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Did you know? It's been 20 years! What's your favourite community memory?

craigcmehil
Community Manager
Community Manager

So it's been 20 years since SAP launched the SAP Developer Network and wow what a journey we have taken!

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We'd love for each and everyone one of you to share memories of that journey, whether it's an event, activity, first blog post, meeting your online bestie 🙂 whatever the case may be, please take a moment and tell us about it!

I've so many memories, so hard to pick one, in fact I may come back and share more but I think the first I will share -- my first time meeting @thomas_jung once I became an employee and attending my first SAP TechEd event in 2005 (as an employee) in Boston.

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25 REPLIES 25

RichHeilman
Developer Advocate
Developer Advocate

That was my first time meeting both you and Thomas in-person as well.  Good times.

 

I'm going to spend days looking through photos and thinking back over the years I am sure 🙂 some of my closet friends like you and Tom are all because of this Community!!



TammyPowlas
Active Contributor

Well, with this blog https://blogs.sap.com/2010/04/02/sap-project-management-path-to-hero-or-point-of-failure/ many moons ago, I was promoted from junior to expert blogger, with Jim Spath's help and Marilyn Pratt's advice to use more images in blogs.  

Really there are so many memories!  But this one I remembered first. 

Bernhard
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert

Two moments come to my mind:

- when I knew about the Community being with SAP Support forNetweaver 😉 and Technology; finally there was a 1:n channel that could make such a difference for the ecosystem!

- when I met the SAP Mentors for the first time F2F in Barcelona as a Support Manager; we learned so much about the demands, needs, possibilities of each other (and had lots of fun…)

Looking forward to the next highlights!

Dan_Wroblewski
Developer Advocate
Developer Advocate

Having the most points in the Enterprise Portal forum (circa 2007) and getting to go to TechEd, and then having my laptop crash during a demo during Community Day at TechEd because I had to run the portal locally ... also "meeting" DJ for the first time (DJ doesn't remember for some reason)

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Vitaliy-R
Developer Advocate
Developer Advocate

I still remember publishing my first weblog (ok, weblog post, @qmacro) in 2006: https://blogs.sap.com/2006/09/12/quickly-find-needed-netweaver-information-on-helpsapcom/

I could not sleep the night after that 😩 and the first thing I did the following morning was checking how many snarky comments I got. There were none, to my surprise!

Other memorable moments were:

attending the first SAP TechEd Vegas in 2007...

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...and being recognized as an SAP Mentor in 2011.

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 Just to mention 3 moments out of 20 years.

StephanieMarley
Community Advocate
Community Advocate

Some of my favorite SAP Community memories are at TechEd. It is rewarding to catch up with colleagues, partners and customers to hear spectacular announcements, learn together as well as share ideas and also, for some fun! 2015 a (2).jpg


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erickgomez-tech
Participant

Muchas gracias por esta gran comunidad, desde México les deseo mil años más de éxitos.

Saludos,

Erick Gómez

Hola Erick, es genial conocerte!


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DebCM
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert

 In 2017, I stepped in to support the TechEd social media program while Dianna DiSantos was on a fellowship. What a whirlwind experience! I learned so much and enjoyed meeting lots of colleagues from the Community team.  This photo was taken with the "social media superstars" from the SAP Labs India team. Fun times😎 SAP TechEd Bangalore 2017SAP TechEd Bangalore 2017

craigcmehil
Community Manager
Community Manager

There have been so many highlights from the community and I mentioned earlier I'd probably share lots more, so here's another blast from the past @RichHeilman already mentioned 2005 being a year of connections and my initial post was about that as well. There was also Dan there in the 2005 and the 4 of us together with Ed created a podcast called the Enterprise Geeks...

When we were young :-)When we were young 🙂

Community started for me as a way to understand "how to install something called SAP," over the past 2 decades what I have learned is so much more, the connections made, the relationships built and the idea that each and every one of all of us is helping to shape the next decade moving forward!



Katherine_K
Community Advocate
Community Advocate

Congratulations SAP Community on 20 years and still going strong 😊 - my favourite memories are a series of firsts!

  • Joining Craig's team and becoming part of the greater SAP Community team almost one year ago - it only took me 16 years at SAP!!!
  • The first SAP Inside Track that I was able to attend in the Netherlands - and also getting to meet @mynynachau @sveabecker @lenastodal and @lauraschmitz in person.
  • Setting up my first Group on SAP Community - Galway Group. Looking forward to our first ever local event which is a meetup / SAP Stammtisch on March 24th.

Here's to many more years of networking, knowledge sharing, collaboration and fun!


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jword
Discoverer

Dug thru some old hard drives and found some fun artifacts from the very, very beginning of this journey.  Never would have imagined we'd be talking about this 20 years on 🙂  

SDN Launch in Basel, 2003

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SDN at Launch

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Original Ad for SDN

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Original SDN team at launch

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Super nice! More memories to be built #sapcommunity #bettertogether

@jword 


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Vitaliy-R
Developer Advocate
Developer Advocate

Hi Jeff. Nice hearing from you!

