SAP Mentor not a mentor for me

[OttoGold]

Hello,

I have noticed the SAP mentors initiative. But that is not intended to help the ordinary people, right?

In my free time I like to play the board games. Maybe you know what the asian board game of go is (or use chess if you like). There are the teachers, the study groups, the students, there is the mentor and a youngster relation etc. Reading through some questions especially about the career (and career shifts) makes me wonder why I cannot have my SAP mentor which cares for me. Me... and not one who is "only" oficially recognized as "mentor" and thats why we should praise him.

For example there was a guy who wanted to switch from SAP B1 to the big SAP (ABAP). If there were some "better/ formal" way to create some "groups" (like study groups/ exchange groups, whatever...) it would be an honour and pleasure to help him start with ABAP if he (or any other group member) would help me with B1 development, BW basics etc.

Yes, I know what you think. Why would one do that? But it would be the next step of the initiative going on on SDN, or not? Yes, you think I should get help from my colleagues at the project, my employer etc. But it would be (a) fun (b) imho next step of SDN (c) you would find people who want to share and honestly there are not many like this on my project/ job.

Please share your opinions. That is how I think about Web 2.0 and this social media "buzz" and how I would change SDN if I had a little chance.

Regards, Otto

[former_member374 · Accepted solution]

Hi Otto,

Stephen did a great job answering already. We are proud to have crossed the 2.0 million member mark, we are also proud to have 75 SAP Mentors right now. That ratio illustrates the impossibility to have an official SAP Mentor for every member.

But I like the idea of a mentor barter system. SCN Members can post:

Looking for mentor barer:

Interested in getting into area xyz can offer my expertise of area zyx as exchange.

or:

Just started to get to know area xyz, who is interested in joining the ride?

You need to have shared your e m a i l address in your profile for people to be able to contact you.

My suggestion would be to post that in the general forum of your interest and go from there.

Good luck, Mark.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

> Interested in getting into area xyz can offer my expertise of area zyx as exchange.

Actually those are my favourite contributors and I go out of my way to help them, also out of interest as they have typically thought about it in advance.

> Just started to get to know area xyz, who is interested in joining the ride?

This one is into the grey area at times. People write to me sometimes asking whether I can mentor them on their project... If it is going to be a community related thing, then they need to get their doubts into the forums, their knowledge gained into the wikis and their (differentiated) opinions formed into the blogs. Few of those show up.

Asking for a 2nd opinion on some topic happens more often, and they typically do show up in the forums if I suggest asking for contributions of ideas or discussion when my own run out.

IMO: The use-case for a free secret advisor or personal trainer is pretty small. At least it is in the SAP Security world (my area).

Gossip, urban legends and bugs are however like a wildfire. Same as usual...

Cheers,

Julius

[OttoGold]

Hello,

In the real word, I am trainer for the newbies coming to my company. I know how hard it is to teach somebody, how much effort you give for a single man to teach a thing. And the common (at least for me) approach is to get a senior guy to teach few newbies, after some time the senior can do his job and time to time give some super-combo-very-hard problem anwer. The people taucht in the first wave can teach the newbies themselves. that is how the pyramid of knowledge should be built. IMaybe it can work here as well? Or any other mechanism to protect the gurus, but let the community learn and build the pyramid? Maybe SAP should some with something like that here because people are starting doing this "senior" work outside SDN which means SAP, SDN, The Community - everybody is losing that. i want SAP to help me build an environment (or ecosystem if you´re a SAP fan:)))) where I can do what I want. Are these guys proud of this processes of losing the best people here? I don´t think so...

Regards Otto

[Jelena]

Otto, I don't like Wiki format either. It is very kind of you to be willing to help the beginners in your area of expertise. Such advise might be frowned upon here, but I think that perhaps a web page outside of the SAP realm would be a solution for you. I myself maintain an SAP blog outside of SDN because I wanted to be free to express my opinions (not that we're restricted here on SDN, but still) and wanted to have an unrestricted access to the content.

