When I asked Doug Hay on Monday if he knew who Will Rogers was, he said "cowboy."  That's close enough, I guess, but after studying Will's life, and writings, a bit, I understand he was a lot more than that. As a world traveler and journalist, he chronicled many contemporary events in the early 20th century with an astuteness that would put many modern-day bloggers and tech writers to shame. His output was prolific, writing in daily and weekly periodicals.  I have links at the end of this post for those who want to find out more.  Before I left town for the ASUG Annual Conference (known to many as "SapphireNow"), I reread some of Will's writings.  A section about "conferences" jumped out at me.

Will was talking about international peace (or disarmament) conferences during the period between World Was I and World War II, though I'd say this perspective can be applied to any large gathering, including political rallies, revivals, and IT gatherings.  It's always rubbed me the wrong way that some people expect world-shattering news to come out of a scheduled and pre-packaged event.  I've sat through many keynotes, only to go back to my cubicle, puzzling what the rhetoric had to do with the business at hand.

This article appeared, as far as I can tell, in The Milwaukee Journal  on Nov 15, 1931 (though I have another source that spots it on November 8th).  I've clipped a section available from Google, under "fair use", and believe this content to be quotable for literary purposes.

In the printed material I have at home, the quote ends "can't for the life of us remember what happened." In the original article shown here, Will goes on to put a hard-eyed perspective on lofty talk, focusing on bread lines and basic nutrition. This was at the time of America's Great Depression, where millions were out of work.  I'll try to stay away from drawing political parallels to today's economic situation, and come back to food.

The place I'm staying this year is geared up for "SapphireNow" like I've never seen before. One of the reasons I liked it (other than it used to be a lot cheaper) was the family aspect.  Now, they're on the conference bus route, there were welcome handouts, and they even baked us cookies (I'll need to remind them this is also the ASUG annual conference for next time).

Last night, fellow SAP Mentor and good friend Jon Reed had a birthday celebration at the SAP Mentors welcome gathering.  Jon is one of the gentlest, humblest people I know, and an incisive writer to boot.  I always get a healthy world perspective from him.

Many conference attendees worked on a Monday event, packing food for orphanages.  I support the concept, though I admit to having a little trepidation to a "feel-good" project at such an ostentatious event such as SapphireNow.  I hope those who did participate will remember the feeling in two weeks, and two months, and two years, continuing to donate their time to the bread lines.

Will Rogers links

• http://www.willrogers.com
• Telegrams - http://www.willrogers.com/daily_telegrams.html
• Weekly articles - http://www.willrogers.com/weekly_articles.html
• November 15, 1931 article source

Will Rogers books

• The Wit and Wisdom of Will Rogers
• Autobiography of Will Rogers
• The Best  of Will Rogers

Will Rogers film

• www.imdb.com/name/nm0737259

Fellow SAP Mentor Paul Kurchina made may day when he send me an email with the subject line: You will like this.

How right he was, pointing me to an ASUG press release announcing that Seth Godin is going to keynote the ASUG Annual Conference happening next week. An event which is co-located with SAPPHIRE NOW. Never have I been looking forward to an ASUG keynote as much as this one.

If you have ever been introduced to the SAP Mentor initiative, you know why.

Years ago Craig Cmehil and I realized what a difference it would make to create an initiative around your most passionate community influencers and how that would be beneficial for everyone involved. It is fulfilling the promise of Enterprise 2.0 of creating tighter bonds, greater engagement and shorter feedback loops within a company's ecosystem of customers, partners and individual consultants.

We created the SAP Mentor initiative. At the beginning it was hard to make people understand its potential. There was a lot of uncertainty and fear of the new that we needed to overcome. Then Seth Godin came out with his book Tribes with the Money Quote on page 30: Most organizations spend their time marketing to the crowd. Smart organizations assemble the tribe.

Seth is just an amazing communicator. With that quote, he hit the essence of what we were working on, what we are achieving with the SAP Mentors. It clicked, with SAP Mentors we are assembling SAP's tribe.

People understand it or at least it piqued their interest and they pay close attention.
This is why for years I start off my SAP Mentor introduction slide deck with Seth's quote:

          Sap Mentor Initiative Introduction by Mark Finnern

Link to SAP Mentor Introduction Slide Deck.

