Free instant email consulting

[OttoGold]

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to know your feelings about the following "problem" of mine:

Last weeks (more like moths) I regularly get questions about how to do/create/fix things from strange people through email. I have never refused anybody and helped, but I would like to discuss the motivation of the people, how many people around me share this experience and what do you do about it.

I provide this "service" to all my friends. People I know, people who know me and we have something in common, or we even help each other on a regular basis. But why would I help some strangers who get money for my knowledge and do not follow the rules.

They´re supposed to post their questions on SDN, or not? My answer will never appear here, in public, nobody can benefit. If I would get points for all the problems I solved for strangers through email, I would be like top 3 this year. How can dare to break into a strangers mailbox anyway? I have never done that and will not do that...

I am fed up with emails starting "you´re so great" continuing with a tough problem they want me to solve for them? These people don´t care about me... This is pathetic...

Otto

[Jelena_Perfiljeva]

Otto, this was exactly the reason I removed the e-m-a-il from my card a while ago. (Recently I put it back though -shshsh, please don't tell anyone. )

I did reply to the few polite requests, which were for the specific information and wouldn't make sense to post on SDN anyway, and provided general guidance to some others while trying to stear them towards the search engines and own thinking.

But there were too many "do my job" requests (or more like demands) and even some rather personal questions, so I ended up removing my e-m-a-il.

I don't think you should feel obligated to reply to the impolite or intrusive messages. For others you could craft a generic response, maybe offer to discuss the consulting rate, why not?

[matt]

Some requests are quite flattering - I've a couple asking me to mentor them through their phd program. And there's me with nowt but a BSc. ( Bronze Swimming Certificate ).

Generally I reply in a fairly impersonal way. "I do not answer queries via email. Please post your question on SCN - share the knowledge".

matt

[OttoGold]

@Matt: I would like to have a certificate like yours. How could I get one? regards Otto

[Former Member]

I actualy have a bachelors degree in BS

[matt]

>

> @Matt: I would like to have a certificate like yours. How could I get one? regards Otto

Oh, there's many places on the interweb that will provide qualifications. Anything from supreme ruler of the universe to some project manager type certificates. But I use Powerpoint to produce mine.

[OttoGold]

Man, I am laughing for like 5 minutes. Powerpoint is both heaven and hell:))))) Otto

[JPReyes]

There was a time when I bother asking them to post the question in a thread... This days to me all those mails are unrequested information on my personal mail, so they go directly to the SPAM filter and then to the bin.

[Former Member]

Hey Otto...

Is it possible that this pestilence of mails to you has been on the increase since [the 4th of March 2010 10:18 AM|] ?

It seems you found what you were looking for...

Cheers,

Julius

[OttoGold]

This man became my friend. I can tell you numerous personal things to prove it. It is something else (at least for me), if I meet a nice man, who you can talk about everything and his primary objective is not to squeeze you like a sponge, or if I am contacted by the people who ask basic questions (didn´t search) and I have never met them/ talk to them/ nothing before AND/OR after. So ...I admit, it could be my feeling only, that sometimes I like the man, sometimes I don´t. But if you want something, isn´t it better to start "something" instead of asking for quick help since that is a high-priority issue?

By the way, while writing these lines (2 minutes?) I got another two high-priority issues into my mailbox. These guys must be kidding... (at least one of the emails is a thank you one for solved issue, bettet than a knife into an eye...)

Cheers Otto:)))

[Former Member]

I suspect that this friend along with the rest of the internet see it as an invitation to contact you... exciting prospect!

ps: It came to my attention because your friend was breaking the rules in other forum areas and people were complaining about it, so checking the background revealed this thread.

Cheers,

Julius

[OttoGold]

That´s a pity. But I understand everybody must follow the rules.

I didn´t talk to him for like two months, but till then we spend like two months having an evening Skype coffee and he seemed very nice/ educated/ decent man.

Otto

[Former Member]

It is however a necessary evil in my opinion.

> Quote from the forum rules:

>> - Do not ask to send you an email.

>> The question you ask and the solution to it is often also interesting for other users of the community. If you ask somebody to send you the answer per email, you deprive others of also learning to know the answer. Therefore any requests for sending material or answers to an email address will be modified by the forum moderators.

>

Why didn't you contact him via his mail ID? That way he gets to decide whether to respond or not or whether he wants to be contacted at all.

Cheers,

Julius

[former_member184657]

I have received a handful of such free consulting emai.ls in the past. A majority of them were the typical do-my-work-for-free mails which I either ignored or directed them to SCN itself.