My initial goal was to share my knowledge and findings as I was learning them myself, but at some point, as I was learning more, I started questioning whether a particular subject was worth writing about and whether others will even find it useful or will be like "oh, she's writing about some really basic stuff, everyone knows this". And the more you know the more you doubt, so it's kind of catch-22.

Now on the mentoring - I have been educating others about anything computer related for a scary number of years (do the numbers 286, 386 and 486 ring a bell for you?). And I can tell that teaching/mentoring others is a very hard job! First, you need to know your stuff very well; second, you need to prepare a presentation for your "student"; prepare some hands-on tasks and tests, to make sure the knowledge is meaningful and to gauge the progress, etc., etc.

So I'm not quite sure what your expectations are regarding the "exchange". If anyone would ask me to mentor him/her in ABAP or SD I would probably have to decline simply because I don't have enough time to provide the level of mentoring I'd be proud about. But at the same time if someone would ask me specific questions (even the silly ones), I'd most likely answer to my best knowledge.

[OttoGold]

You can give it a try...

Email @ Chintan: Dear Chintan, I have heard you have nothing to do and I have decided you´re going to teach me SAP BW. I am looking forward to the firts lesson, regards Otto ))))))))

[OttoGold]

Hello

Would you teach me anything useful? No. Why not:

a) you don´t know me, why would you invest your time in a stranger

b) probably

b1) you can handle everything you need on your own (or with forums) and do not need my help to pay you back

b2) you´re too important to get fired, so you don´t care

b3) ...or you don´t like people:))

c) you feel kinda uniquie and you don´t want to share a thing

Maybe you would teach me something if i were your every day co-worker? Maybe...

To tell something useful or to show... it would take you like 5 minutes? And you could give me some work to do to compensate. At least that is what the people around me do. That would be fair. You give and get.

And on SDN? Check my business card. I have no problem with giving. But it would be cool to get something back.

For my area of expertize (Adobe forms) i could write a book. But I have no time for this. But I would have time to create a "personal learning path" to create a "book" (learning path is a SAP term) from

a) my brief intro texts

b) blog posts

c) sap help documents

d) tutorials, howtos, contributions

e) SAP eLearnings

etc.

Such a learning path could help a stranger to start with Adobe from scratch or with some starting experince level and follow the chapters of my book/ path. Like the SAP courses but from an amateur for other amateurs.

And if I would not be the only one to create such a learning path (I would NOT be the only guy to create such a thing if it would be easy and a part of SDN), I could read others "books"/paths to learn something new.

Hope you don´t mind the beginning, please remember you were young time ago:)))

Regards, Otto

[OttoGold]

Connect the idea with this one:

I ask for a) personal lerning path b) user groups

You can imagine the above mentioned book/ path as a "little" forum where the threads serve as chapters of the book. But lacks a) content b) moderator... etc.

Otto

[OttoGold]

Ok, sirs, I will ask my question rephrased.

Is there any ...well...more "formal" way I can exchange my knowledge except the reading/ writing wikis (this is my favourite stupid Web 2.0 feature, I don´t want to use any wikis), asking people in personal to share or exchanging forum posts?

There is SAP eLearning. What a cool thing, but not for a beginner. There are so many useful blog posts and forum threads. But only the expert in the field can create a reasonable/ useful "learning path" out of these sources. I can create one for my expertize. Is there a way to publish such a thing? Is there a way to add such a feature to SDN? Is there any way for an ordinary guy like me to ...well... help around here:))

I would like to do something for me and for other people too. Is the feature i propose off-topic? Or is there anybody who I can talk to about such a thing?

regards Otto

[NathanGenez]

I'm not entirely sure what you are proposing... I sense that you aren't either But how is that different from blogging or participating in the forums? There are plenty of beginner blogs out there. Some are concise and focused on single topics (i.e., no scrollbar). There is even a blog category / tag <Beginner>. There are times that I'm undecided about what to blog about and I'm sure that there are thousands of other SDN members that are skittish about "should I blog on this topic?". But my attitude is to just focus on the accuracy. So long as the blog is factually correct and my opinion is defensible (??) than no one can really rip into it even if the topic is considering minor. [My most recent blog|http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/16937] [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken]; was on something quite minor.