With the help of the SAP Mentors we have updated that slide deck just today. With 20K+ it is the most viewed official SAP deck on Slideshare.

I always wanted to ping Seth and tell him what amazing things happen when a company fully embraces his Tribe concept. Well, we started before his book came out, but it just confirmed that we are on the right track and that gave us the extra boost of confidence,

Have I piqued your interest too? More details you can find at SAP Mentors' main page http://sapmentors.sap.com

Over the years we have also collected a couple of stories where SAP Mentors are making a difference in the SAP Ecosystem: Kick-Starting a Virtuous Circle in Field Sales;Tales of Two Inside Tracks, SAP Mentor-Style; All for One and HANA for All; Advocating for Excellence; Tree of Talent; The Inside Track on Community Engagement; Trust + Results = Success

I am convinced that at a moment other enterprises realize the power of such an engagement and will start to develop tribes for their organizations too.

Seth is amazing at crystallizing trends and making them accessible to us, that is why I can't wait to hear him talk on Tuesday later afternoon as part of the ASUG Annual Conference keynote. Find me at the front of the stage proudly wearing my SAP Mentor shirt with the number 88 :-)

In the recent ISUG (Israeli SAP User Group) annual conference, I had a session about extending your SAP Portal to Cloud and Mobile. The slide can be found below:

However - the point of the blog post is not to talk about how amazing my slide-fu is, its to tell the story of why I almost didn't use the slides. In the two sessions before me in the "mobility and cloud" track there were two customer cases. The first one was from Coca-Cola Israel (CBC) who show cased a mobile application they developed using SAP NetWeaver Gateway (together with Yaad Oren)

The second one was from ORL (www.orl.co.il) who showed the amazing process (very similar to design thinking) they did to create four (4) mobile apps, using the Sybase Unwired Platform. Both customers did an awesome job in designed and implementing mobile application for their users.

And here is where I thought about ditching my slides - I asked the audience - what was common to both (success) stories? They both created an app. Maybe four. But that's about it - The integration of this app into the rest of the employees' content world was simply not there. In one case they just placed the app on the employees phone, hidden between "Angrry Birds" and "Temple Run 2" and in the other case they did the same, only did provisioning with SAP Afaria.

Using the mobile portal (at least ORL have an amazing NetWeaver Portal implementation) both could have tied their existing investments, their existing content management and unstructured content together with these cool new apps. Creating a mobile homepage from which you could launch these apps, in the context of your company news, mobile UWL and your documents is easy (see Aviad Rivlin 's latest blog).

I think that looking at the mobile portal as this orthogonal delivery channel for your mobile apps in addition to so much more solves a lot of questions as to when to use what. Use your mobile development platform of choice (hopefully its an SAP one ). Bring together these applications with your existing roles and existing content, using the mobile portal.

All SAP Mentors List of all SAPMentors, Current Mentors and the Alumni

Kumud is an HCM Time Management, ABAP and Workflow expert. With a personal interest in social media and eagerness to connect with people, she has built a strong network within the SAP Community and loves to learn and meet new people on SCN. I actually did meet her last year at TechEd in Bangalore. It was way to short, but she was radiating passion and I could see the joy of sharing in the corner of her eyes. Super happy that she is joinung us. SAP Mentors in India are often very mobile and often to other coutries for extended periods of time, but she promised to be in India for a while and continue to be a force in further developing the SAP community there. More about Kumud you can find in her SCN Member of the month blog.

No one got more mentor nominations than Roel this time. From his nominations: "Roel is one of those truly amazing guys. Always ready to help you out. Very passionate and up to date with newest developments. There have been quite a lot of innovative idea's initiated and developed by himself. He's wanting, able and very capable in sharing his idea's in the SCN communities and lots of events like SAP Inside tracks Netherlands or Germany. Roel is a guy who loves to share his knowledge. He is open minded, loves a good discussion, really helpful to people who need help (work and non-work related) and an overall good guy."  Roel is Principal SAP NetWeaver Consultant. An SAP NetWeaver enthusiast with extensive programming experience and knowledge.Thinking out of the box and achieving the impossible is what satisfies him most. Specialized in web development in the areas of CRM (WebUI Framework) and SRM (BSP/WDA). Currently focused on mobile development and social media.

