Twice a year in the spring before Sapphire  and in the fall before SAP TechEd season we ask you to nominate the next SAP Mentors. 

Now you may ask: "What makes an SAP Mentor?" We have spelled it out in our SAP Mentor FAQ:

Who is an SAP Mentor?

SAP Mentors are the top community influencers of the SAP Ecosystem. Most of the ~100 mentors work for customers or partners of SAP. All of them are hands-on experts of an SAP product or service, as well as excellent champions of community-driven projects.

• Hands-on expert in an SAP product or service
• Collaborative attitude
• Good communicator
• Preferably working at a partner or customer of SAP
• Interested in improving products and services of SAP as well as the relationship of SAP with its customers, partners and prospects
• Proactive engagement

If you don't hit all 6 points, you can compensate by being exceptional in the other 5.

Even though the above is hitting all the right attributes, for many it still doesn't really convey what an SAP Mentor is. We have a long running joke: "I don't know what an SAP Mentor is, but I know one when I see one.

There are voices, I got a reminder email yesterday, that call for a greater spelling out of what SAP Mentors' tasks and responsibilities are. We resist the urge to do so, as we believe it would kill some of the mentor magic. 

One of the happiest mentor magic moments happened in Madrid last year. When in large part carried by SAP Mentors we surprised Marilyn Pratt with a little flash mob decked out in blue T-Shirts saying: "What would Marilyn Pratt do?" It was in a beautiful way celebrating the tireless community work and positive influence that Marilyn has on SAP Community Network for all these years.

Check out the picture and you realize that the majority were SAP Mentors, but it included many other SCN community members. A proof that mentors strive for inclusion. Even if you are not an SAP Mentor, we welcome you to run with the Wolfpack and you can be part of most of what we are doing.

Another example was the #suithugging meme that also sprung up in Madrid.

Take a step back, it was pretty ballsy move to walk up to a suit and hug him, at least the first couple. But it really lightened up the whole event and brought geeks and suits closer together. It did its small part to convince that co-locating SAP TechEd and Sapphire Europe is a positive thing and we are doing it again this year in Madrid.

These are two examples where SAP Mentors make a huge difference, even though it is hard to measure or quantify and these activities can not be codified in tasks and responsibilities to be checked off and this is why we don't do it. We don't want to inhibit this spirit of passion that brings out the best in us and that inspires others to join and do their best too.

If you know someone that is living that spirit, has the passion for all things SAP, wants you to thrive in that world too, then nominate that someone to become an SAP Mentor. We can't wait to give them a bigger megaphone to the community as well as into SAP. We need to hear their voices loud and clear.

You are an SAP Mentor for a year, no automatic renewal. Through the prodding of 2 of the most influential SAP Mentors Craig Cmehil and Dennis Howlett, we have created a graceful way to move on. We created the honorable SAP Mentor Alumnus/Alumna postition.

As they say: Live is what happens while you are making other plans. It catches up and sometimes sweeps you away and when you can't continue to let your light of passion shine in the larger SAP community anymore, then it is time for you to hang up your shirt and give other worthy candidates the stage. If life takes another tag and you are ready for another engaging SAP chapter, we will welcome you back with open arms.

It is inspiring to work with some of the smartest, most passionate, engaged and fun people in the industry. As with all good things in life there is effort involved for you to make the best out of it, but man is it worth the effort.

P.S. You can nominate SAP Mentors until the end of February and the new SAP Mentors will be anounced a month before Sapphire Orlando.

A couple of weeks ago Mark Yolton was invited to an offsite by Jonathan Becher, SAP's newly minted Chief Marketing Officer.

Mark told me how inspired he was by the event. Jonathan quoted Peter Drucker: "Culture eats strategy for breakfast!".

If your strategy doesn't align with the underlying culture of the organization you will fail. First change the culture if it doesn't align with your new strategy. But cultural change is hard.

I thought about it and realized that jamming SAP culture is one of the greatest things SAP Mentors do, and they do it all the time.

Wikipedia defines culture jamming as a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising.

In the context of the SAP Mentors I see culture jamming differently. It is a positive force that uses events, iconography, posters, webinars and social media to nudge SAP to embrace a more open, sharing, collaborative culture.

In 2007 when I created the SAP Mentor initiative, I wanted us to be easily recognizable. An icon. I zeroed in on the "O" in SAP Mentors and thought it would symbolize a shining sun, the light that the mentors bring to everything they do. I added the "!" exclamation point to add weight: SAP Mentors are willing to state their opinion.

I was proud, especially when the miracle of all miracles ocured: it got the O.K. from SAP branding. I introduced the shining sun to the mentors; but without missing a beat, and if memory serves me well, it was Jim Spath, who brought me back to earth by simply calling it the mentor lemon.

