My agenda for Orlando is already double booked in several time slots, and I am facing some very difficult choices. Maybe you are, too; there just aren't enough hours in the days. However, if you are an SAP employee or partner whose livelihood depends on delivering services and solutions to meet the needs of SAP customers, I'll come right out and say it: you are really missing the boat if you don't check out the Community Meetings over in the ASUG Lounge area. Of course, it goes without saying that these sessions are great for SAP customers, too.
That place will be hopping with SAP customers from every corner of the solution map, participating in discussions and networking sessions led by ASUG Community volunteer leaders. You name it - Portals, Small & Medium Enterprises, BI, BusinessObjects Ambassadors, Retail, Utilities, Enterprise Architecture, Sustainability, Workflow and BPM, Software Quality Assurance and Solution Manager - the list goes on and on. There are currently 44 such sessions showing up in the Agenda Builder, and they are open to all comers. If your job requires staying in touch with the concerns, pain points, and wish lists of real customers, these sessions, facilitated by thought leaders of the user community, could be just the thing to fill in that one last open slot in your agenda and make the whole event worthwhile.
Several of these community sessions will be led by volunteers who are also SAP Mentors, including at last count Butch McNally, Ingo Hilgefort, Sue Keohan, and Tammy Powlas, and perhaps others (apologies to anyone I overlooked!), so there is an added bonus for your consideration. During my session, Security and Internal Controls SIGs Networking Session at 2:00 on Tuesday, I plan to facilitiate a discussion of issues and influence wish list items, and I will be joined by other ASUG volunteers.
Some of these sessions also offer opportunities for interaction with SAP solution management. I'm especially intrigued to see a session on the schedule for Wednesday called Innovations 2010: SAP Will Now Take Your Questions.
How do you find these gems? In the Agenda Builder, select Advanced Search, then select Sessions. This expands the options; deselect everything but ASUG Community Meetings, and search. You can narrow your search further, but I encourage you to review the whole list, and click on the session names for more details. The whole idea of co-locating the ASUG and SAPPHIRE conferences is to offer opportunities to cross over to the "other" event, so I hope that the SAPPHIRE attendees consider these and other ASUG sessions.
