Talk:SMWConTalk2019-09

Hello everybody. I´m Maria. Yesterday, when I arrived here, I did not know that i'd have to talk today here.

This year our company BITPlan is one of the sponsor of this conference

and we are happy to do this

because for us it feel's like inviting our friends for dinner.

I will offer you about three topics about BITPlan and this conference.

All this topics are based on my personal experience.

⌘⌘ Transporting Bikes by Train

Our location here is the UIC the International Federation of railways.

I wish, that this organization helps, Wolfgang to go on vacation with our bikes.

I have bad knees and a pedelec helps me being active since I can't properly walk any more.

In the last two years we have been riding some 5.000 km with our pedelec bikes

and have documented it on the website ebike.bitplan.com

That website is a semantic mediawiki site.

Wolfgang has prepared the templates for it

and I love to document the places we have been to.

This year we created a special page on transporting bikes.

As you can see in the different pictures every country has different standards.

In Germany and Czechoslovakia the transport is most simple and comfortable(affordable).

In countries like France things get difficult - in Sweden it's almost impossible to transport bikes.

In some trains in Italy you have to carry your bikes up some steep steps.

In Belgium in the IC trains the conductor have no

time to open the bike place in the front of the train.

So people like us have to carry up their bikes into the place for handycap people.

We'd love to see the UIC help improve the situation internationally

so that we can visit more places with our pedelec bikes.

⌘⌘ #11Dollar4Climate

Lets continue with the next topic.

As you may have seen

we have initiated the #11Dollar4Climate idea.

To join in this campaign you need 11 dollars.

You send 1 dollar to a person that behaves badly regarding the climate change.

In a letter you send your donation.

And a note, that you explain why he or she doesn't get the other 10 dollar.

The 10 dollar go to an organization.

Which is doing something good

to make sure that our children and grandchildren survive the climate change with an intact planet.

Wolfgang and I started with sending 1 dollar to the president of Brazil

and 10 dollar to Sting's rainforest foundation.

I am a fan of Sting and I liked this start.

Also it felt good to think what Jair Bolsonaro would think

when being politely asked to invest one dollar in fighting the recent rainforrest fires.

Obviously 11 dollar is not much - but that's good

because you might be able to afford coming up with your own idea.

The whole thing is not so much

about money but about sending a two sided message out.

Some people out there need to be stopped to do what they are doing right now

and others need support!

⌘⌘ Marketing in a non-profit organisation

The last topic.

When Richard yesterday proposed that the marketing for

Semantic Mediawiki should be professionalized

Wolfgang and I have offered to share our experience with the non profit organization.

we founded 10 years ago: the iSAQB - the International Software Architecture Qualification Board.

That organization is very successfull and over 15.000

people have gotten an iSAQB certificate in the meantime.

By the way if you'd like to get

one of those certificate just give me a call and I'll explain

why it is so much fun to attend a course with BITPlan ...

From my personal experience as a secretary of that organization

the core marketing success factor is: People.

See how the ISAQB is listing it's members.

It is also planned to have a list of all those 15.000 attendees

and make sure the Alumni happily promote the association.

For SMW Wolfgang and I took the same approach.

For quite a few years we made sure that every attendee

get's his personal page in the semantic mediawiki of SMW.

This way word of mouth can be spread.

Otto Rehagel, a soccer trainer once said:

Money does not score goals.

As a fan of Borussia Mönchengladbach, a german soccer team

I can tell you how true this is.

If you want to be successfull with a limited budget

it is very important to value volunteer and unpaid work.

Still you need professional support and that might cost thousand or EUROs.

In the long run that investment will be worthwhile

if it is rooted in the volunteere work.

Never every take the approach of a row boat with 8 helmsmen and one rower.