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After a long time since my last blog here, I’m back to the Community thanks to Sandra Solis, who blogged it forward to me. Here you can check her blog.
My name is Raquel Pereira da Cunha, better known as Raquel Cunha, and also known as RaquelSolMan on Twitter, which I stopped using since it became X. I’m a Brazilian and live in São Paulo. I'm an ABAP Developer who decided to add some functional skills when an opportunity appeared, and started learning and working as SAP Solution Manager Functional Consultant, with a little bit of Basis (you can’t be a good ChaRM consultant if you have no idea about Change and Transport Management, the first book from SAP Press I bought). Nowadays I work with SolMan and SAP Cloud ALM, and still develop whenever my projects need.
A few years ago, a very interesting challenge was launched on SAP Community, and had a huge success and engagement. Oh…, checking the date better, in fact that was not really a few, but several years ago! More than a decade now! WOW, time flies…
So, in Aug 2012 Moshe Naveh launched the Blog it Forward series, and I was invited by my good friend and fellow SAP Mentor Tom Cenens to participate. At that time blogging was not something very usual to me, and it took me a considerable time to complete the challenge, considering that I had to put all my ideas in place, in English (my native language is Portuguese), trying my best to make it an enjoyable read. That was a great challenge, and I suppose only the readers can confirm if I succeed. 😉
An important point to be mentioned is that at that time there was no AI tool to help in writing. No ChatGPT, or Copilot, or Claude, or Gemini, or DeepSeek, or Manus, or whichever tool we have been using lately. Just as I’m doing now, sitting again on the same chair at the same desk, I did it by myself. I probably used a translator for one or another phrase, but the text came from my heart and my mind, just as I’m doing now. Maybe that is the main reason why it took me so long to write. Ideas and emotions come and go out of our control, and while you are writing about something, suddenly another thing comes to mind, maybe not related, maybe so, and you have to put in words before you lose it. By the way, the first part of this blog came to my mind while I was lying down with my son helping him to fall asleep this evening.
Well, back to the point, thanks to Sandra, and to Stephanie and Katherine who loved the idea of having a new version of the challenge, I’m here again, writing my 63rd blog. It’s a special moment because I was recently invited to rejoin the SAP Mentors group, after a few years away. It gave me the chance to meet virtually Stephanie and Katherine, and share the idea and the feeling I had at that time when I wrote my 1st BIF.
How being an SAP Community active member changed your life?
To answer this question, I will write about how beneficial it can be, to your professional and personal life, to be part of a community and engage with people. I will also share some facts that have happened since I wrote my first BIF. So many things happened thanks to this fantastic Community!
When I wrote that BIF blog I was just starting my participation in the SAP Mentors group. Many things were new for me, such as blogging, attending SAP international events and local events. My first SAP TechEd was in 2010, in Berlin (yes, Berlin!! I love it. I really hope I can attend this year!).
Then, one year later, in Madrid 2011, I was there again, and this time I was not only an attendee, but also a panelist in an event called Embracing Inclusion with Design Thinking – Driving Innovation. In this panel I told my history about being a woman in IT working abroad, travelling to many countries, speaking foreign languages and how these experiences changed my life and how I see the world. To travel is to live.
That was the first of many events I attended. In 2012 I was nominated SAP Mentor due specially to the knowledge I shared with SAP Community, answering questions, writing technical blogs and articles for SAP magazines, and helping to organize local events. After that I could present sessions in other TechEds, SITs and User Group events, was co-speaker in hands-on sessions with product owners, who I had the great pleasure to meet in person, and with whom I still can have great discussions.
I hosted some interviews for SAP TechEd Live. That was tough, because I’m not used to making videos, never felt comfortable in front of a video camera, and the interviews were live streamed for the whole world. I remember one of them where I made a mistake in the very beginning, and said “Sorry, can I start again?”. I restarted but whoever was watching it live could see it. 😬
I also had a chance to sing a Brazilian song with the Jam Band during SAP TechEd 2013 in Amsterdam! Who remembers the #GeeksCanDance SAP Jam Band? TechEd is not Education only. It’s networking and fun.
In 2017 SAP Mentors program completed 10 years, and of course we celebrated! There was a party at TechEd Barcelona and we all had a lot of fun. In the picture below I’m with Lucía Subatin and Meredith Hassett, both former SAP Developers.
In this Teched we also had a panel called #sheinnovates presented by SAP Next-Gen and Woman in Technology at SAP, in which the idea was to connect, educate, empower and celebrate female technologists together with the SAP Mentors, SAP TechEd and SAP Community organizations.
Members collaborating with each other
Before the pandemic I had the chance to work with two very well known SAP Community members, Lluis Salvador and Tom Cenens. Lluis and I had never met before, but we followed each other for a long time via SAP Community, Twitter and LinkedIn, and used to chat. When he once needed someone with my expertise to help in a project, he contacted me and I had the immense pleasure of working with him and his team in beautiful Barcelona for some weeks. That was another dream come true, the first was Italy, but that history is from the old BIF. TechEd was in Barcelona that year and happened while I was working there, as well as SAP ALM Summit (that one in Germany) and I attended it too. Those were amazing weeks.
And the fact that Lluis contacted me shows how strong a community can be. We developed a nice and trustable relationship without knowing each other in person. In Barcelona I met him and Mireia, his wife, and we had a great time together. They were both very careful and attentive with me, and at the same time very fun.
After that experience I worked for 3 years with Tom, 100% remote, but I had the chance to spend a week in Belgium and meet him and the customer when I started. We used to meet only in SAP events before. That was another amazing experience, in which we could know each other better and learn from each other. It was a fantastic collaboration and kept us close, even physically far away, which we still are.