Once in a while I would remind people of the original meaning but knew that was a lost cause. It will forever be the mentor lemon and I actually enjoy that.

If you want your influencer community group to thrive, take a page from Improv Comedy. "Yes, and ..." are the two words that link improve scenes together and enable the flow of ideas and the improv magic to happen.

With these words, you ensure to build upon the ideas of the people that came before you. A "NO" stops everyone in their tracks and is hard to overcome without feeling forced. It may also be the key to success in life: embrace and improve the ideas of everyone around you and life's riches will flow in your direction. A new The Secret book coming up next fall ;-).

I am almost half-way there, being known for saying "Yes, but ...". I am working on the "and" part.

In chronological order here are more examples of SAP Mentors jamming SAP culture including the differences they made.

Culture jamming: Open Thinking

Once the SAP Mentor logo was out Oliver Kohl took it and created a screen saver adding a new tag line that we SAP Mentors embraced: Open Thinking.

Culture jamming: Frickin' Amazing!

Many of the SAP Mentors are fans of Hugh McLeod. But then there is Dennis Howlett, who has many of McLeod's prints hanging in his home in Spain. Dennis especially loved this one.

Dennis approached Mark Yolton, Mike Prosceno and me about getting prints for all the mentors.

We accepted the challenge, shared the cost and expanded on the idea. We gave every mentor two prints. We gave them one to keep and one to give away to someone who did a frickin' amazing job in the larger SAP community.

Mike Prosceno was even able to get them to share it with SAP Co-CEO Bill McDermott.

Picture by Martin Gillet

These interactions lead to the forming of the SAP certification council with SAP user groups, partners and SAP Mentors working on improving SAP certification.

Last week in Madrid we brought the print back, and Dennis during the blooger dinner organized by Stacey Fish from Global Communications, he gave one to SAP's other Co-CEO Jim Snabe.

Picture by Harald Reiter (?)

Culturejamming: SAP Mentor Stickers

The king of SAP Mentor stickers is Martin Gillet. He found a place to print them, came up with some cool culture jamming slogans and is sharing them freely with everyone.

Pictures by Martin Gillet. Compostition Mark Finnern

When the SAP Mentors were at DKOM they swarmed SAP founder Hasso Plattner, put a sticker in his hand and took the following picture:

Picture by Martin Gillet

I would never have dreamed that SAP Mentors would meet Hasso Plattner, but I used the above picture to ask whether he would meet with us. I am convinced that the picture piqued his interest, and it was the reason he made room in his busy schedule at Sapphire in Orlando.

Picture by Martin Gillet (?)

I am still pinching myself from the former, and then who walks in? Jim Snabe, pointing to the SAP Mentor button he got from John Appleby at the Global Communications reception the night before and says: "I am an honorary SAP Mentor. I can join this meeting." and sits down.

Culture jamming: Blue SAP Mentor shirts

I believe one of the ways I brought innovation into our culture is through our distinctive blue shirts. People want them. The shirts bind the SAP Mentor "Wolfpack" and create a succinct identity.

Here is the original design from 2007, the legendary rugby shirt. All SAP Mentors got their own number and twitter handle or whatever they wanted on the back.

It has made a difference in so many ways. I love to walk on the big SAP TechEd showfloor, and with one glance I am able to find my fellow SAP Mentors.

We also give the shirts out to honor people who made a difference for the SAP community cause. Here is Vishal Sikka getting his shirt last year.

Picture by SAP TechEd Team

Culture jamming: What would @marilynpratt do?

The original source for the "What would @marilynpratt do" [WWMPD] Twitter meme is at the time of this writing still under investigation ;-).

Marilyn Pratt is SCN's most amazing community evangelist. Her latest achievement was a series she called Embracing Inclusion – Driving Innovation : An Introduction which was paired with design thinking workshops during TechEd in Las Vegas, Bangalore and Madrid.

Her integrity, warmth and caring is part of everything she does. The realization between mentors and non-mentors of the SCN community was, that her behaviour is exceptional and a shining example for others to mimik: WWMPD. A flash mob was organized to honor her and was flawlessly executed last week in Madrid. [Video by Dennis Howlett]

Picture by Martin Gillet

To be part of that flash mob to honor Marilyn's tireless community effort was a highlight of my career.

Culture jamming: #suithugger 

The other meme that the mentors triggered in Madrid was hugging a suit. For the first time SapphireNow and SAP TechEd were co-located in Madrid. During the Demo Jam Ian Kimball told the geeks in the audience "if you see 'a suit', be kind to them."

Chris Kernaghan and Oliver Kohl picked up Ian's suggestion and started a #suithugger meme. Meet a suit, hug him, capture it and share the picture on the internet.