However, there were a couple of mails which were queries based on some of the threads Ive opened myself. The sender either wanted a little more information on how my problem was resolved or in some other cases the sender wanted to know if I found the solution since I had closed those threads without answer - either because Ive not found a solution and closed it to ensure the 10-question limit or found the solution much later but did not update the thread as I did not want to bump the old thread back into the queue. In such cases, Ive helped the sender because I know the sender had searched the forums and put some effort into solving the probelm before shooting off questions in SCN.

pk

[Former Member]

There is this button on the keyboard called "Delete". Works a treat.

When they realise you won't respond they might actually try and figure it out themselves.

Or get found out that they were lying on their resume !!

[Former Member]

I would never post my work E-mail, even on such a professional site. When I consult for free it's only for co-workers or affiliates that I might someday contact to help me in return.

The "free" work should involve some benefit or possibility of a benefit in the future for you or at the very least other members of this site.

I would type up a very nicely written letter explaining why the person (assuming they got your E-mail from this site and contacted you about consulting at no cost to them) contacting you should post the question on SDN and never bother some one via personal E-mail unless it is a serious business inquiry or offer.

Then copy/paste as the E-mails arrive.

[Former Member]

I regularly get requests as well, particularly for documentation. When I tell them documentation is intellectual IP they still try to get it from me.

The worst I got recently was this scenario. I was going to post it as a separate topic but this seems appropriate:

"Had an interesting mail this week. I've been off work since the 6th August as I had my first child born. I received a mail on the 9th August on my personal email address (listed in SDN) asking a couple of questions in my subject area with a reference to getting my details off SDN. Needless to say, with other priorities on the cards, I didn't reply immediately because I was taking care of a new arrival to our family and spending time off work. My work address already had an auto-reply so if it was a work related query, customers would have been aware of the circumstances and would have contacted someone else in the company.

On the 16th August, I received another email from the sender stating "Thanks for the reply". Clearly as I had not replied yet due to personal circumstances, this was a somewhat sarcastic response to my lack of response to his email.

I managed a polite response and avoided the temptation to tell him what he could do with himself, but I'm still tempted to write a nasty comment back."

[Former Member]

I had similar experience as Athol. I received emails asking for few things related to some area also there was request for sending documents. I received similar mails at almost same time from two different ids.

Also it was mentioned that mail is from one specific country and person works there.

I ignored both the emails.. again after 2-3 days received mail asking "How you are doing my dear friend" which was totally irrelevant to SAP, and still 3-4 more days passed I received email "Thanks for your reply" which I never did...

For very few familiar names which I believe not SPAM, I reply them and guide towards SCN and google.

But the fear is always there to have too many SPAM mails in official email id.

Keeping it hidden on business card worked very well from me.

[Former Member]

This was way too technical to be spam and I verified the person's existence on SDN so it was definitely legitimate. Since I replied to them they still haven't bothered to get back to me.

[MaheshChandra]

i asked some people for help through mails and i got solution . some people send me mails regarding help and i gave replies with my knowledge. don't think KNOWLEDGE SHARING is a CRIME.

I posted one question in SDN in , i searched for it and try the solutions , at last i send a mail to a person in SDN regarding this issue (after 2 months) . He instantly sends me a mail and it solved my problem i posted solution in that thread. and one day i got 7 mails from SDN and for most of those i replied.

Fortunately after sending replies nothing happened to me. They are some people who are helping others Don't change their minds also. Every one has to Start from BOttom level to Reach HIGH. so don't underestimate the people who asking for help and don't think they are sending mails for for CHEcking whether your mail address is working or not.

regards

Mahesh,

[Former Member]

Knowledge sharing isn't a crime, but thats what the forum is, it gives people the option to reply. By sending a person an email directly you are not giving them that option. What makes you so special that you feel you have the right to contact that person directly without going to SDN? Does their profile state "Please contact me for free advice".

Also bare in mind in a lot of cases, that knowledge came from hard work, problem solving scenarios when there was no one else to help, so just expecting them to help is crazy. Why should they pass on their valuable knowledge and competitive advantages to you just because you ask for their help? Why should they help you if you are from a competitor effectively eliminating their competitive advantage.

The whole purpose of SDN is that its optional, its there for people to reply to if, and only if they want to. If I see a question and I don't want to respond to it and I do know the answer, thats my prerogative and my right. In many cases, I will not respond to questions when:

1. I see the person has clearly made no effort to try problem solve it themselves.

2. It is clear their company has sold services to a customer they don't have. This deprives other skilled consultants of work they are more entitled to and is bad practice for the industry because they produce second rate solutions. By providing these consultants with the skills to get through, you are helping their companies deceive their customers.

