I remember the first time I saw an SAP Mentor. I didn’t actually know what the SAP Mentor program was I just knew that I regularly saw the same folks at the annual SAP Conferences wearing what appeared to be rugby jerseys with their twitter handles on them. Several years ago I began talking with one to learn about the program.
For my first experience I had the benefit of meeting perhaps the most famous SAP mentor, Martin Gillet (@mgillet) who told me all about the program. In a nutshell SAP Mentors are the most influential community participants in the SAP ecosystem. As part of a super smart and engaged global cohort of approximately 150 bloggers, consultants, and technical wizards nominated by their SAP Community Network peers and selected by the SAP Mentor Steering Committee. Of those nominated this past year, only 31% were selected based on the rigorous structured criteria.
Most of the mentors work for customers or partners of SAP. All of them are hands-on experts of an SAP product or service, as well as excellent champions of community-driven projects. They are a powerful voice of SAP's customers, partners and individual consultants that help SAP improve the solutions. SAP Mentors are trusted community advisers that help SAP's customers and partners make the best out of their investment in SAP. They are agents of change for the future direction of SAP through engagement with SAP executives as well as their product teams. To learn more about the Principles upon which the SAP Mentor magic is built view http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-35514.
In early 2015 I had the distinct honor or being selected as a SAP Mentor (#126!) and I have represented the program at SAPPHIRE, the SAP HR2015 European Conference in Nice, France, the annual SuccessConnect Conference in Singapore and multiple smaller events around Asia. The program has allowed me to learn more about what is going on behind the scenes within SAP and SuccessFactors and it provides me with early release content and news directly from the SAP management team who provides the SAP mentors scheduled updates. These key executives often interact with the SAP mentors to ensure that they are understanding the needs of the customers, partners and consultants. The opportunity to have their ear and to also learn about the latest advancements is a very unique opportunity that SAP mentors treasure.
My goal with today’s blog is to ensure that you are in the know about this valuable community and the amazing services available. Now when you see someone at an SAP event wearing a numbered jersey you will know they are a trusted advisor and someone who you should interact with. You can even grab their twitter handle from the back of their shirt and follow them to stay in the know. As part of our goal of raising awareness about the SAP Mentor program we are encouraging you all to recognize them, via the shirts, engage and connect with them. You can even take a picture and post it on social media with the hashtag #CatchAMentor or follow the group directly via twitter @sapmentors.
As a representative of the HCM community here are a few of the approximate 10 SAP HCM Mentors to follow via twitter to stay in the know:
Martin Gillet @MGillet
Steve Bogner @SteveBogner
Luke Marson @lukemarson
Chris Paine @Wombling
Brandon Toombs @BrandonToombs
Sharon Newton @SharonNewton
Kumud Singh @SinghKumud
Matt Fraser @Casertz
Njål Stabell @Njasta
Danielle Larocca @DanielleLarocca
You can learn more about the program and see a list of active SAP Mentors and Alumnae here at: http://scn.sap.com/community/sap-mentors?original_fqdn=sapmentors.sap.com.
