Community is the glue that holds SAP together, connecting us all, right across our ecosystem. Our vision for the future of community is to enable anyone on any device to collaborate, engage, network, and access relevant, quality community content across all SAP touch points. This year, I am really excited to share our plans with you to move further toward this vision.

You may have heard about an SAP program that started in early 2014 called One Digital Experience (1DX). The purpose of this project is to make it easy for anyone to do business with SAP online.

Our scope encompasses all of SAP’s digital experiences, with a focus on simplification and giving our audiences what they need, when they need it.

So what does this mean for SCN?

SCN is relevant for participants across our ecosystem, and has been identified as a key destination for Customers, Partners and Developers, our three core audiences. Community is the home of all “User Generated Content”, an incredibly valuable resource for all.

The Community Destination project is under the One Digital Experience program and is being led by Jeanne Carboni. The core team consists of key community subject matter experts, technology experts and designers, along with communication and change management staff. The extended team will include SAP Mentors and other community members. Jeanne will provide more information in a blog next week about our project approach and how we will work with the community to deliver an improved visitor experience.

In alignment with our vision for community, our project principles are:

A positive user experience for all visitors, including content consumers, contributors and moderators.

Quality content – not just an easy way to publish, not just gamification, not an ad farm.

Easy engagement amongst visitors.

Simple governance and community management.

Differences of opinions / perspectives are welcomed.

Clear vision to the project and up-to-date communication.

Best of breed technology, coupled with custom development to support these principles and provide key functions that members expect.

In order to achieve the vision, we will make significant platform changes over the next nine to ten months. From a technology perspective, we will move off of the current platform by the end of 2015, transitioning to a best of breed model for improved user experience and ease of moderation. We plan to move blogs to WordPress, questions and answers to AnswerHub, and replace the rest of the required functionality with additional integrated solutions. More information on the details of the platform changes will be coming in March in a blog by Oliver Kohl .

What does this mean for you?

You will have the opportunity to provide input on what kind of experience you find valuable. In Q2 we will conduct user experience tests on initial designs to get your feedback. There will be beta opportunities in which you may participate. You will see major improvements with better features and functionality in blogs, Q&A, and moderation. You will have access to training and “getting started” information. You will be able to share feedback that may be incorporated into our sprints as part of the Agile project approach.

You are one of the most active and vibrant communities in the world, I know we can count on your help to achieve our vision. I’m excited by the possibilities and planned changes for this year and beyond. Join the discussion for the future of Community here. And please mention 1dxcommdest when you post so that we can more easily track your comments and questions.