Thanks, Mike, for your words of wisdom. I couldn’t have said it any better. 
MichaelWelter 
(BOB member since 2002-08-08)
… and here we have some of the main BOBJ contributors answering back and keeping involved 
I had to debate whether to post this next section as it’s quite negative, but has been bothering me for quite some time and has occurred at more than one site.
This post was the result of a number of observations over the past 2 years:
[list]I have had instances of people cutting & pasting straight from BOBJ into email replies re solutions without any mention of the source of the possible solution.
I regularly see people with BOBJ open and never see them post anything.
I’ve had developers argue a solution that they saw on BOBJ, and don’t initially admit where they got the information from, and did not take the time to validate it, or to check and see who posted the solution i.e. many replies are a lead in the right direction, but if you’re going to argue technology at least keep the thread open so that we can follow through with it from it’s inception as some replies build up over a few pages and oft lead to other explanations.
We also have multiple agencies on board with opposing team members not willing to help each other - but they have all at one point or another come to me for help - and they all use BOBJ and have in many instances tried to pass that knowledge off as their own.
And this is not the first place I’ve seen this occur.
Sure - consulting is extremely competitive and there is a real fear of being made redundant these days - especially out here where we are operating - but I’m of the firm opinion that what '“goes around comes around”.
[/list]
Ok - sorry folks - pet peeve over - It’s just that I belong to many forums, and none are as informative and well balanced as this one.
I just wish that people would realise and appreciate the time and effort that goes into managing this place as well as keeping it a treasure trove of idea’s, leads and solutions.
Maybe I’m just old school as I recall those bygone days of looking through shelves of IBM manuals etc, and now you have information in all directions at the click of a mouse, but I still believe that to take you must also give - to learn you must also teach - and to grow you must also share …
… just saying … and YES to the part of following up with thanks and / or a solution when resolving it yourself with a lead from BOBJ – or even just posting a solution that has no thread … 
PS - I know what a rant is and understand the concept of a lurker - I just try to leave all that at the hardcore flame forums that I sometimes trick or treat through … and the brawl hall (bag of dead kittens) flaming arena is as hard core as you can get so consider this a very mild rant 
MikeD 
(BOB member since 2002-06-18)
Hi Mike
Firstly can I say I agree with your post and think we should all give back where we can. I definitely would not claim to be an expert in many things BO related 
but I do try to give feedback on particular situations where it may be useful.
I guess I have some reservations about posting more than I do, and perhaps others share these, and hold back for that reason. I’ll be the first to admit they are inherently selfish reasons.
I have worked with BO for about 7-8 years, learning from the ground up, for the most part in a team of one - with the help of manuals, experimentation and persistence - and BOB. I find it frustrating to see the negative changes in BOB over that time in what seems a constant stream of requests for help where it is obvious the poster has made no effort to learn for themselves. Usually these are the posts that I ignore.
In the last year or so, I have more frequently encountered the situation where my competitors (in my case, a small town where I know the BO partner consultants) are using BOB to answer questions in order to pass themselves off as more knowledgeable than they are - the classic “oh no, we lied about our skills, we’ve won the work, now how do we do it” ?!
Obviously, not all posts on BOB fall into those two categories, and the trick for me is, how do I give back to the community without it biting me in the form of losing my livelihood (I have been a BO contractor for the last 3 years). I try to believe in karma but the reality is, I have lost work to people who have lied and then used BOB to cover up.
Sorry for the long winded post 
In essence we are in agreement - BOB is what we make it, and for the most part it is a wonderful resource.
margarita (BOB member since 2005-11-08)
There’s definitely been an increase in the ‘lazy’ comments, which I try to answer by pointing to self-help resources and documentation, rather than just giving answers. The language barrier may exacerbate this problem.
It’s a symptom of the move the last few years to outsource to India to save money. Now I don’t wish to make any generalisations, but from my experience some large Indian IT services firms (now mired in criminal investigations…;))are prone to taking totally inexperienced staff, putting them through BOCP if you’re lucky, then farming them out as ‘BO Consultants’…who are little better than a conduit into BOB, that’s if they don’t just make stuff up.
cashworth (BOB member since 2005-02-09)
No one likes the lazy questions and it has got worse in recent years. It isn’t just BOB though 
We do have various rules, if you feel a post breaks any of these or is ‘on the edge’ of doing so you can report them to the Moderator team. We don’t get many posts reported.
Nick Daniels 
(BOB member since 2002-08-15)
Mods - feel free to bin if deemed offensive …
As much as I have tried to avoid it - you have actually identified a major factor in my rant.
I have worked on and off as a consultant for many firms and in many countries. I left IBM as I was tasked to train up ‘BO’ teams in the US and SA for them to take the maintenance and basic development back to India. Which i did as the US consultants refused, but after a few months decided that it’s not the correct approach.
Anyone from India reading this please understand that I have lived amongst india communities back home in SA and am fully aware of the cut throat competition you guys face back home.
I am now an individual consultant operating in the ME, and support BO teams from competing Indian agencies.
Both firms throw generic IT skilled staff onto BO by taking the locally developed applications and databases back to their headquarters to help fast track staff into BO, and then send over to join the team.
