About Robin
- Zoetermeer, The Netherlands
Robin is a highly experienced (20+ years) and certified SAP BTP / SAP BTP SDK for iOS / SAPUI5 developer with strong focus on integration and business process streamlining, as well as over 20 years' experience in Java/J2EE.
Topics of interest: Front-end development, UX, iOS development, SAP BTP, low-code platforms, create EDM music.
Robin, what inspired you to become an SAP Mentor?
To my surprise, I learned I was nominated and selected to be an SAP Mentor while on holiday in Florida in 2014. Honestly, I wasn't really contemplating to become a mentor, since I felt at that time I wasn't really "mentor-material". I knew quite a lot of SAP Mentors already, and I always felt they operated on such high level strategically, technically, and functionally. And the very first SAP mentor meeting I attended – one day before SAPPHIRE 2014 in Orlando – with Hasso Plattner (!) absolutely strengthened that believe... but along the way, the other mentors and Mark Finnern convinced me otherwise. Basically, they told me, I had been appointed an SAP mentor because of my involvement on various SCN spaces and Stackoverflow, answering questions and writing blogs, sharing knowledge online and as a speaker, etc. And over the years, I have grown quite a bit, and I believe it is highly valuable that we as a group are able to validate and somewhat steer SAP into the right direction. I think ultimately this valued feedback loop is what makes the mentors such an awesome group.
What advice would like to share with other SAP community members?
The one thing I would like to share with other community members who are learning new SAP technologies is actually the same advice I was given by a now-former community member Eddy de Clercq. When I started in 2003 as an SAP Portal consultant, I posted some questions about the topic on SDN and most of the time, Eddy was one of the people who provided valuable answers. At one point I asked him how he managed to gain so much knowledge, and his answer was equally brilliant as it was simple: He said he would answer questions on topics he was highly interested and somewhat proficient in. Most of the times, he wasn't quite sure if the answer he provided was 100% correct, so after answering he would then go back, investigate the issue himself, and validate if the answer he provided was correct. If it was, prefect. If it wasn't, he would then amend his answer and provide additional feedback.
So, by answering (and investigating) questions on topics he wasn't really fluent in, he taught himself all the ins and outs of that topic. And that way of working is something I have embraced since, and which I can highly recommend to others as well. It takes some time, dedication and discipline, but you will learn so much more than "what's in the books."
