For my last blog (sniff) on the "old" SCN platform, I have an SAP Community Network podcast I did on an interesting topic: the "suggest mobile apps" area on SAP Idea Place. I'm pretty new to Idea Place myself, though we did use it to get Natascha Thomson to TechEd last year. 🙂
At any rate, what I found interesting about the "suggest mobile apps" area on Idea Place was the chance to provide visibility into the demand and interest in different kinds of mobile apps. If SAP is to make good on its vow to have partners develop upwards of 80% of mobile apps (Jim Snabe said 90% in Madrid), that means partners will need a clear idea of what kinds of apps are needed.
Enter this podcast. To find out what inspired the "suggest mobile apps" section on Idea Place and how it fits into SAP's mobility strategy, I talked with SAP's Nick Brown and Clemens Suter-Crazzolara. Since the new section launched six weeks ago, there have been more than 150 ideas from 50 contributors, making it one of the fastest growing areas within Idea Place to this point. But there are still many community members who don't yet know about this project - thus this blog and podcast.
During the thirteen minute podcast, Nick shares SAP's mobility strategy and his vision for how Idea Place can help pull the ecosystem into a crowdsourced approach to suggesting and prioritizing mobility app development. Clemens, who has been driving the project, explains how those who haven't used Idea Place before can get started suggesting their mobility ideas.
(If for any reason the player doesn't work, you can download the podcast using the "download media" link on the right hand side).
(Trouble downloading? if for some reason it's not playing in its entirety for you, check out the version on JonERP.com in the meantime.
Podcast Highlights
:54 SAP's mobility strategy in a nutshell and what inspired the "suggest mobile apps" area on Idea Place. Nick: I hope Idea Place becomes a vibrant, innovative knowledge sharing area, where SAP and its partners can deliver lots of mobile apps into out customers.
4:02 Clemens: Idea Place is a unique opportunity in the SAP ecosystem for customers, partners, and any other stakeholders to take part in defining the apps portfolio for the mobility apps that will be built out on the Sybase Unwired Platform. Everyone can chime in and have input directly. The threshold is very low, there are no restrictions, and anyone can join in. We have requests from many partners and customers when we started on this journey to offer more transparency in this process. For the first time, we are exposing the requirements gathering to the outside world - it's quite revolutionary.
5:28 Clemens: To get started, just go to the Idea Place web site (you have to be registered with SCN), within 5 to 10 minutes you can post an idea. You only have to come up with a good app name, but don't use the word "mobile" or "app" in the name. Add in as much info into the description as possible. Then you have to activate your personal ecosystem, email the idea to everyone you know and get them to comment. That's the key to crowdsourcing- get as many votes as possible, and let folks know on Twitter, LinkedIn, or SCN. We'll look very carefully at the top ideas and pass these on to SAP development or to our partners,
7:25 Clemens: We have been live for six weeks, have done limited advertising on some social media and drawn attention to the site. A couple ideas have gotten interesting traction, for example: a sales incentive app, where a salesperson can see on the mobile device where they stand with incentive payments each month.
8:46 Nick: Partners can use this project to get a clear picture of the kinds of apps of what the ecosystem wants, find out what the customers are looking for, what people in SAP's solution management product team are seeing momentum wise.
11:10 The best way to get started? Go to Idea Place for the SUP group called "Suggest Mobile Apps" and start suggesting and voting on ideas.
Relevant links: In addition to the SAP mobility apps ideas section on Idea Place, you can also check out Clemens Suter-Crazzolara's clemens.suter-crazzolara/blog. Also check out the mobility section on SCN.