Country: USA Company: Cameron International

• Led over 14 full life cycle SAP BI projects within both supply chain and finance
• Since 1999, implementing SAP Business Intelligence decision support applications for use in financial and supply chain reporting and analysis
• Balanced blend of supply chain, SAP and project management skills with an extensive track record of business consultancy and analysis
• International Paper experience spans multiple divisions and corporate staff organizations
• Finance experience spans 10 years and various positions at the corporate, sector and mill levels with responsibilities for analysis, capital improvement project reviews, forecasting, planning and budgeting

Country: USA Company:

Country: Singapore Company SAP

Country: Brazil Company: SAP

Country: USA Company: Lithium Technology

Country: Australia Company: SAP

Country: Netherlands Company: Logica CGI in Nederland

Country: Australia Company:

Country: Great Britain Company: University of Warwick.

Country: Spain Company: IBM

Country: USA Company: Elster

MM Certification Exam - How to start preparation?

by Uma Kumar (2i Solutions)

Frequently, many of you have questions like “How to prepare well for my MM certification exam?” or “What sort of questions are asked during an exam?” and “Which topics should I focus on in order to get a good mark in my MM certification exam?” .

Using insights and experience gained as a member of 2i Solutions team, I would like to share with you my thoughts which I believe would help you find all the relevant information you need to successfully prepare for your MM certification exam. 

Questions in any sample test will rarely be the same as the ones that will be asked in your exam.  These sample questions are only for your practice and helps you assess your understanding and performance level.  But the sample questions do provide good idea of what to expect in the exam and how to prepare for the exam.

First, you need to have good conceptual knowledge and strong understanding of the fundamentals – this is very important.  Spend time with your instructor
or your colleagues and go over areas that are not clear.

The Bottom Line is: You need to read each syllabus book several times – I would say, at least 5 times, if not more and each time you should pay special attention to the fine details very RELIGIOUSLY.

It is very helpful to make your own notes from each line, in a way which will be helpful to you to quickly and effectively revise the content later on.

It is important to frequently test yourself with the exercises given at the end of each lesson in your syllabus b ook. Try to have the test each time you finish an exercise.  For those questions that were not answered correctly, try to assess (very frankly) if your understanding of the question was an issue or you were not clear about the concept and details. This will help you focus on the corrective steps needed to address the gaps.

Use Elimination Technique in the exam is an effective way to reach the correct answer - by identifying the wrong answers first, you will be able to narrow down the choices and thus, reach the correct answers easily.

Another important point is to understand the exam valuation pattern. Recently, the valuation pattern has undergone a change - now, you are expected to answer all the sub-questions correctly in order to get the full mark.

And before you dig into your syllabus books and notes, I request you to examine the following:

• Find out if you need to be trained by SAP Education / SAP Authorised Training Partner. In some countries or regions you can register yourself and write the MM Module Certification exam. However, in  some other countries or regions, SAP requires that you get trained by
  the SAP Education / SAP Authorised Training Partner  www.sap.com
• If you are new to such country or region, and intend to write the SAP MM Certification Exam, you need to attend a formal SAP MM Module Training.
• Although training requires an initial investment, my advice is to consider some form of formal training to get started and enter the field of SAP in the region.  During the training, you not only get formal inputs on the course materials but you are able to interact with the instructors and peers.  In the long term, the contacts you develop during the training program become helpful in your future job search.

Some thoughts on writing a successful SAP Certification Exam…

Be clear about the common questions from topics such as Enterprise structures , plant, material, pricing procedure, tax, item category, account determination, etc.

Go through the (Control Parameters) screens, transaction level screens like purchase order, inventory, invoice verification, MRP, physical inventory, even standard reports etc. , and check what is possible and what is not possible at each docs,  what is defined at header and what is defined at each item.  Go through the menu path of each docs carefully and check what all is possible and from where it is coming.