I think that the traditional route is to start participating in the forums... you'll pick up on topic material from there that you can blog on.

-nathan

[former_member374]

Hi Otto,

Let me summarize:

You don't have time to write a full book, and it would be partly out of date anyhow once it is printed.

You would like to create a learning path for people who are new to an area, beyond the "Getting Started" section of our main content areas.

You are not sure on how to do that.

Let me add, ideally it would be a living document, that can be improved and updated by the community.

Every new great blog one should be able to add a link to it on that learning path.

That very much sounds like an ideal case for a wiki page/area:

You can start it and improve it whenever you have time.

Others can add their favorite getting started resources ...

With a little effort, it will always be up to date.

Why are you reluctant to create a wiki page?

Let me know, Mark.

[OttoGold]

Correct.

But I don´t like the concept of wikis. I don´t understand who, why, when will change my content. And I don´t want anybody to do that. But these are only my personal feelings and I can work on this.

The other problem is ...well... with the buzz if there will be a new functionality (except that there are so many people who want to develop the forum, add this and that... we like it here and want it to get better). If you let the people to create these "personal learning paths", people will try. Maybe dozens will try and you will get like 2, 3, 5... complete learning paths for some topics. I want all the people who can do Adobe forms to compete with me if the want... to create their own learning path. To people measure the quality of these paths. To follow the paths as they evolve etc.

If there were a new mechanism how to do things it would attract people. I can imagine for example Chintan Virani to run his own "Portal school your youngsters" etc.

If there is some agreement about not doing a thing with the SDN (well... career center is cool, but useless for some people like me today), write a blog that you´re all happy about this SDN and there will be no changes. Or let the people suggest changes. Run some official site where I (and many more) can post my ideas and get a "formal" answer.

Like: This is not the way SAP want to run this site. Or: Can be interesting. Can you create a prototype? Or: Sounds interesting, lets create a poll and let the people vote!

if you value the ideas, care about them. Like this - through a lost thread in a category very few people following (compare the numbers with ABAP General for example) - no ideas will be proposed (by us) or accepted (by you).

One last thing: American presidents ask who should they call to talk with Europe. There is no such number. And there is no such place here on SDN.

regards, Otto

[Former Member]

But I don´t like the concept of wikis. I don´t understand who, why, when will change my content. And I don´t want anybody to do that. But these are only my personal feelings and I can work on this.

I am also sceptical about them. I created some wikis, but no one else contributes further to them. It is however the rather "niche" type of wiki.

If you let the people to create these "personal learning paths", people will try.

There was a guy in the MM forums who documented every transaction in SAP by asking for link-farms to anything relating to the tcode. We stopped him too late.

If there were a new mechanism how to do things it would attract people. I can imagine for example Chintan Virani to run his own "Portal school your youngsters" etc.

Probably I would enrole as a fresher. I like Chintan, and in my free time look up to see his recent posts.

My offer stands if you want to do anything security related. If you initiate it, I will join for sure. There are also existing initiatives which you can join - see the functionality wishlist.

One last thing: American presidents ask who should they call to talk with Europe. There is no such number. And there is no such place here on SDN.

Regarding your reference to the "grouping" notion (BEGRU heh??) - I am currently trying to learn Hindi. Actually, Bollycat Urdu. SDN is for me a natural platform to find such people and I have many friends from India met via SDN. I also need a mentor for this but it is tough to achieve without disturbing others in the public realm.

If anyone would like to help me, then we can use the non-English playground forum. The background is to attend TechEd Bangalore 2010 and be able to understand (more or less) what is going on around me.

Cheers,

Julius

[Former Member]

I don´t understand who, why, when will change my content. And I don´t want anybody to do that. But these are only my personal feelings and I can work on this.

