On March 3rd, I attended my first ever SAP Inside Track! Having never attended before, I was worried the cloud themed talks would be too technical for me. I come from an Operations/Marketing background so technology jargon can be overwhelming. The Inside Track turned out to be a wonderful event with talks that were relevant and recent!
I started things off at the Registration table bright an early at 8 AM and met guests from Fortis, OUEST Consulting, BCLC and more. I could tell things were off to a good start as I heard happy chatter and mingling in between bites of breakfast scones and bagels. Everyone seemed genuinely interested in learning more and meeting other people.
I was only able to stay for the first speaker who was fantastic! Brian Clendenin from SuccessFactors kicked things off with his topic on Disruptive Innovation. I had seen Brian's LinkedIn profile and was very impressed. I had no doubt he had incredible wisdom and experience to share. So pen and notebook in hand, I opened my ears and listened carefully.
It's interesting to think of what cloud means in urban slang or in the technology word, because in everyday life, to most people:
cloud
noun, often attributive \ˈklau̇d\
: a white or gray mass in the sky that is made of many very small drops of water
: a large amount of smoke, dust, etc., that hangs in the air
: a large number of things (such as insects) that move together through the air in a group
To everyone else in the technology word, cloud, short for cloud computing means:
cloud
noun, often attributive \ˈklau̇d\
: storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet instead of your computer's hard drive
So as the morning continued on, Brian went into detail about critical attributes of cloud computing, misunderstood depictions and the cloud portfolio. This informative talk rendered very insightful discussions from the audience including an excellently worded question regarding data security.
What I found most captivating about this talk was when Brian spoke about Social Revolution. Being a Millenial, Brian gave many statistics surrounding my generation that I could not believe.
"56% of millenials will not take a job from a company that bans social media"
"92% of US children have an online presence by the time they are 2 years old"
He also spoke passionately about social persona and your personal branding. It's obvious that when you associate yourself with a brand, you are aligning yourself with the company's values. This makes up a part of personal branding. But what many do not know is how easy it is for the world around you especially recruiters to find that out. With Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. your profile is no longer anonymous. As well, once it's on the internet, there's no way to definitely remove it.
Brian left us with a to-do list and some great tips. Readers here are your actions items:
- Google yourselves and take corrective measures to remove anything negative
- Keep building on your presence to ensure that you appear on the first page.
- Shape your identity or it will shape you. Shape it by following and producing content that aligns to what you are known for or what you want to be known for
- Lastly, don't be the noise and spam your audience continuosly or you will be tuned out
Thanks to jason.cao and philipp.eicker for planning a fantastic event and of course to our speakers for sharing their knowledge with us!
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