
Go a little bit deeper into the Welcome Corner with blog posts. Learn how to get started in SAP Community and get tips on maximizing your participation.
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
GrahamRobbo
Active Contributor

How cool is SCN? No don't answer. I'll do it for you. As my 15 year-old daughter would say "SCN is way-cool, Dad!".

Before SCN there was nothing. (Actually there was SDN but that is not my point.)

Before SCN if you wanted to find a resource for deep and dark SAP information you had few choices. You could go on a training course.You could teach yourself through experience. You could find a suitable person who would enlighten you.

Now it is different. Now you can go on a training course. You can teach yourself through experience. You can find a suitable person who will enlighten you. Okay, I'm not really making my point am I? (Actually SCN makes it far easier to do all those things but I digress.)

SCN is cool because it makes a difference. It makes a difference to us because we now have an extensive online source of tips, tricks, problems and solutions that we can draw on with a simple search. (Tip - I am told search will be much better in the new SCN platform. SCN team stop reading this blog and get back to work!) It makes a difference to us because we can reach out and connect with the brightest and best people in the SAP ecosystem no matter where they are. (Isn't it interesting how the best and brightest are also the ones most willing to share. There is a lesson there somewhere.) It makes a difference because it gives people like us a centralised place to put forward our ideas and opinions, to start and contribute to discussions, and to engage with our peers.

But most of all SCN makes a difference to SAP. SCN allows everyone to have a conversation with SAP - not just the CIOs from the top 500 organisations in the world. Everyone. And SAP is listening. And in listening SAP is learning and maturing. They are learning that criticism is a good thing. Criticism, especially from your customers, is a great thing. After all, if your friends aren't going to tell you the truth who will. (Okay "friends" might be a step too far but you know what I mean, right?) And once you learn that criticism can be a good thing, once you mature, you seek out suitable forums for more people to give you open and honest feedback. That's cool. That's SCN.

You know what else is really cool about SCN? There are about 18 gazillion members of SCN. That makes sense right because sign-up is free of charge? I mean Lady Gaga has over 14 million Twitter followers so 18 gazillion SCN members means nothing. But, in each calendar month half of the registered members of SCN logon for some reason or other. So that means 9 gazillion SCN members see enough value in SCN to come back at least every few weeks to search for something, contribute to something, or connect with someone. * I am not 100% sure about the total number of SCN members - but I am sure that about 50% of them are active.


This is not your Grandmothers' SAP. For a start this SAP trusts us way more than the old SAP did. This SAP, while still somewhat thin-skinned at times, is happy to facilitate conversations even though they have no idea where they will end up. That's pretty cool. And also a bit unusual.

So I wanted to share a few feedback comments I noticed this week that were triggered by a conversation I started on SCN.

In the comments section of an article by Frank Scavo were these little nuggets. You can see the full article

here

.

"..SAP deserves some props for providing the SAP Community Network platform that allow<sic> this robust discussion to be engaged." - Kevin Grove

"..There is quite a bit of discussion right there on the SAP-sponsored SDN message board. SAP deserves credit for that. You would never, ever, see such a thing on a website sponsored by the other very large enterprise software vendor…" - Frank Scavo

SCN is way-cool!

* Update 12th March 2012 - the new SCN is cooler than the old SCN

9 Comments