Accidentally on Purpose Blog

I really wanted to post about this earlier but as many of you may have noticed we’ve been pretty busy since TechEd Las Vegas.  I had a longish post planned that went into a lot of detail regarding Demo Jam.  That idea was scuttled the moment Eddie Hermann wrote this post on his blog.   Serves me right for taking to long but it also serves you better because he along with Dan McWeeney should be telling the story of Majority Desk.

Eddie’s post is actually one of the highlights of my career.  You see, both Dan and Eddie are from Colgate-Palmolive which means they’re customers.  Eddie mentioned this in his post:

Some other SAP guys that helped with the videos and actually make SAP fun to work with, if you can believe it.

• Craig Cmehil
• Thomas Jung
• Mike Prosceno

When a customer becomes a friend and a friend tells you that one of the reasons that being a customer is fun, at least in part, is because of you – WOW.  How do you top that? 

Now I’ve only know Eddie and Dan for just over a year now.  Craig Cmehil introduced us to each other after they won Demo Jam 2006 in Las Vegas.  Over the past year I’ve gotten to know them a little better and while I do consider them both friends, we definitely come from completely different worlds, they’re software developers and I’m a “PR” guy. What we share is a sense of community that the concepts and tools of social media allow for in a way that hasn’t always been availableble. In this particular case it was the SDN community, social networking and blogging that enabled our getting to know one another. 

This my friends is the power of social media! 

If your going to be in Munich next week for TechEd you’ll want to attend Demo Jam!  Dan, Eddie, James and Cote (of Redmonk fame) and I had some good laughs after the demo and we discussed ways in which to make the demo even more fun for Munich.  If any of the props we discussed actually make it into the Munich performance; it will be the mother of all demos!

Do you have your Wii Hands on?  I do!

Technorati Tags: Wii Hands, Majority Desk, Eddie Herrman, Dan McWeeney, Redmonk, SAP TechEd 07, SDN

I didn’t get an opportunity to post much at SAPPHIRE Atlanta and not at all during the Vienna event so I thought what I’d do here is share some of the comments from the bloggers to give you a sense of the event from behind the scenes.

What Worked Well:

David: “The executive access (couldn’t have been better) and the combination of formal presentations, separate meetings, and some people coming to the bloggers’ corner.”

Dennis: “doing Ustream TV was a great idea - that should be on the agenda”

James: “Seems like its all good. What can I say?  Do more of the same.”

Sig: “For me all practical details were perfect”

What Didn’t Work So Well:

David: “I think the general press kit material is a waste of your copying and printing resources

Dennis: “For me, the noise levels in Vienna were terribly distracting which meant I couldn’t realistically write while at the event.”

James: “The working environment is cool but we need a dedicated room for discussions.”

Maggie: “A quiet area to record podcasts without background noise.”

What We’ll Do Differently Next Time:

Even though all indications were that it was a great event, here are the five things I am going to change/add.

1. Add dedicated meeting and video/podcasting rooms
2. No more printed materials
3. Provide enough down time for the bloggers to experience the full event
4. Have an agenda for myself so that I can post more
5. Ask everyone to ”shush” as to not distract Dennis (so that he can post more.)

Thanks to everyone who attended!  And a special hat tip to Dennis Howlett; your insights have been much appreciated. 

Photo credit: Craig Cmehil. 

At least I think it was Craig but since he’s in the picture, I guess the real credit should go to Craig’s camera.

Not in the picture: Dennis, Manoj, Dale and Thomas

Recently, Robin Fray Carey wrote a case study on how SAP transformed itself through the use of Social Media.  Its available on the Social Media Today site or you can link directly to the White Paper here.  As an SAP employee, I’m really proud of SDN and BPX but, from the community perspective, there is a lot more to SAP than just SDN and BPX.  We have two less famous but equally important ecosystems called Industry Value Networks and Enterprise Services Community that I am just as proud of. 

