There are times when you just come across something and have to just sit back and smile, Steve has talked about, heck most of the Enterprise Irregulars have talked about it, others have complained that no one pays attention to them. So what is it? Well "listening" to your customers before you build it!

We want to hear from you about any ideas you may have for SAP to leverage the existing Web 2.0 Technologies and Trends to further enhance it's products and/or processes thus generating further value for you our valued Customer / Partner or Community Member. Example of a Web 2.0 product idea could be: I want to have the ability/tools to create a collaborative environment such as SDN easily in my company...(-: Example of a Web 2.0 process idea could be: I think it would be a good idea if SAP leveraged the community to develop new functionality together with the community. This is your chance to let us know of your ideas!

Source: Forum

Now the thing that really set's this off above anything else that's come out in the past is the fact of the medium they chose. It's a discussion forum, so they really are "discussing" things!

It just launched a week or so ago and has 12 topics, 39 posts and over 3000 views already.

So for me this is a case of "putting your money where your mouth is" heck even here on my blog I state that "Without community and the personal touch you become just another chunk of code among a sea of bytes and bits." so this is it, they are listening, talking, discussing and for the product itself. Leveraging and interacting with the community, a first step towards Hasso's statement "Without community there is no product" - it tends to fit!

You can also subscribe to the forum via RSS as well, here.