   Picture by Oliver Kohl

At first 'the suits' were a bit cautious, but then they literally embraced the idea. I heard over and over "Have you been hugged already?"

The list of SAP Mentors culture jamming SAP is impressive. It made us more open, collaborative and most of all we all have more fun. I assure you these examples are only the tip of the iceberg.

These amazing mentors are able to weave serious business with light-hearted fun. I recall Björn Goerke, Senior Vice President for SAP NetWeaver and the Technology Foundation, our guest for an intense interactive webinar. His last remarks, shaking his head, were "you guys [SAP Mentors] always seem to have fun."

I feel privileged to be part of this group. We are able to toe that thin line between serious business and having a lot of fun while creating results.

Update: Latest addition is Henirque Pinto from SAP Brazil. We needed some extra time to finalize this and I am super happy that it worked out at the end. 

We are adding more new SAP Mentors than we ever did to the SAP Mentor Wolfpack. We have teeth, but we don’t bite. Or should it say: We have Byte, but we don’t teeth? (Everyone under 40 will not get this. You may want to check out Byte magazine. My older brother had them laying around and it definitely influence my career ;-)

It is really exciting to add new SAP Mentors, as they bring in new wind, new perspectives and a great deal of contagious enthusiasm. Please keep an eye on our public SAP Mentor Monday webinar schedule, as we will soon announce the exact time and date when the introduction webinars will happen. We give every new SAP Mentor Cub 10 minutes to share their expertise, some nugget of SAP wisdom that you may not know of that will help you.   

As always, even though we are adding a record number of new SAP Mentors, there were a lot more excellent candidates that we were not able to add this time around. Please don’t be disappointed. Continue your great work in the larger SAP community. The biggest reward is to be able to help others anyhow. To all the “others” if you have been helped, make sure to thank them, let them know that they made a difference, SAP Mentor or not. Jon Reed writes about SAP Mentorship and recognition much more eloquently in the latest SAP Mentor Quarterly (page 14).

Please quiet down now for the twice-yearly drum roll as the new SAP Mentors are coming in. Keep your applause until the last one is announced, otherwise it will take forever.

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/u/251856298 [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken] Techedge SpA Italy

Ivan is the main driver behind the Code Exchange program abap2xlms and he came all the way from Italy and spend 30 hours on route to the SAP Inside Track Chicago, to be able to present the project in person.. That is pretty amazing and thanks so much for your dedication. Together with Sergio Ferrari he is organizing the SAP Inside Track Milan happening on October 8, 2011. They both were also super active during the SAP World Tour stop in Milan. 

Paul KurchinaKurMeta Group Canada

There are only very few people as connected into SAP as Paul is. Many years of working with SAP especially in organizing the SAP Enterprise Architecture community established him as the true Connector, Analyst, and Community Catalyst in the SAP Ecosystem. His Utility Industry background is also a nice asset that he brings to the SAP Mentor table. He has an idea of worldwide SAP TechEd decompression Inside Tracks a couple of weeks after the main events, can’t wait for him to share this idea with the community.

Jarret Pazahanick EIC Experts USA

Jarret Pazahanick is an SAP HCM Certified Consultant who has specialized in SAP Human Capital Management (HCM) since 1998. He is a subject matter expert in US Payroll, the Employee Interaction Center (EIC) and Enterprise Compensation Management (ECM). He will join Martin Gillet’s as another SAP Mentor with HR background. Can’t wait for that collaboration to blossom. 

Andreas Eissmann Data One GmbH Germany

Andreas Eißmann works as multiple certified SAP Business ByDesign solution and service advisor for Data One GmbH in Saarbrücken/Germany. As consultant, he's responsible for CRM, PRO and cross topics like data migration, integration scenarios etc. He is one of the few that has worked intensively with the ByDesign SDK and we are happy to give him the SAP Mentor megaphone to spread his knowledge and experiences all over the world.

Chris Kernaghan Capgemini UK

Chris has over 11 years extensive SAP experience, specializing in SAP upgrades and infrastructure migrations. He has been the senior technical consultant or team lead for 14 SAP upgrades. His new focus is virtualization and Cloud infrastructure technologies. – What? You need to know about infrastructure technologies in the cloud? I thought you just put it up there. Can’t wait for him to shine some light into my cloudy ignorance around Cloud computing.

Dilek Ersoz Adak MilSoft ICT Turkey

Dilek works as an SAP HCM and BI consultant (on both technical and business perspectives) for the last seven years. Her areas of expertise include but not limited to Payroll, Personnel/Organization Management, ESS/MSS, Objective Setting and Appraisals, Business Warehouse ETL and Business Intelligence Query Development. She was the co-organizer of the first two SAP Inside Tracks in Turkey. 