So, who are the people from that original SDN team? Would you share some names?

Cheers,
-Vitaliy

End of table, me and Michael Schwandt

Mark Sochan and Daniella Busse on the right

I'm gonna need more caffeine to try and remember all the other names 🙂

Shay Barry is second from the left in that photo.

We should note the tech team that built the platform, Ran Cliff and team. 

A significant group from SAP in Palo Alto, CA. 

Another big group in suburban Philadelphia, PA. 

Walldorf, Germany, of course. 

Israel... India...New Jersey... 

A lot of people dispersed/remote across the U.S. and around the world. 

Amazing team supported by amazing people (customers, partners) in the community itself. 

 

 

Mark Yolton
former SVP of SAP Digital, Social, Communities (DiSCo), now retired

sveabecker
Community Advocate
Community Advocate

Great initiative @craigcmehil 😊

Oh yeah, I want to share my first blog post from 2018: https://blogs.sap.com/2018/06/19/my-first-year-with-sap-mentors/ 😀

Although my profile says I am a member since 2002 😜

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This first post actually covers how my way via the SAP Mentors Program to SAP Community happened, how I love to be part of it and how even my family was involved 😅

So many familiar faces in this image from SAP TechEd 2017 in Barcelona - if you spot anyone familiar, let me know! 😁

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DominikTylczyn
Active Contributor

For me SAP Community started for real in 2018 with my first blog Polish SAP Users Group 

Then it has been going on and accelerating

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patty_1982
Contributor

My first community event in 2011: the SAP Inside Track in Milan 😍 with a lot of friends 🙂

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markyolton
Explorer

Helping to build the SAP Community is the highlight of my career, in terms of impact on individual member careers and lives (including lasting friendships), on SAP's business, on the universe broadly ... and because we did it so carefully, and thoughtfully, and well, it is still standing, strong, and impactful 20 years later.  

I was recruited in 2003 by Ziv Carthy with the idea to take his job as he moved elsewhere at SAP and to build the SAP Developer Network (SDN) into something viable and impactful. At the time, SDN was brand new, had fewer than 100,000 members, had competition in many forms, and was behind-the-curve of community leaders like MSDN, the Java community, open source communities, the Oracle Technology Network, etc. 

Over the course of the next 10 years at SAP I proudly led and worked with an extremely talented and diverse crew to build up SDN, expanded it to include Business Process Experts (BPX), then broadened further to be the SAP Community Network (SCN), launched and built the SAP Mentors program, discussion forums, blogs, an elaborate points system to add gamification, the identification and encouragement of member contributions and expertise through levels and recognition with badges, built and attached the Ecosystem Hub (aka EcoHub) of partner solutions akin to the current Apple App Store, added and expanded SAP TechEd, and then SAP Tech Tours, local community-led meetups, during a global downturn we added a jobs/opportunities/career database to help qualified community members find jobs and for SAP customers to find employees, we had Harvard Business School case studies and articles and chapters of business books written about us, we contributed mightily to the growth and prosperity of SAP and its customers and partners, and we made important connections among companies and people worldwide ... and much more. 

By the time I left 10 years later, the community was 3 million very active members (3 million!). 

I'm proud of the work we did then, the impact it had, and the fact that it is still strong and impactful today. 

Mark Yolton
former SVP of SAP Digital, Social, Communities (DiSCo), now retired

markyolton
Explorer

When SDN was new, we were thrilled to be mentioned on stage at SAPPHIRE NOW by Shai Agassi. It gave us visibility and credibility. shai_sdn_keynote_9313782053_o.jpg

Mark Yolton
former SVP of SAP Digital, Social, Communities (DiSCo), now retired

markyolton
Explorer

After 10 years at SAP, I've got about a million photos! Here are just a few, especially highlighting the team that built the community, and the SAP Mentors who were so critically important to its success. 

cn-team-at-kom-2007_9316576768_o.jpgIMG_6103.JPGteam-scn-march-2011_9312884008_o.jpgpro_with_audrey_9316091178_o.jpgteched-10_9304569316_o.jpgIMG_0905.JPG2015-12-09_16-29-42.jpgteched-10_9301786439_o.jpg

Mark Yolton
former SVP of SAP Digital, Social, Communities (DiSCo), now retired

community-team-in-bangalore-sdn-day-2006_9316576586_o.jpg

 One more, with some of the OG's. 

Mark Yolton
former SVP of SAP Digital, Social, Communities (DiSCo), now retired

qmacro
Developer Advocate
Developer Advocate

Happy anniversary to one and all! 🎉

I wrote up some memories of my own, to help celebrate this milestone 👉 SAP community memories.