Go through all the masters like vendor, purchasing info record, material, condition records for price, output, etc. Check what is defined at what level, what all is possible etc.

Check entire IMG – MM related, it will help you to understand what is defined at what level etc.

In your exam, pay special attention to the way the questions are worded - particularly with the words like can, only, always, except. Read each question very carefully. The statements in the exam frequently appear to be confusing (especially under the exam pressure conditions), so be cool, think logically and holistically before choosing your final answer.

Don’t take any chance in preparation but always stick to the basics, questions will not be asked on configuration, but will be based on what is possible and what is not and where it is defined.

Have good preparation to be confident but you need lots of patience when writing the exam. Prepare well, be patient, and you will definitely succeed.

Concluding Comments

In conclusion, I would like to mention that one needs to carefully plan, work hard but in a systematic manner, as well as develop a good understanding of the basics, to excel in your MM Module Certification Exam.

  All the very best.

I have been thinking a number of things through recently and I thought I would take the time to outline them here in good ol' SCN.

I have been a SAP Mentor since the program began. I remember getting a call from Mark Finnern to ask if I would like to join the program that was being upgraded from the SDN Mentor program. Back then, the SDN Mentor program was a "Craig Cmehil bouncing board" as he worked with some of the issues of the growing community site. I was certainly very excited and honoured to be chosen when the program became formalised as the "SAP Mentors".

Being an SAP Mentor is one of the most rewarding things you can do in your SAP career. I have always held the opinion that what you give to a community is far more important than what you receive back from it. So this being call for new mentors season ( and they are being announced very soon) I thought I would pen a few thoughts as to what a new mentor should be looking to achieve in their mentor-ship.

For starters I will assume you have read the call for new mentors blog and the Foundational Principles document upon which the Mentor program has developed into.

Now:

It's not about the stuff. I have always been one about it not being about the stuff.

It's not about the shirt.

It's not about the free bag.

It's not about being a rockstar.

It's not about the entry to events.

It's not about the seating at keynotes.

It's not about the meetings with SAP Executives

It's not about getting your name read out on stage by Mark Yolton as a community hero.

It, quite simply, is about what you can give to the community.

That is it. Was that too simple for you?

You might have missed it so I'll say it again.

Being an SAP Mentor is about what you can give to the community. Actually, being a community member is about what you can give to the community.

I am probably preaching to the choir here because only those who are active and who are blogging are reading this. If you are just using SCN for answers for technical questions (which is a perfectly legitimate use of the site) then you probably haven't discovered this blog.

I look forward to meeting the new Autumn* mentors as they are announced very shortly. I certainly enjoyed getting to know some of the new Australian mentors that were announced in the Spring* last year.

In conclusion, if you feel that you are up for passionate, massive giving to the community then by all means set a goal to become an SAP Mentor. If you have been gamified by the thought of all those 'things' I mentioned above then pull back and think about why you would want to put your name in the ring.

http://storify.com/tomcenens/sap-virtualization-and-cloud-week-2013

The virtualization&cloud week kicked off today in the sunny Palo Alto.

I have been pretty active today on Twitter using hashtag #sapvweek so it makes more sense to let the tweets do most of the talking for me instead of me repeating the same things again.

Storify on SAPvWeek Day One:

http://storify.com/tomcenens/sap-virtualization-and-cloud-week-2013

Panel discussion

The panel discussion will be posted online on http://www.youtube.com/user/ChurchillClub

Event hashtag on Twitter

#sapvweek

Stay tuned for the next two days

What does DKOM stand for?

DKOM is an internal SAP events and DKOM stands for "Development Kick-Off Meeting"

Why is DKOM important for the SAP Mentors?

DKOM is an internal SAP event where the management of SAP addresses their own developers. It's the ideal occasion to align everyone.

This is an opportunity for the SAP Mentor to see how SAP addresses it's internal developers. The event provides insight on how SAP did in the past period(s) and also where the focus lies in the period(s) to come.

The more insight we get, the better we can voice for the SAP community and the better we can collaborate with SAP to improve products and services.

Where does DKOM take place?

At many locations around the world, DKOM events were organized and at many of these events,SAP Mentors were present.