[Sad side note: Even though we are adding a lot of SAP Mentors, she is the only Mentorrette. Please encourage more female SAP experts to step up to the plate and nominate them in the next round. There are amazing competent women out there, that have a lot to share with the community and SAP. Sometimes they just need a little nudge. ]

Uwe FetzerSE|38 IT-Engineering Germany

Bio: : 20 years of SAP/ABAP experience and since 14 years self employed. Please get to know Uwe, he is a super solid guy and contributed from the early days of SCN. Someone who has the ABAP transaction code as twitter handle is passionate about SAP. He is the owner of 4 SAP code exchange projects. Enough said!

Martin EnglishIndependent Consultant Australia

He started with SAP sometime last century, working on R/2. Since my introduction to R/2, I've worked with most releases of R/3 and most of the NetWeaver releases and products, on most of the supported Operating System / DBMS combinations. When I saw his nomination, I thought, wait he isn’t an SAP Mentor yet? Well, now he is ;-) He is also hosting the SAP Mentor daily on Twitter, which makes more sense now, that he actually is one. 

Jan Penninkhof Phoqus Netherlands

He is an experienced software architect and team leader with a wide variety of experience in various companies. Throughout his career he managed and cooperated in many IT-related projects and businesses for more than 15 years. He speaks ABAP, Java and ActionScript fluently. Jan has been active at SAP Inside Tracks, presenting as well as winning the demo jam. More details during the SAP Mentor Monday webinar.

Eric Vallo EV Technologies USA

Eric Vallo has been working in business intelligence for almost 12 years, with other emphasis on web technologies and enterprise architecture. He has had a career which has spanned Fortune 50 and 500 companies, as well as small businesses, working in telecommunications, finance, health care, and government. Eric also founded and hosts the Diversified Semantic Layer network podcast together with fellow SAP Mentors Jamie Oswald and Greg Myers. He also has some Sybase IQ experience.

Alisdair Templeton Acclimation Pty Ltd Australia

Integration using SAP PI, including Message Modelling, Service Design, SOA Adoption, Pub/Sub with Autonomous components, and using REST as an Architectural Style. Development using ABAP, Java, Composition, BPM, Workflow, Object Oriented Design. Domain Driven Design, Test Driven Development and the application of Design Patterns. Mobile Development using both native and web based approaches – In line with this I am co-presenting an ASUG session at TechEd US which will demonstrate the development of an application based on jQuery Mobile which we will share with the class so they can “run mobility” at their company.  Sounds like an SAP Mentor worthy session to participate in.

Chris PainePresence of IT Australia

Chris’ area of expertise are technical SAP (esp. Web Dynpro ABAP and Java too), SAP HR, HR Business Process. Chris has 13 years of experience with SAP HR. Together with Neil Gardiner he beat out 4 SAP Mentors at the Demo Jam in Sydney earlier this year. Well, if you can’t beat them, let them join you ;-)

Mark Chalfen Bluefin Solutions UK

Mark has been working with SAP for over 12 years. His main focus has always been around the Finance modules within ERP. Over the last few years he has been focusing on SAP FSCM which is a new product in the Finance space. Cool, someone with deep business solution knowledge. Very much appreciated in the SAP Mentor world.

Harshit Kumar Accenture India

Harshit Kumar is an SAP CRM enthusiast. He has worked with SAP Labs in Product development of 5.1, 5.2, 2007, 7.0 releases as well as on the CRM On Demand release. He has also done multiple end to end implementations for globally acclaimed clients. I am convinced that Gregor Wolf and Stephen Johannes will be happy to get an addition CRM expertise voice to influence SAP and the community with.

Tridip Chakraborthy Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp USA

Tridip has worked on multiple SAP SRM projects spanning across implementation and upgrades. He worked on various products in the SAP-SRM suite offering, configured the Supplier Self Services component (SUS), SRM-MDM catalog and SAP Sourcing and CLM applications to handle the procurement process..

Henirque Pinto SAP Brazil 

Henrique works at SAP Brasil as a presales Solution Advisor, focusing on the solution architecture of platform (NetWeaver), mobility (Sybase) and the SAP NFE (electronic invoicing) solutions.

He is working for SAP since February 2007. For South American SAP community members he is well known as one of the driving forces behind Portuguese content as well as the SAP Inside Tracks Brazil, which they are planning to have 3 this year, which is quite the ambitious goal. Good luck with that.  

Now is the time for your applause. Please welcome the new SAP Mentor Wolfpack cubs. If there is someone missing, don’t sweat it. We will ask for new nominations soon. 

Yes, it is this time of the year again. Just after Sapphire and a couple of months before SAP TechEd. We would like to add new perspectives and fresh thinking to the SAP Mentors. The famous SAP Mentor Wolfpack Cubs. When they come in, they add amazing energy and new tracks to the beaten paths of our mentor group.

