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ASUG AZ

Today started with a users group meeting near the airport, a mini-community day before SAP TechEd.  About 100 people registered, and attendance was about 2/3 of that I'd guess.  Chip Rodgers of SAP spoke about the community, giving updates on the growth of users, activity and diversity, such as having over 1,300 members from Nigeria.

 

Following that was a talk about sustainability from Scott Feldman.  This was a condensed version of talks I've seen from Peter Graf and Michael Buetler.  The emphasis was on environmental impact tracking software, such as Wal*Mart's supplier requirements and consumer protection issues.

Right before lunch, John Krakowski of SAP spoke about Solution Manager.  Most of the material was familiar to me in my work on this.  However, a couple revelations on what's in the pipeline were disconcerting, implying that work we have not yet completed might be trumped by new product development.  I'll discuss more when I have specific details from later sessions.

 

After a great lunch, I heard Rao Subbarao speak on Business Process Management.  Great tips, and really too much material for a one hour session.  Afterward Rao and I took the light rail back to the conference center to be badged, etc.  On the way up to the desk I ran into Jon Reed.

Checkin, Mentor and other reunions

The place to hang out was apparently the hallway outside the Global Communications area, as we saw numerous folks stroll by (the pictures below are only a small portion).

Around 5PM. the SAP Mentors had a formal meeting, including a short session with Vishal Sikka, SAP's chief technology officer.  I'm sure others will write about the session, so I'll just mention my 2-part question to him.

1) How can we promote more women to be SAP Mentors (and by analogy, technical jobs)?

 

2) What else can the Mentors do that we aren't doing?

 

The short answers are (and I'm paraphrasing).

1) Lead by example.

2) Explain how to manage change.

The tweet I posted in the context of # 2 was:

"Essential change. Deal with it"

 

I believe essential here means known, identifiable specific transformations, rather than changes required for a specific purpose.  I hope I'm not reading that wrong.

 

 

Photos, videos

Chip Rodgers giving SAP community overview for chapter meeting

Karin Tillotson, Marilyn Pratt  ?, Matt Harding

John K., Marilyn's water bottle

Rao Subbarao

Karin Tillotson, Tony ds Thomasis, ?, ?, ?, Matt Harding

Mentor meets at Tech Ed checkin, reception

Mike Prosceno, Stacy Fish

Dagfin Parnas, Daniel Graversen, Blag

Tony de Thomasis, Vijay V.[@vijayasankarv], Mark Finnern, Daniel Graversen

SAP Mentors

Mary Anne Smith, Bill Adam

Tami Morrison, Mary Anne Smith

Blag, Hideki Yamamoto

Karin, Mary Anne, Gretchen - some of the BITI women

?

JonErp, PixelBase

Answer the question - how to be a mentor