At a glance
The SAP Inside Track close to the mothership SAP Walldorf,
sitWDF, took place on January 26
th in St. Leon-Rot. The last three years I have helped the team with some organizational stuff, but I wasn’t really part of the community team. It was just that the manager I worked for those years asked me for my support – and I agreed. It was more or less helping with some administrational tasks like taking care of reservations and orders for food and beverages and printing things like name tags, agenda, lists etc. Not really a big thing during that time. Since not only I changed my role mid of last year but also some of my colleagues did, we had a different organization team for the SAP Inside Track this year. And I was not only part of the team but rather took over parts of the main responsibility. And I can tell you that this is different.
A challenge
It is definitely a special experience organizing rather than only attending a SIT. You got to see very early that organizing such an event is quite a lot of work. This being said, I first would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone in the SAP Community, who helps organizing an SAP Inside Track: THANK YOU FOR YOUR GREAT EFFORT. And this comes directly from the very bottom of my heart. I mean, an SAP Inside Track is a grassroot event and quite informal and probably not much expectations. But YOU as the driver want to make it to be a successful event means you want good speakers, interesting topics, good environment and of course a smoothly event in general. I think there is actually not much pressure from the outside but probably from
yourself. And I honestly have to say that you spend every little piece of your energy on getting it successful. This is not possible when you are on your very own but within a great team which I was, so I want to THANK MY COLLEAGUES VERY MUCH as well. You did a great job. And of course, not to forget the sponsors: A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who decides to sponsor an SAP Inside Track. It is fantastic to see how many companies are highly interested in being part of these events in forms of sponsorship. And for our sitWDF: with all the sponsors we had on board, we could improve the infrastructure of the whole event.
Speaker opportunity
The sitWDF was also my second SAP Inside Track where I participated as a speaker. Most of you may know that I have absolutely no technical background and you are probably asking yourself how to be a speaker at a SIT without any technical knowledge. Well, diversity is always a huge topic in a technical environment. But this is not the only reason. It is also because more people are starting to spread their interest on other topics than technical ones. Work-life-balance for example. How to stay healthy within the pressure of work load. How to expand your own knowledge to different topics or at least how to survive an event day (mustn’t be a casual SAP Inside Track but please also think about larger events). And that is where my part began. With a background as a fitness instructor for more than 20 years, sports and work-life-balance were always a huge part of my life. When thinking about how to contribute at a SIT it was obvious for me. I offered a physical session where we did exercises to re-activate the body and energy after sitting a long time, after lunch time or maybe after your own presentation. These are simple exercises which can be made easily on your own before you start your working or event day, during the day or at least before you go to sleep. It helps you not only to regenerate but also to rise your consciousness to your body’s needs and to do a small step of mindfulness. It was great fun and when I had only 20 attendees last year in Frankfurt (
sitFRA) I had 30 attendees this time. Amazing!
Below you see a picture during the introduction words – looks boring? Watch this
video ... that was our “warm up” ?
sitKIDS
This year we again had a sitKIDS. We invited children to learn something about technics and programming in a playful way with the help of LEGO mindstorm, ozobots, parrot drones, mbots and little bits. I could not join those sessions during the day, but my son also participated in sitKIDS, and he liked it very much. And I did not see him very often during the day which speaks for itself. At the end we saw a lot of great presentations on the big stage where the kids presented what they learned and built during the afternoon sessions.
Networking opportunity
Not only talking about my organizational work done or my session itself, I again experienced that an SAP Inside Track is a perfect event to expand your personal network. At sitWDF there were e.g. community members from Denmark, Norway, UK, Spain and of course Netherlands ?. For me personally I met a lot of SAP Community friends again but also got to know some new people, some new connections and had great conversations about and around the SAP Community.
family picture
Are you curious? I hope you enjoyed
reading about a SIT and if you are interested in joining one, please “watch” this
list. More information can also be found on the
SAP Community Event page and the
SAP Inside Track page.
My next SIT will be
sitMAI in Maidenhead, UK, on March 15
th . I really look forward to seeing many of you there.