If there is someone in the larger SAP Ecosystem please nominate that person to become an SAP Mentor. SCN activity is a plus, but not a prerequisite, after all it is not SCN or SDN Mentor, we are the SAP Mentors.

Check the SAP Mentor FAQ section for what makes an SAP Mentor:

     
• Hands-on expert in an SAP product or service
     
• Collaborative attitude
     
• Good communicator
     
• Preferably working at a partner or customer of SAP
     
• Interested in improving products and services of SAP as well as  the relationship of SAP with its customers, partners and prospects
     
• Engaging proactively 

If your candidate doesn't hit all 6 attributes that is OK, it can be compensated by being exceptional in the other areas. It isn't hard science, we are looking for the spark in their eyes and actions, stealing freely from Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking we are looking for folks with spunk ;-)

What are the benefits besides free entry to SAP TechEd?

The biggest one for me is the chance to work together with highly motivated exceptional SAP experts from all over the world. It is amazing and energizing to be part of these people and to do my little part to make it a success.

Oh and sometimes the starts align and you get to meet the only SAP founder that is still actively improving SAP, the legendary Hasso Plattner. He took not 30, not 60 but 75 minutes out of his busy schedule during Sapphire to engage with us.

In this picture you can see him happily wearing his honorable SAP Mentor shirt. His number is of course 007.

The funniest thing was that ¾ through the meeting Jim Hagemann Snabe walks in and sits down with a smile and says: “I gut an SAP Mentor button yesterday, I am an honorable mentor, I can be in this meeting.” One of these famous SAP Mentor moments.

Once someone has been nominated we send them a form to be filled. One question we have added this time around is: What will you do with the additional access and visibility that you get with being an SAP Mentor?

I am convinced that we are at the beginning of the next evolutionary step of the SAP Mentor initiative. We are putting the structure in place to really make a difference within SAP as well as beyond. Join us as it is going to be exciting to be part of it. 

The  days are getting longer, the air is warmer and smells differently, with  Sapphire not even a month away, it must be the season: Please join me  in welcoming the new SAP Mentors Spring 2011.

I  am on a tour across the United States, with many stops at SAP Mentor  locations, this is why I termed it the SAP Mentor Lemon Tour. I even  gave it the hash tag: #sapmlt, but promptly forgot to use it ;-)

The  second evening I had a great dinner with the two Phoenix mentors: Vijay  Vijayasankar and Harald Reiter. It got a late start, as I ran out of  gas in the middle of the desert, but that is another story.

On  Tuesday the ever helpful Aslan organized a nice motel room in the town  that is so hard to pronounce and even harder to spell: Albuquerque.  Loved it there, and I stayed away from the beer. Well, I didn’t have a  lot of choice, as the coffee shop that I ordered my food at was closing  in less than an hour and therefore not allowed to sell any alcohol to me  or anyone, that’s probably a New Mexico rule.

On Wednesday Dave Rathbun introduced his fellow Dallas SAP Mentors Simon To and Ginger Gatling and me to a sweet delight: Strawberry Sopapilla.

Yesterday Christopher Solomon Introduced me to southern cooking: Yummy fried chicken livers.

Sorry for everyone who was eagerly awaiting who the new SAP Mentors going to be, this little adventure delayed this posting. Now that I have arrived safe and sound in Savannah: Drumroll, here are the new SAP Mentors spring 2011:

Ethan Jewett works at Business & Decision in Germany

Consultant  at Business & Decision, specializing in BI, data warehousing, and  planning. Committer on the Apache ESME project. In addition to the areas  of expertise listed below, I'm interesting in a wide range of topics  from programming languages to open technologies and standards to  politics to athletics. I love discussing it all.

Rule for success: Hire people that are smarter than you.  We make SAP Mentors out of folks that are smarter than us, so that they tell us when we are off the track. Ethan fits the  bill. He keeps us on our toes with his posts, like his latest: The specified item was not found..  He not only criticizes, but in good SAP Mentor fashion rolls up his sleeve  and creates an Idea Place suggestion to gather momentum for his  suggestion. [We are in the process to upgrade our platform, with that  the RSS feed limitations will hopefully be resolved too.]

Twitter: @esjewett

Pete Lagana works at Excellis Interactive in the US

VP  of Digital Experience at Excellis Interactive working across several  accounts.  Passionate designer, reformer and implementer of SAP User  Interfaces across multiple SAP platforms and products. Over a decade of  interactive design and development experience across multiple channels  (desktop, web, wireless, broadband) and platforms (SAP, Microsoft  SharePoint, IBM WebSphere).