3. The consultant has not bothered to attend any formal training but is still trying to implement services at a customer.

4. The person asking the question has not bothered to search before asking the question.

[AndrewBarnard]

Athol wrote: Why should they pass on their valuable knowledge and competitive advantages to you just because you ask for their help? Why should they help you if you are from a competitor effectively eliminating their competitive advantage.

This is a very interesting question to consider - and begs me to ask why people contribute at all. Given that many of the very knowledgeable people in the area no longer actively contribute, I guess that those that do contribute, do contribute because they believe it gives them "status" and "competitive advantage" by being seen by others as an "authoritative contributor". I presume they are not just being benevolent and wish to share their knowledge. Something else motivates their contributions.

As for me, SDN (SAP Developer Network) suggests a place for developers to network.

The developer part suggests to me someone with some technical perspective. SAP is just software which does exactly what it is programmed to do. Understand the code - understand the behaviour. If you can't be bothered to read code or learn to debug, you have no chance of learning what the software does. You can only sprout what you have seen before, even if your experience is limited to a subset of all possible behaviours.

The network part suggests to me a relationship. As with most relationships, a little give and take - a give and a receive - go a long way to maintaining the relationship. My biggest beef with the forums is the relationship is often one sided - someone wants something - but they are rarely in a position to contribute.

For a while now, I've not bothered to contribute in my areas of expertise, except when the question genuinely shows some understanding and, frankly, is of some interest to me. I don't have lots of points - but that is probably because I couldn't be bothered wasting my time answering every question I could contribute to. Instead I identify people I think have asked good questions or provided good answers and I track their posts. This has turned out to be a very useful private network, with whom I do exchange emails.

[ThomasZloch]

I have a visible, alternative email address, if I remember correctly, but very rarely receive such mails, maybe due to the grumpy image I am maintaining

I'm simply ignoring such mails if they come in. I only respond to SCN related mails from folks that I know, moderators/admins and (sometimes) people who complain about their thread getting locked or corrected, if done in a polite or constructive manner.

Thomas

[Lakshmipathi]

Till end 2009, I disclosed my m-ail id in my business card and due to this, daily I used to receive 10 - 15 ma-ils asking for some clarification. I also responded promptly to all those mails. This is apart from my contributing to forums for which I had spared 4 to 5 hours daily.

Since 2010, lot of responsibilities are added officially and hence, I could not even concentrate much on SDN. Hence, I immediately changed my profile such that my ma-il id is hidden

Of late, I am not receiving any such mails to my per-sonal id !!!!!!!

thanks

G. Lakshmipathi

[OttoGold]

9/10 questions answered by Julius:)) Thank you for the comment. I wanted to be nice, but looks I have to end it here.

But still wonder about the experience of the others. Do you, Julius, get these "offers" like me?

Otto

[Former Member]

No reason not to be nice... Some examples:

> Dear guru, that is actually a very interesting question... Please ask it on SDN so that others can revert back reg the same and also benefit from it.

> No idea... Try searching on SDN.

> I have seen this issue before on SDN but cannot remember how it was solved. Try search for the terms you have used already in the email.

> I am currently on SDN and will only be returning on 12th September 2010. For advice please contact www.sdn.sap.com or send a purchase order. I will respond upon my return.

> Listen here!! I've had enough of this now!!! I can't stand the squeeking sounds of these blasted mongese anymore. Forget your SAP problem and please advise me how to get these things OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!! U r g e n t!!!!!!!

Let me know if you want more.

[OttoGold]

I love the ideas:)) I will have to learn some of these. if you could provide some more without any special effort, it would be cool to learn how other "gurus" are dealing with this:)) Otto p.s.: thank you for being nice to me...

[Former Member]

Otto,

you might consider to remove your email address from your business card here at SDN.

And for me your experience will be one more reason not to disclose my address on my business card.

If there is a linear correlation between the number of email consulting requests and the number of forum ponits, I will get about half of your requests. Too much, I'm afraid.

(Or is it exponential? Would be easier for me. But also too much, I'm afraid.)

regards

[Former Member]

If the question is answered, please close the thread...

ps: As implied, I generally just reply that they should ask the question on SDN, otherwise I class it as consulting and charge for it if it benefits them only. You need to make this a rule for yourself and stick to it.