That’s a pretty effective method of increasing headcount and revenue and it certainly works - to a point.
The management of these resources is by - FEAR - the disparity in their local wages and the fact that there are 100’s of replacements for anyone back home, has these companies able to treat their staff on levels that most other people would not abide by.
This in turn has created a generation of peopel who constantly feel threatened by each other and everyone else.
Take this a step further and you will have people that have no qualms about distorting experiences and skillsets and that will also not feel the same community spirit of knowledge sharing that formed the basis of many of these forums.
At first, many forums accepetd the interactions of this new tide of developers as nothing more than a difference in background and cultures.
Sure - I’m generalising to a large extent, but the fact is that I reached a point recently where I was tired of the ‘take and lie’ mentality that I hit almost daily.
When you see developers from the same country constantly undermine each other as they are from different consulting firms and see each other as a threat, then there is something vastly wrong with the direction that this industry is expanding into.
I can suppose that it is not only this industry that’s being affected - we face the same on an industrial front by China. Any country that has such a large population operates by a different set of principles and etiquettes, so we’re bound to have this clash of work cultures.
In their shoes I wonder if I would be the same - I like to think not but if you have families and dependants depending on your income, would one then not resort to anything to ensure that your income flow is never threatened?
As stated - this is not a rant against India par se, but unfortunately the majority of the issues I have been facing re this thread / forums / consulting has been through my interaction with the newer teams from that country.
A case in point is me seeing one of my own BOBJ downloads being presented to a company as another agencies work, and they invoiced the org for the “full time” to create the plan.
Most of the tasks were left as is that’s how I knew it was mine lol.
I hope I have not offended anone here, but I am sure that most have noticed a lack of restraint re the older forum members in providing assistance as I’m sure they, as I, have shaken their heads at many questions that are posted that could obviously have been anwered by reading the manual or searching BOBJ.
And then seeing minimal return from helping them.
Sorry all - this has been building up and had to be said … 
MikeD (BOB member since 2002-06-18)
+10 to this thread.
I concur with all the above comments.
ABILtd (BOB member since 2006-02-08)
I totally agree with what’s being said, as I have had worked with many big name outsourcing firms at my previous jobs. I believe what we have seen and experienced are the end results of the corporate culture of those outsourcing firms.
The goal of an outsourcing firm is to get their employees certified (or memorizing every single book written by Ralph Kimball). Whether they really know the stuffs or not is irrelevant to the company. Then they let the poor clients train their employees on the job. It is very obvious based on all the recent posts, asking how to do some very basic tasks for their clients who are paying them at $150 per hour. It is very disturbing that the clients are paying good money for the expertise, but instead, these so-called consultants are asking for help and clarification on fundamental things on BOB. Apparently, the hiring managers are as clueless as these consultants.
This is not just the Indian outsourcing companies though. If any of you have ever worked with a CPA firm on audit, you could have seen the exact same pattern. But of course, there is no BOB in the CPA world.
In my humble opinion, these outsourcing firms are nothing but high-tech sweat shops. They are absolutely no difference than those sweat shops in China and South America that make your athletic shoes and K-Mart clothes.
substring 
(BOB member since 2004-01-16)
I’ve worked at two different clients for extended periods of time over the last three years that are in this situation. I have seen many of the things that already been described from a variety of different on and offshore companies.
But, I have also worked with a small handful of people from these companies who are highly intelligent, vastly underated by their own company and work hard to produce quality deliverables.
I have come to the conclusion that the real blame lies firmly with the client company and their clueless managers who can’t see beyond an improvement in this year’s financials as a result of the ‘brilliant’ decision to go with a remote third party company that they have never dealt with before.
Nick Daniels (BOB member since 2002-08-15)
I agree with Nick except about “clueless managers” part. I have been part of meetings where they have decided to outsource development. They know they are not getting very quality material. But, it is cheap and looks good on the books. That is all that counts. Of course, the ‘consulting’ or outsourcing firms will try and provide that service any which way they can.
Also, this does not have to be an off shore thing either. In my last position, I had contracted with a local consulting firm (local to Wisconsin) to help me with some work on our Business Objects server. I had very specific needs and made sure that it was all spelled out in the contract. The consultant that we received not only didn’t have the experience we required but I spent 2 hours teaching him most of the things he should have known. That was when I walked him to the door and asked him politely not to come back. Then, I called the consulting firm to let them know that I was not going to pay for any time he had spent with us (the 2 hours) and would no longer work with them. They missed out on a contract that would have lasted for one month. The result, however, was a reprimand I received from my manager for going with someone that cost more even though they were true experts at what they did! So, what is my incentive to hire an expert?
Mitra
Mitra Moini (BOB member since 2002-09-01)
It’s an escalating chain of slight mistruths:
Resume’s will allude to slightly higher skill sets and experience levels.
Agents will embelish this further by reworking the resume to match the position at some consultancy.
Consulting houses will then refine this to the highest quantifiable market value they can get for the resource.
The conulting house sends a mentor with the resource or an agent to handle the initial negotiations so sometimes the resource has no idea what he’s getting dropped into.