If you have been around SCN, you know that Pete  is an SAP UI specialist who likes to share his knowledge. His passion about achieving a great user experience for SAP products and software. From portal and web dynpro to BobJ and Mobile UIs such as Sybase and Syclo, he wants to help the community get the most out of their SAP investment.

Twitter: @petelagana

Pratik Talwar with Colgate Palmolive in India

If  I am profiled for my skills, I would be identified with a balanced  combination of Business Process Knowledge ( SCM - APICS Certified;  Certified Six Sigma Consultant,KPMG) and Industry exposure related to  FMCG and Automobile Sector thus involved in process designing &  optimization.

So  happy that we can add an additional SAP Mentor from India. Pratik fits perfect,

He is a young and growing strategist for enterprises, keen to share and seek knowledge related to integrated and automated enterprise processes. He brings new perspectives to traditional methods of application development and influence strategic decisions by sparking new thoughts. He has one foot frimly planted in the business and the other in the IT world, which makes his knowledge so valuable. As Rashmi Manda writes in his Innovative Community Day at Bangalore - my notes (part 2): Pratik  was at the community day in the capacity of a “Business process Expert”  to help outline the business processes for the teams to work on. You can also check Partik out on SAP TechEd TV being interviewed regarding the value of the SAP Community Network.

Twitter: @PratikTalwar

John Moy with Australia Post

Worked  with SAP technologies since 1995.  Commencing as a SAP HR/Payroll  consultant with Accenture, I moved to join SAP Australia in 1997 and  transferred to the enabling technologies consulting team in Melbourne,  focusing on ABAP development and internet enablement in particular  (primarily ESS using ITS).  Later joined Australia Post in 2008 as the  SAP NetWeaver Development Lead, and most recently moved to a new  position as SAP User Interaction and Mobility Architect.

One of his many contributions is an iPhone App for searching HELP.SAP.COM. He has taken a lead in exploring the use of open source Mobile web frameworks such as jQuery Mobile, and PhoneGap integrated with SAP (see his blogs). John also furthered the dialog on SCN with his Can we reinvent the grey haired ABAPer? post. He wants SAP developers to keep up with the evolution of technologies and not consign themselves to the 'commodity pile'. Can’t wait to see where he is taking us next.

Twitter: @jhmoy

Sina Moatamed
Bio: Sina  Moatamed became BendPak’s Chief Information Officer and IT strategist  in mid-2007. Sina has been overseeing every facet of IT infrastructure,  projects, contracts and security to ensure that BendPak’s business  services are supported by the right systems, processes and people.  Sina’s professional history centers largely on multi-million dollar  global implementations at large enterprises.

Sina has spent most of his IT profession delivering infrastructure solutions for the large enterprise.  At BendPak he implemented a new strategy of building a "Service Focused Infrastructure".  This type of infrastructure strategy more directly secures technological services to the needs of the business. He used SAP ByDesign to implement this new strategy and I can't wait to hear more about it.

Tobias Hofmann with Accenture in Brazil

Graduated  from University of Mannheim (Msc) in Business Information Technology.  After working for SAP I work for other companies where I had to  opportunity to gain knowledge in Microsoft and open source products and  in IT processes like semantics, ITIL and collaboration. Later I moved to  Brazil, where my current client is Petrobras.

I  am excited to be able to add one more mentor in South America and he  deserves it for all that he is doing in the Brazilian community.  Marcello Ramos when organizing the SAP Inside Tracks in Brazil can always count on Tobias to help out wherever he can. He also keeps us up to date what is going on for example at the SAP Forum in Brazil earlier this year.

Twitter: @tobiashofmann

David Hull with Disney in the US.

David  is currently an SAP Solution Architect, focusing on database and  application infrastructure projects, and has been working on SAP  applications since 1996.


David is one of the few that can have Goofy as an avatar picture in his wiki profile and get away with it, as he is working for Disney ;-)  He has a rich  long expertise in SAP infrastructure and is a great community member  sharing his expertise freely with the community. Can’t wait for him to  influence SAP with our infrastructure direction.

Twitter: @sapdba

derek.loranca

Derek Loranca with Aetna USA

Derek  P. Loranca is a Lead Business Intelligence Specialist with Aetna, a  Fortune 100 insurance and managed care corporation. Specializing in  Informatics, Derek has spent the last 8 years in Aetna’s Enterprise Data  Warehouse (EDW) reporting and BI team. He served as a technical lead  for the EDW Standard Reporting Team, guiding and developing reports for  an application inventory of over 300 Crystal Reports, all coded against  Very Large Databases (VLDB’s).