DKOM was taking place in Germany, France, Israël, San Jose, Instanbul, ...

DKOM in Germany held one of the bigger DKOM events since it took place in the Arena in Manheimm and Walldorf, SAP's HQ.

What happens at DKOM stays at DKOM

All the SAP Mentors first had to sign a non-disclosure agreement before being able to attend DKOM.

Day one: getting to DKOM Germany ~not always easy + keynote sessions

From my place to DKOM in Mannheim was approximately 400 km's. Due to the weather, it took my about four hours to get there. It had been snowing during the night and the highway was sometimes more a ice skating arena than anything else so at times I was limited to gliding very slowly. I also saw multiple vehicles and trucks stalled who previously had glided off the road or through the center onto the opposite lane.

At one point I had to stick my arm out of the side window to clean my windshield because the rental car had frozen sprinklers and I couldn't see anything anymore . You can say it was an adventure .

A number of SAP Mentors experienced delays or had to go through a lot of travel time to make it to Manheimm because of airplanes that were diverted, or flights that got delayed because of the weather conditions.

I still arrived to early since I left at 3 am in the morning at my place. The first day of DKOM took place in the SAP Arena in Manheimm. I had no clue SAP has it's own Arena actually. I sat down for breakfast (provided by SAP) and some coffee and patiently awaited the arrival of other familiar faces.

During day one, we were mostly in the main arena space where a large stage was set up and either presenters were on site, on stage presenting a keynote or from time to time, we would go to a remote location for a keynote session. The sessions were very interesting because of what I already mentioned before, the different perspective, getting a glimpse at the inside world of SAP. One of the many privileges of being a SAP Mentor.

A number of persons asked what SAP Mentors are about (not enough though) so we were happy to explain what the SAP Mentors stand for and why we were attending DKOM.

One of my favorite keynote sessions was Hasso Plattners session.Why? Because he is so real and honest and passionate when he speaks. It's very entertaining to watch and listen to what his perspective is and he brings a crystal clear message. How valuable was day one for me? Very valuable, be paying attention during the keynotes, I got really good insights on where SAP will focus on in 2013 and a good sense of what is on the priority list.

The above picture was taken after the first event day ended, in a local restaurant in the heart of Walldorf. It's great to catch up with friends and to strenghten the relationships. Obviously, a lot of "SAP" or at least technology talk at the table went on as ideas and discussions took over the talk about non SAP topics .

The food was good as well and we ended the evening on a decent hour as many were tired and there was yet a day to come . My hotel was just across the street so I didn't even have to walk far, a good number of SAP Mentors were also staying over there. We tend to look for good price/quality (for me and many others mostly in the low end range of the prices) for a place to stay the night. It's not always easy to be enabled to go places.

Day two: visiting the mothership ~it's huge + topic sessions

Picture source: http://newshopper.sulekha.com/germany-earns-sap_photo_1031513.htm

The SAP site in Walldorf is huge and throughout the day, sessions on a wide variety of topics were scheduled. We had to sign up, up front to attend sessions much like you would when you go to SAP TechED. I went through a good amount of buildings shown on the above picture. Nowadays there are even more buildings though, the above picture was taken in 2009. It was my first time at SAP Walldorf and I was impressed by the sheer size of the site and the buildings and the atmosphere (this is the mothership right).

The sessions were interesting and I did get some scoops and information that I wasn't aware of so the NDA got signed for a reason. I mainly focused on attending sessions related to SAP Solution Manager and SAP HANA as those are topics which I have a lot of interest in.

I also had some talks outside of the sessions with persons who I bumped into or had mailed to that I was in Walldorf that day. So also outside of the sessions I had some nice conversations and I made some new connections. Connections are very important, don't be fooled. You can shout and scream but in the end you need to have the right group of persons listening to what you are shouting or screaming about.

As day two ended, most SAP Mentors headed home again. Not me though as I had another day planned at SAP Walldorf. A day which fell under another NDA agreement.

Tomas KrojzlTomas Krojzl was still around as he was going back the next morning so we went for dinner in the same restaurant as the night before and we discussed SAP HANA mostly.

Who sais you can't learn anything while having dinner?