Next week we’ll be in Vienna for our European SAPPHIRE conference.  In addition to the Bloggers’ Corner activities as part of our communications center, Mark Yolton and the community folks will have a “Community Lounge” set up on the show floor for all in attendance (including the bloggers.)

Here you will find demos and plenty of conversations with community members from each of the following:

• SAP Developer Network
• Business Process Experts
• Enterprise Services Community
• Industry Value Networks
• As well as the random blogger

Now, you won’t find the “Community Lounge” in the program guide, or the onsite map as it didn’t make it into the printed materials.  The lounge is by the NetWeaver Theater - Here’s a map of the show-floor layout, with the location highlighted next to the NetWeaver Theater:

If the map is a little confusing don’t worry, just ask anyone on the show floor.  You can also keep an eye open for this sign:

See you in Vienna!

This past week was a great event on a number of fronts.  Most important was that a diverse group of bloggers came to Atlanta and we all learned a lot from each other!  They didn’t get all the answers they were looking for but I do think they got a lot of answers to the many questions they were asking.

SAP has always conversed with the market, it just wasn’t always so visible.  The use of Social Media simply allows us to open yet another door to the market, it just so happens that this new conversation is very visible. Jerry Bowles had this to say about it.  

Now, before we get to proud of ourselves, we well better stated as I made some mistakes too.  Dennis Howlett had this to say.  I take full responsibility as this was my fault entirely!   It was an honest mistake but a mistake nonetheless.  In trying to plan an event like SAPPHIRE there are a lot of moving parts. I thought I had done a good job in getting all of the necessary parts in the right order.   Well, I missed one (probably more).   I’ll work harder for SAPPHIRE Vienna to make this one right!  

The nice thing about having a conversation is that a conversation isn’t sedentary.  Its bi-directional and it travels over time and space.  This conversation isn’t over, it will continue next week, next month (in Vienna) and even beyond.   A single blog post (question or answer / praise or complaint) isn’t the end in fact, its just the beginning.

I’ve wanted to post more frequently about the events going on here at SAPPHIRE but, to be quite candid, I haven’t had the time.   Finally, I seem to have found a moment to take a look at the bigger picture. 

So, day one is history and overall I think it went pretty well.  We started Sunday night at an informal dinner meetup at The Sweet Lowdown.  Nothing formal just everyone getting to know one another in a casual environment.  Dan Farber had this to say on his Between the Lines Blog.

We had our fair share of travel and business issues that have kept a few of the bloggers from making the trip to Atlanta but, we have a great group on hand. 

As far as the bloggers go, there was a mix the Enterprise Irregulars and the Social Media Collective , Mike Masnick of Techdirt, Michael Cote of Redmonk, we even have on hand a few SAP bloggers Thomas Otter and Craig Cmehil.   

We had a number of meetings yesterday with various executives but at the end of the day a few of us Jason Busch, Jason Wood, Dan Farber, Brian Sommer, Dennis Howlett and I got backstage after Hasso Plattner’s keynote and sat down with Hasso for about 30 minutes. Dennis had this to say about the keynote and the subsequent discussion. 

You’ll notice that the posts so far are mix of positve, neutral and even negative.  What you don’t get to see in the posts is the back-n-forth between the bloggers and our executives.   It’s unfortunate that that part doesn’t come through because that’s where (IMHO) the value is; relationship building, the sharing of ideas and best of all, the learnings ocurring on both sides of the conversation.

More to come

I just arrived in Atlanta and will spend tonight and tomorrow getting ready for next week’s event.  From April 22 - 25 we’re at the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC) for SAPPHIRE.  If you can’t attend in person, you can still get in on some of the action; watch the live keynote presentations here.

We have 25 bloggers in attendance and I’m going to do my best to cover them covering SAP.  My goal is to give you a peek into what its like when 25 bloggers show up at your biggest user conference of the year.  Its going to be a busy week to say the least.   

Stay tuned more to come!