He  truly loves sharing his knowledge with the community and enjoys watching  people absorb and learn from it. He is working for an SAP customer which  gives his voice extra weight and I can’t wait to hear it now amplified by being an SAP Mentor. He will be helping Ingo Hilgefort during his pre Sapphire/ASUG Annual Conference session: BusinessObjects  BI 4.0 Tools – In a Single Day too.

Having SAP employees as mentors is helping to make connections and opening doors within SAP.

Twitter: @golasalle

Martin Lang with SAP USA

Bio: Martin  Lang enjoys is current role in SAP Global IT's Enterprise Architecture  team, focused on building & deploying mobile apps within SAP  internally. Before re-joining IT in Nov. 2010 Martin worked as a  community advocate in the SAP Community Network team.
http://twitter.com/martinlang
Martin  was part of the SAP Community Network team and we were super sad when  he decided to go back to his roots at SAP IT. He is down to earth and  always helpful and has a wealth of knowledge that he is freely sharing.  It really helps to have someone connected in IT to get certain problems solved like system access for external mentors during InnoJam.

Twitter: @martinlang

Natascha Thomson with SAP USA

Part  of the SAP Social Media Audience Marketing (SMAM) team, responsible for  identifying best practices to create solution awareness and demand  through social media. Previously, part of the SAP Community Network  marketing team.

Natascha  is a connector in the true sense. Making sure that the right people  talk to and engage with each other to bring a topic forward. She was successful in  bringing more SAP Mentors to the Influencer Summit at the end of last year.  Her energy is contagious. I am really happy that she is joining the SAP Mentor Wolfpack. 

Twitter: @Nathomson

Rukhshaan Omar with SAP in Germany

Product  Marketing SAP NetWeaver BPM, co-author of "Applying Real-World BPM in  an SAP Environment" and moderator for BPM use case wiki.

If  you have not checked out the BPM use case wiki, you are missing out on a  wealth of information. Rucks is the driving force behind that wiki space. Check out her latest post regarding The specified item was not found. as an example where an SAP employee is sharing some SAP internal insights. She is very  busy with HANA at the moment and I can't wait for her to engage in that area too.

Twitter: @rukso

P.S.  My apology to all the ones that were equally qualified and  didn’t make the cut. It is one of the toughest deissions to make. There will be a new round of nominations and selections before SAP TechEd in the fall.

It is late and I should be in bed already, but I am super excited that 34 SAP Mentors will be part of the otherwise internal only SAP Developer Kick-Off Meeting (DKOM) 

It all started with me posting on our internal portal my feedback about last year's DKOM. 

We had a panel where customers were talking about their experience using SAP software. I felt they were way to kind to us and on a too general level to really make a difference with the SAP developers. My recommendation was: 

Let's open up more. The SAP Mentors tell me over and over, that  they are interested in the success of SAP. Why not bring them as the  experts from the field that not only give us a couple of sound bites  from a panel, but be in the sessions and tell us what is really going on in their area of expertise.

When Sinead Kaiya took on the organization of DKOM 2011 she stumbled over my rant and I am really grateful that she picked up my suggestion, got the executives to agree and was in general really supportive of us. 

In addition to DKOM some of the mentors were also part of the InnoJam happening the last two days too. I bumped into an SAP colleague of mine this morning and I ask him how he liked InoJam so far and he said: "It is really cool that they brought in customers and partners. That connection is endlessly valuable." That made my day. 

This is why I am so excited that 34 SAP Mentors worldwide will be part of DKOM starting right now in Mannheim. 

If you are at DKOM the SAP Mentors are easy to spot wearing blue shirts with numbers and often their twitter handle on the back. 

Don't be shy. Get to know them, collaborate, they are here to keep us on track and really happy to engage. 

They don't know all the answers, but they often know whom to ask. The icing on the cake is, we mentors are great to hang out with, as Bjoern Goerke famously said after the 3rd SAP Mentor meeting/webinar: You mentors always seem to have fun. Join us. 

You may have seen the blue shirt brigade at TechEd or Sapphire: Engaged, passionately driving community project forward.

Or you may have gone to a local SAP Inside Tracks organized by one or two of the friendly SAP Mentor Wolfpack.

And then, just the other day you saw someone really passionately challenging SAP constructively pointing out how we can improve. You walk up to her and ask: "Where is your SAP Mentor shirt?".  “Well, I am not a Mentor.” is her answer. You think: “Can’t be true! What an oversight.”

Now is the time to correct that oversight: Please nominate the next SAP Mentor!  

Made a little video that is essentially saying the same thing. 

SAP Mentors are the top community influencers of the SAP Ecosystem. Most of the ~100 mentors work for customers or partners of SAP. All of them are hands-on experts of an SAP product or service, as well as excellent champions of community-driven projects. 

Check out the just updated SAP Mentor Initiative introdcution slides.