This is a tough call, but version management helps. Here on SDN we call it wiki-gardening.

If you are paranoid, then start your own website and good luck with selecting a bullet-proof DB, OS and web application vendor for it.

I have created some wikis and activate a "mail watch" on them. Works fine (except I have not finished the main wiki page yet).

--> Do you have experience with client side Jco connections? I would need some help here, or at least someone to take a shot at breaking it...

Cheers,

Julius

[OttoGold]

I am irregular Java programmer (do you know the game Dungeon Keeper? Such thing I program in my free time in Java:)). Using Java Netbeans for Java and JSP development (on Windows platform). I am confused about licensing of SAP products, very unhappy about the SAP user interfaces and aware of the fact not many customers in my country use NW (EP) Portal. Because of this and with few more reasons I started to experiment with JCo in JSP to help the ordinary people on the customer side to work with web applications instead of papers.

I am an occasional HR/ HCM consultant and I think the GUI is very important for this field. I have designed and developed a demo of travel management for a client (with many trips, using papers at the moment, with no NW portal but some priprietary intranet). My JCo usage was quite naive but if I could help you, I am ready to.

Maybe we can start some exchange forum category? In such a category I would offer help or ask for one. What do you think?

Regards, Otto

[OttoGold]

Probably I would enrole as a fresher. I like Chintan, and in my free time look up to see his recent posts. My offer stands if you want to do anything security related. If you initiate it, I will join for sure. There are also existing initiatives which you can join - see the functionality wishlist

I would enrole as well!! I think I could learn so much from him. But I would consider rude to ask him in personal for anything (well... anything more than a few lines written in 5 minutes). Gosh, why we cannot start such a thing? I would love to.

Thank you for your offer:)) The problem is I am very naive and the security is something invisible for me. And I have very little administrator´s experience / basis knowledge and would be very hard to teach me anything in this field:))

There are also existing initiatives which you can join - see the functionality wishlist. 

Where can I find this? I haven´t seen it yet.

I am currently trying to learn Hindi. Actually, Bollycat Urdu. SDN is for me a natural platform to find such people and I have many friends from India met via SDN. I also need a mentor for this but it is tough to achieve without disturbing others in the public realm.

I would like to learn more about SAP B1 and ERP BI/BW. And nobody will give you an offer to help in personal and I am not going to ask anybody, because I would consider it rude. People from the Adobe forms forum contact me directly on my emails, but I have never done that (except Chintan, I wrote him a personal message once:))

If you are paranoid, then start your own website and good luck with selecting a bullet-proof DB, OS and web application vendor for it.

I am not going to do this, I love this place and would like to do here if anywhere. BTW I have noticed that these not-official-SAP sites are not very liked my the people here on SDN (especially moderators:)))

Regards, Otto

[chintan_virani]

Well thanks Julius and Otto for appreciation

And Otto as I mentioned earlier to you, it's not always rude to contact over email. The reason people display their email addresses because they are open for it and would help you out.You can give it a try...

Chintan

[Former Member]

> I have noticed that these not-official-SAP sites are not very liked my the people here on SDN (especially moderators:)))

Where did you notice this?

I only remove them when they are link-farmers bait (help.sap.com gets the same treatment) or they send their "scouts" out to spam us with links to their sites. Trading in copyright materials is also a no-no.

For this we have some blunt weapons, but all the rest are okay.

The security functionality wishlist is here --> http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/Security/SecurityFunctionalityWishlist-Topics

> And nobody will give you an offer to help in personal and I am not going to ask anybody

Sometimes when reading some of your posts, I think the sky is going to fall down..

Cheers,

Julius

[OttoGold]

Where did you notice this?

There is a page called SAP technical or something which has a nice Adobe forms tutorial. I wanted to post a link to a beginner. This pages check mechanism didn´t allow me to send the post.

Sometimes when reading some of your posts, I think the sky is going to fall down.. 

