I spent most of this week in Munich at SAP TechEd. I didn’t get to see much of the town for reasons that will become obvious but spent an interesting time with customer and partner geeks. I tried some experiments that mix enterprise with consumery applications. Specifically I made a few short clips in very difficult conditions and loaded them to Seesmic. The results are not super brilliant but the technology is in early stage development. These clips give you a flavour of what was happening at the event. It’s interesting that the clips show forms of innovation you don’t normally associate with the German Giant. That was a surprise.
Thomas Otter filmed Dan McWeeney’s explanation of how he and Ed Herrmann created the sexy looking wiimote demonstration. I‘ve loaded Thomas’s recording to my YouTube account. Dan’s a natural presenter and if you can stomach 8 minutes of geek speak, it’s well worth the viewing if for no other reason than to get a sense of geek enthusiasm and collaboration. I think that’s important because in organizations where there is any significant kind of IT department, there is a need to understand the issues they face.
I was at that filmed session which was held after the DemoJam event. We finally tipped out of the conference centre sometime around 12.30am and still managed to find a train back to town. The following day, the trains were on strike and I had a tough time making it to the airport on time for gate closure.
Craig Cmehil uStreamed a number of sessions from the Redmonk track on Community Day. In one, I co-chaired a discussion session with James Governor. We had a good turn out discussing aspects of corporate social computing that reflect many of the themes you see discussed here. The video runs a full 45 minutes. The back channel discussion, part of which Craig reproduces is particularly interesting. There is some voice drop out early on and at odd points along the way but it doesn’t spoil the overall effect.
I also contributed to a couple of panel sessions on business KPIs. Talk about sing for your supper! This is an important topic in the context of governance, risk and compliance (GRC.) The closer you can align the meanings of at least some internal KPIs to the kinds of measure used in external financial reporting, the less chance you have of misunderstanding or worse still, misrepresenting the figures. There is a lot of work to do in developing these consensus agreed measures. The SAP business KPI wiki team has plenty to think about but again, I was struck by their willingness to listen. (Note to self: am I sounding too supportive?)
Overall this was an entirely different and rewarding experience compared to last year where I felt I learned little of importance. This year, participation was the name of the game and while I was Shanghaied in one sense, (they scheduled me to within a nano second of my time there) the result was worthwhile.
Stuart Jones asked on Twitter why I have so much fun. Perhaps the links go some way to explaining that. The only downside was the extortionate cost of internet connectivity – €24 per day on what was a comparatively slow line. This is a rip off from an otherwise great hotel in a central location.
Finally, I would be remiss in not mentioning the Get your wii hands on cartoon from Hugh that was subsequently turned into objects of behavior for use among otherwise sane and intelligent people.
Bonus link for this masterful explanation of where we’re at with information from Michael Wesch. Hat tip: Luis Suarez.
Photo courtesy of Nigel James Flickrstream
Technorati Tags: SAP, SAP BPX, SAP SDN, SAP TechEd
