Concept Summary

This project has managed to build and strengthen relationships between 30,000 people worldwide. The abbreviation d-kom stands for "Development Kickoff Meeting" and is an annual event for the developer community at SAP. In the wake of the pandemic, our customer SAP decided early, that this largest internal kick-off event for the worldwide developer community is to take place as a virtual event. What's more, the previous several local events of the last few years are to be turned into a global event. We realised the entire conception as well as the implementation in a complex and trusting co-working process together with the responsible persons on the SAP side. SAP d-kom took place in January 2021. Three days, two time zones, 72 hours of radio, more than 500 hours of content, more than 1,000 contributors and 30,000 attendees from 55 countries. Due to the complexity of this project, we only mention a few highlights here. An important focus was virtual networking. Our idea of not just opening rooms, but thematically charged "Hang Out Spaces" proved to be absolutely right. In addition to a Slack integration, there was also a real radio station on the platform. Live on air, topics and sessions were teased, songs were requested, and greetings were sent. All this ensured that participants were online more often and for longer. In order to give the extensive content its necessary relevance, we consequently made the perspective of the target group the basis of our concept. Developers were regularly involved and asked, "What topics are you interested in and how do we have to prepare them?” Perhaps this was a crucial secret of this successful global event.