Apologies for the silence this week. I’ve been on a punishing travel schedule that involved flying to Lausanne, getting a train to Zurich, then a flight to Berlin before returning to Malaga late last night and then another two+ hours driving. It’s all been in a good cause.
Lausanne was the location for GoingSolo – one of the best events I’ve attended in years. Dedicated to the new business person, GoingSolo provided attendees the opportunity to discuss the ups and downs of the 24/7 life that typifies those who are creating new businesses. Top of agenda was managing time and getting the price right while maintaining solid relationships with customers.
Each of the presenters: Stowe Boyd, Suw Charman, Stephanie Booth, Laura Fitton, Martin Roell, Stephanie Troeth, Linda Broughton and myself offered different perspectives on the problems we face and how to overcome them. A full set of videos can be found on the GoingSolo DailyMotion site. Photos from the event are here on Flickr. Suw did a great job live blogging the event.
Photo courtesy of the GoingSolo Flickrstream
Zurich was a few hours stopover in the unseasonable rain before continuing to Berlin for part two of SAP’s customer event, SAPPHIRE08. There I spent more time diving into the guts of Business ByDesign. I have a lot more to say about it on ZDNet but for the moment I’ll restrict my remarks to a single statement: it rocks. I am currently working on a report about the service that will hopefully see the light of day in the coming weeks.
For the first time, SAP included bloggers from its own SDN community. These folk usually attend the technically focused TechEd events. It was something of an eye opener for them to see SAP from the business side. These folk are hyper critical so for SAP it was something of a risk to include a clutch of SAPpers as part of the blog programme.
I learned a great deal and was able to get a better perspective of what it means when the tech side of the house meets business. This is something I encourage any vendor to do because I believe we’ve moved way beyond the days when tech folk throw software over the wall at business. The conversations I’m witnessing between those who develop and those who consume software are fasinating because they allow each side to see for themselves the challenges each faces.
From a personal perspective, it was great to meet people with whom I interact on the SDN community for the first time including Eddy deClercq, Oliver Kohl and Raja, alongside Gregor Wolf, Richard Hirsch and Nigel James whom I’ve met at past SAP events. The ‘team’ also included fellow ZDNet bloggers Phil Wainewright and Mike Krigsman. Others drawn from the Irregulars included James Governor, Sig Rinde, Thomas Otter, Prashanth Rai and David Terrar rounded out by Social Media Today’s Robin Carey.
During the formal press conference, the four best questions came from the blogger contingent and two, asked by Gregor and Robin, elicited the only ‘that’s a great question’ response from Henning Kagermann, SAP co-CEO.
On the social side, we self organized several dinners including one last Sunday evening when most of the team assembled at Saksun, a Thai restuarant that includes a vegetarian menu. The food was superb, the ambience delightful and the conversation spirited.
Finally a special word for Peter Zencke, member of the executive board at SAP and the man behind ByDesign. At the end of the press, analyst and blogger dinner held at the old Berlin railway station and which is now a museum, Peter was hijacked to join some of us at an after party. Peter was gracious and great fun along with providing James Governor and myself a ride to the location. It was one of those: “Follow that car” moments you generally only see in movies.
Photos from SAPPHIRE courtesy of Gregor Wolf
