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Former Member
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When I was asked to be the "official" blogger for the SAP Influencer Summit, I assumed that it would end up following a similar flow as SAPPHIRE Reflections - Welcome to the INSIGHTS from SAPPHIRE Blog earlier this year.  That is, I would write up some short observations after each of the morning's keynotes and post them throughout the day.  Later in the evening, I would provide some more general observations about the event, with perhaps some on-site tidbits to share with those that couldn't attend in person.

It didn't turn out that way at all.

I wrote the SAP Influencer Summit 09: Thoughts on the Eve of the Summit during the relative calm of the night before the Influencer Summit.  I planned to write my second post during the break after Jim Snabe's and Vishal Sikka's morning keynotes.  Since we expected that the influencers to be very active on twitter, I also decided to monitor the #sapsummit hashtag live during the morning keynotes.  If specific issues came up, I could respond to them myself and, if anyone made any relevant comments, I could refer to them during my slots between the other presentations.

I knew that I was going to be busy but I wasn't quite prepared for the firestorm of tweets.  While I don't have any reliable statistics (and my comment of 400 tweets in one minute now seems suspect), at one point #sapsummit appeared in the "trending topics" section on the twitter home page. The tweets weren't just from the attendees in the room but also from those attending virtually.

What's more, the tweets weren't just about content.  We learned that we had audio problems with the on-line platform, insufficient capacity on the wireless, and even the need for more electrical sockets.  Twitter gave us real-time feedback.  In return, I tried to provide the attendees with real-time feedback as well.  While no one was happy with the technical issues, they were happy that we were listening.

All of this meant I had no time to write the second blog entry.  Someone suggested that they could ghostwrite an entry for me but I've already gone on record that it's a really bad idea to have someone else do this.

While I may not have been timely writing this blog entry, I think we successfully integrated twitter into the event.  As @timoelliot said, "#sapsummit is the first I've seen that comes close to using the possibilities of real-time Twitter -- good job..." 

SAP Influencer Summit 09: Thoughts on the Eve of the Summit

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