The resource is then sent alone to a site at a rate that he does not get but is expected to deliver at.
The local resources that have attempted to resolve the issue, deliver the solution but are constrained by time, knowledge limits or office politics are in a mind set that creates barriers.
The resource arrives and is overwhelmed by the actual task at hand - or is intimidated by the local mindset or operating envionment.
The client is gobsmacked by the level of expertise he has just taken on board …
MikeD (BOB member since 2002-06-18)
I don’t know where this thread is going - it started out as an encouragement to post…
Anyway, I’ve noticed that my contributions have taken a serious dive in the last couple of months, mainly because of the ‘lazy questions and comments’ that have increased greatly. When you think about how established Business Objects and this forum is, most questions have probably already been asked or answered to some degree - people just don’t look for the answer.
My attitude to answering has also changed, and rather than giving a direct answer would maybe just give pointers to the solution, I’ve said it on several posts that it’s not my job to do other peoples jobs for them.
I’ve also banned myself from answering any question that either starts or ends with “ASAP” or “Urgent”. Maybe I’m just getting more cynical the older I get. :?
Compared to other forums, the majority of contributors are too nice, which probably encourages the lazy questions.
I’d also like to say that some people may find it daunting to post and simply don’t have the self confidenceto do so.
dessa 
(BOB member since 2004-01-29)
Is there anything we can do to change this, would others agree?
Nick Daniels (BOB member since 2002-08-15)
I’m not sure what you could do. It’s not as if anyone ever gets shot down in flames if they make a mistake, or someone disagrees with them, it’s a very polite forum by internet standards!
cashworth (BOB member since 2005-02-09)
We used to have a play area, which was intended for new users to get familiar with the way posting works. It just didn’t get used.
Nick Daniels (BOB member since 2002-08-15)
I think it’s hard to separate the two issues, so I’m not surprised at the turn this post has taken.
Yes, we want to encourage people to answer posts and share their information. What we’re hearing, in response, is reluctance to do so because:
- People post “lazy” questions without taking the time to solve problems on their own.
- People post questions because they’re trying to pad their resume, fake their knowledge in an interview, or even worse, get hired as a high-priced consultant.
I think we want to discourage those things, while at the same time help people get their problems solved and encourage those new-to-BO users who are genuinely trying to learn. It’s a balancing act, to be sure.
In the meantime, back to the original topic: To everyone else out there reading this… If you’ve benefitted from BOB in the past, make a point of trying to give back to the community. If someone else posts a question that you can answer with confidence, pay back some of the benefit you’ve gotten from BOB, by helping.
dnewton (BOB member since 2004-01-30)
I’ll second that!
You can let us know here how you found Bob.
Nick Daniels (BOB member since 2002-08-15)
I can’t offer a solution but I can share my thoughts. I didn’t realize how much I new about BzO until one of my co-workers joked about legally changing my name to B:mrgreen:B. I still don’t consider myself an expert, but I have definitely known more than a few of the contractors who claim to be experts. Until that point, I browsed for about 2 years without posting or even registering for the board. I used to think that only those with 5,000+ posts truly had the credibility to field questions. That line of thinking may have been skewed by the large number of excellent responses I saw from those perpetually in the running for member of the year awards. Of course, I now know that is not a requirement at all and I wish I had more time to spend here.
Someone else mentioned the incredibly positive atmosphere here on B:mrgreen:B which I have yet to see on any other board I frequent. I really hope this never changes. This also influenced me to register. If you happen to be wrong, there are no flame wars or any of that nonsense. Someone simply responds with a counter argument/example and everyone learns something. I think many people fail to see that if they use no other forums and it is just assumed that they will be shot down at the first opportunity.
At the end of the day, I think you need to be the kind of person who is willing to help others even if you get no reward for doing so (besides the feeling of helping someone with a problem). I’m sure SAP/BzO will continue delivering “undocumented features” to keep the questions flowing.
BoB LoblaW (BOB member since 2007-10-23)
And another thing, I don’t think users should be expected to post anyway, I’d rather see quality answers rather than quantity, hence the real reason for dip in the number of my posts
Sometimes too positive perhaps?, but then thats the trade-off I suppose in encouraging people to post in the first place.
I guess it’s not such an inconvenience ignoring the “lazy” posts and concentrating on some of the more interesting ones.
dessa (BOB member since 2004-01-29)
I think there is another way that users could give back to BOB, but it would need some mods to the site:
IMHO the reason that search is not as helpful as the more experienced members believe it to be, is that you get to see too many posts that aren’t very conclusive.
A few ways to improve this would be:
- for moderators to mark posts (that they happen to participate in) as significant or not
- for the originators to be prompted by BOB to close out the thread (including archive/delete, if they subsequently found that they had misunderstood, misled or found better posts elsewhere) This could be say 2 weeks after the last posting
- for users to be prompted for the useful rating in a more overt way
All of the above would tend to raise the usefulness of the body of knowledge contained in BoB, which - I would hope - would raise the level of motivation to contribute.
twofivepie (BOB member since 2008-10-16)