My friends know I exaggerate all the time:)))) I hope you don´t mind...

Cheer (up),

Otto

p.s.: what about the serious parts of my posts? How can we make Chintan to start his school:))

[Former Member]

> There is a page called SAP technical or something

Ah yes, I remember that one. On SDN they used to ask never-ending strange questions and requests for real-life scenarios and their solutions. After a while, we noticed these SDN contributions were being used to build the tutorials for the site and could put the pieces together via some user IDs created to post links to them all day long.

We asked them to stop. We deleted the spam. We "water-marked" SDN content which was being plagarized.

Eventually we just added their name to the content filters and it came to an abrupt halt.

Cheers,

Julius

[matt]

Funny thing with the filters. Bypassing the filters is, to me, obviously breaking the rules (ok, sometimes you have to be creative, but 99.99% of the time ... ), yet still it goes on.

I've been on some forums where breaking the filters (admittedkly usually only profanity is blocked), or arguing with the mods, led to instant bans... ! I can't say I agree with that though.

[Former Member]

> or arguing with the mods, led to instant bans... ! I can't say I agree with that though.

I dont agree with it either. I regularly search for the pattern "sorry to disagree with you". Very healthy!

Just posting a link does not give that option...

There are even SAP Solution Partners (and several who claiming to be...) which are stripped by the content filters (sometimes temporarily, until they stop spamming).

Cheers,

Julius

[NathanGenez]

To a degree this has always been the nature of knowledge based industries. Those that are committed to their career and skill set are usually open to the idea of cross-training because they realize that no single person knows everything. What they give today will be returned to them tomorrow.

I guess the historical problem is the alignment of people that are willing to share. Hopefully SDN makes that it a bit easier with the visibility of certain members (Mentors, Moderators, frequent bloggers/posters). I myself respond frequently to email discussions and have added a few like-minded folks to my professional network.

[OttoGold]

In fact, I am astonished. I didn´t expect 3 metors to answer my question:)))

I value your work for the community very much. And I understand - loooking at the mentioned numbers - that "we" cannot all have a personal mentor. Of course I can understand you have your own lives, do not get paid for this and all other facts mentioned. And I think you´re not expected to do what i was talking about.

Now it looks like my post was only a naive criticism, but let me explain. I just wanted to point out something what would be useful for me as a "student" or a "teacher", "newbee" or a "mentor" and wanted to know if I am the only person who feels a gap between the mentors and the ordinary people.

Yes, each and every one of you is a lighthouse for the people from your field/ community, but that is some 0,0000375... of a mentor for every memeber:)))) This is not something the alcohol tester would notice:)))

I have never contacted any mentor. Just because I don´t think I am supposed to do. I don´t think I can do that. Etc. It is just a feeling but very much connected with the benefits from such a contact. I can offer you very little, probably nothing you cannot get anywhere else. But if there were any exchange possible (like I need to ... well, anything, redesign a page, ask those people these question...) I would try that of course.

Maybe some other status for a guy ("a-big-mentor-wannabe" status:))) or some other SDN page or mechanism will alllow/ help/ make true what I have said.

Thank you for your opinions, Otto

[stephenjohannes]

Otto,

I'm going to take the bait on this question with a few questions:

- Did you ever contact any of the SAP Mentors in your area of interest?

- If so did you get a response back

Honestly most SAP Mentors are very approachable folks, who will talk to anyone about almost anything SAP and non-SAP related. As far as SAP Mentor led study groups, please keep in mind that all the SAP Mentors have normal lives like your own and aren't getting paid for the time they put into the effort.

As a kind suggestion if you haven't already please take a look at these links about the SAP Mentors Program:

http://sapmentors.sap.com

and

http://www.slideshare.net/finnern/sap-mentor-initiative-introduction

http://www.slideshare.net/finnern/sap-mentor-highlights-2009

Your idea is interesting and definitely worth some further discussion.

Take care,

Stephen

SAP Mentor 2010