Community awards
SAP Community knows how to show its appreciation. I was awarded 3 times, 3 years in a row.
- I first received the Developer Heroes award for helping to bring Developers and Experts together.
- Then in another year I received the SAP Community Appreciation Award, voted by Community members due to my contributions and commitment.
- And last but not least, I received the Community Heroes award. I’m so grateful for these recognitions.
Look at how many things I experienced being part of this Community!
What source do you use the most for learning SAP technologies?
I was a huge fan of openSAP. I truly loved it, and the team knows it. That was the most fantastic learning platform for SAP people (consultants, customers or just curious people) ever in my opinion. It was free, on-demand, the first SAP platform which offered MOOCs, and you could learn anywhere, anytime, on any device. That was the slogan. The only other platform of MOOCs that I used before that was openHPI. As openSAP was sadly discontinued, and moved to Learning, I moved too. And I am really enjoying it. I’ve done lots of Learning courses, always following the exercises they provide in Enable Now videos or hands-on using the trial systems when offered. I also use help.sap.com a lot, and of course SAP for Me.
What need does the SAP solution you work with meet?
I decided for fun to ask ChatGPT this question, considering SAP Cloud ALM, and this is the answer I received:
"SAP Cloud ALM is like a personal trainer for your SAP systems—it keeps your projects in shape, your operations running smoothly, and prevents your IT from having a meltdown. No more chaos, just efficiency and peace of mind!"
Do you agree? 😀 No more chaos in projects… That sounds totally hallucinating 😆 But it can indeed provide essential guidance to customers, especially those who want to adopt a clean core. It's designed to fit the cloud-mindset, so if you still believe it's going to have everything provided by SolMan in the same way, forget it, because it's not going to happen. But it's made to be simpler and to focus on what’s essential for implementation and ongoing operations.
Fun facts about me
- I’m a super fan of Måneskin. 😎
- I used to create bijoux with silver, beads and stones in my free time between my SAP contracts. I’m so electric, but when creating these pieces I could relax and stay sitting there for hours, placing the beads one by one very carefully. Of course I had a pause because in my free time now I prefer to play with my son. We both love Lego and puzzles, so we spend a lot of time putting them together.
- A few years after my first BIF, I started working 100% remote from Brazil. Remote working was already a reality for me, since I spent some years working part-time onsite in Europe, and part-time from home in Brazil, after many years working abroad. So when the pandemic changed the way of working for almost everyone, I was already used to it. It was my way of working. But I was not used to being stuck at home, and with a baby. When we were starting to go out with my son, taking him to a park, walking around, visiting family, then the pandemic started.
- When I was in University, my dream was to continue my studies in the University of Salamanca. I never accomplished that mission, but I finally visited the University in 2018, just when it completed 800 years. And it was amazing! I was so happy to be there, to walk inside and get into the rooms.
- I once visited Alan Turing’s office in Hut 8 at Bletchley Park. That was one of the highlights of all my trips. If you have a chance and interest (let’s check how geek you are), Bletchley Park is a short 45-minute train ride from London.
- I was one of the supporters who helped the book Saving Bletchley Park, by Dr. Sue Black, to happen. It was funded by readers. I recommend this reading. It tells how social media saved Bletchley Park, the home of WWII codebreakers. I once met Dr. Black in a Women in IT event in São Paulo. She is amazing. She created BCSWomen, the UK’s first online network for Women in Tech, besides many other fantastic things she’s done for Women in IT. She received lots of awards, including the OBE - Order of the British Empire - for services to technology. If you are a woman in IT, follow her! In the picture below I’m with Estela Dantas, a good friend and SAP professional too, Camila Achutti, CEO of Mastertech and a world reference for Woman in Tech, and Dr. Black.
- I enjoy silence and being alone. I think the remote work made me start enjoying my own company more than ever. Of course it’s not all the time, but I really need it from time to time. I like to walk or to spend some time in a coffee place reading, listening to podcasts or even doing nothing, only observing.
- I'm a little bit geek, but I like Design Thinking, which helped me to see things in a different perspective, specially when creating solutions. And, after finishing a DT course, I had the chance to be coach at least in 2 opportunities, and one of them was in an SAP Innojam at TechEd 2013. As my love for travelling and my curiosity never end, always willing to learn more, I visited the famous HPI School of Design Thinking in Postdam, and had the pleasure of attending one class with a friend who was a student there. That was an amazing experience.
- There is a song, among many, that I identify with very much when I think about my younger self. Here is a part of it:
I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly
I'll do what it takes till I touch the sky
And I'll make a wish, take a chance, make a change
And breakaway
I wanted to share how life can be changed when you are part of a community, being honest and open to ideas and opportunities. Nowadays there is so much fakeness everywhere, people pretending to be something they are not, to be experts in areas they don’t really have a clue, using AI tools that hallucinate and they don’t even notice before posting. You can’t build strong professional and personal relationships without being true to yourself, at least not for a long time. And why am I saying these things? Because I lived enough to see it. 😉
Take a chance and make a change.
Concluding my writing for today, I just want to say:
“I’m still here”.
“Cobra Kai never dies”. Well, I like the Karate Kid franchise too. 😄
I would like to Blog it forward to @Lluis Salvador, who has just became an SAP Champion after many years collaborating with the SAP Community. I’m sure he has many interesting things to share with us.
SAP Cloud ALM SOLMAN Change Control Management SAP Solution Manager
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