Talk:SMWConTalk2019-09

Yesterday I did not know yet that i'd have to talk here.

I will tell you about three topics in the next 6 minutes that BITPlan is going to contribute to this conference.

(Given the three topics that BITPlan is going to contribute to this conference in the next 6 minutes the choice to present fell on me.)

(To make it simpler for you and me

I'll try to talk for no more than two minutes per topic.)

Also all three topics are based on my personal experience.

⌘⌘ Transporting Bikes by Train

Let's start with transporting bikes by train.

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

I am very thankful that this organization exists

because it helps me and my husband 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 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 IC trains the conductor have not time to open the bike place in the front of the train. So people carry up their bike into the handycap place.

We'd love to see the UIC help improve the situation internationally so that we can visit more places with our e-bikes.

⌘⌘ #11Dollar4Climate

BITPlan is a sponsor of this year's conference and we are happy to do this because for us it feel's like inviting our friends for dinner.

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 with your donation you explain why he or she doesn't get the other 10 dollar. The 10 dollar go to an organization that is doing something good to make sure 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. As a fan of Sting 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

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 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 once said: Money does not score goals. As a fan of Borussia Mönchengladbach 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.