P.S. Some video improvement ideas: External mike, get a haircut and more sleep ;-)

I am convinced that some SAP Mentor Monday regulars were cringing when they read the headline of this post. They know one day I will play that tune or should we say butcher that excellent song as a musical intro to the SAP Mentor Monday. Most SAP Mentor webinars are started with a little muiscal intro, ideally done live by one of the presenters, or another SAP Mentor. Unfortunately too many times folks are too shy. So I have to do it, although for the ones familiar with Asterix*, I feel a lot like Cacophonix (Troubadix for the Germans), just not really appreciated for it ;-)

Once you have survived the first minute (some just tune in a minute late), there is quite the interesting and dense content and the latest around a theme. Much of it you can also get somewhere else on SCN, but what you can't get anywhere else is the amazing high signal conversation developing around the SAP Mentor Monday webinar topic.

We encourage the presenters to have prepared content for about half an hour and leave the second half for question or better the conversation, as all too often someone from the audience is jumping in with a story or an example from the field.   

It is pure magic to have the insights from many years of deep SAP expertise from all corners of the world as well as all corners of SAP products and solutions unfold in conversation style. One of the beauties is, even if you are not an SAP Mentor, you can join the dialog ask and answer questions bring in your perspective.

Even if the time of the webinar doesn't work for you, you can check out the recording at your convenience, like the one with Tobias Trap and Markus Peter around: Development of Enterprise Services.

The next couple of weeks we have an amazing lineup of SAP Mentor Mondays. See the SAP Mentor Monday Wiki Page.

We are happy to have Hugh MacLeod artist and blogger behind Gapingvoid. Dennis Howlett and many other mentors are long time fans. Dennis nudged us to give all SAP Mentors the following print:

We gave them two. (For all mentors that have not been to TechEd, the check aka print is in the mail ;-) The first one is given as a little appreciation for all the great work the mentors are doing. The second one is for them to give away to someone who is frickin' amazing. Here On being totally frickin’ amazing. He even filmed a little video about it. We started to collect these stories on the SAP Mentor Wiki.

Now Hugh also gave us a bigger version of this print and this Monday the 29th of November we are unveiling it at SAP Labs in Palo Alto. Please join in person if you are around Palo Alto or via the webcast. Huge will be there via Satalite as they say on TV and we will talk about his creative process and how he is able to carve out his own nitch using social media.
SAP Connect Session: https://sap.na.pgiconnect.com/mentormonday Dial in:   1-888-894-0577 or 1-719-955-1561 additional Numbers Participant Passcode: 5795926235

Next up on the 6th of December our SAP Mentor Monday Monthly #sapmmm. The idea behind the monthly public mentor webinar is to have a regular event where we can talk about what happened during the last month in mentor land and take a look into what is coming up that you should not miss. And boy will there be a lot to talk about next Monday: Reports from SAP Mentors at the UK and Ireland User conference, recaps from the SAP TechEd (Including Innovation Community Day) in Bangalore and hopefully Shanghai.  We may move the meeting to a time slot that works better for the SAP Mentors in India.

Two days later the SAP Mentor Monday on a Wednesday. This one got kicked off by SAP Mentor Matthias Steiner via a forum post in the mentor forum wondering about the great interest in REST and Enterprise Services. First it was a shootout, which has been done before and was deemed boring. Both solutions have their place as so eloquently described in Richard Hirsch's blog post: The specified item was not found.

I am especially looking forward to this webinar, as it is at the sweet spot of expertise knowledge and passion of many SAP Mentors, therefore the dialog will be rich, enlightening and fun. I am convinced that everyone on the call will come away with greater insights of what solution to use when and what to look out for in the different areas. Can't wait.

The week after also a very interesting theme Governance Risk & Compliance (GRC) 10.0 with Michaela Zwinakis and Gretchen Lindquist:

• Overview of customer observations about SAP BusinessObjects AC from perspective of security administrators
• Overview of what's new in AC 10.0
• Q&A re AC what’s new
  
  Bio: Michaela Zwinakis Vice President, Solution Management at SAP  Currently leading Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) Access Control and Continuous Control Monitoring solution management teams.
  
  Bio: Gretchen Lindquist has been working in SAP Security since 1997, when she was part of the initial SAP implementation team at Halliburton. Her recent experience was focused on controls compliance and process improvements, and she was also the lead configurator and technical support analyst for an SAP partner system in their ERP landscape. Gretchen has held a variety of roles as an ASUG volunteer, and she is also proud to be an SAP Mentor.

Check back on the SAP Mentor Monday webinar site often, to find out what we are cooking up. Spread the word, as these are public and we don't want to keep it the best kept secret around SCN.

* I think it is really unfortunate how few US folks know Asterix in the US. Especially the early commix like Asterix the Legionary is so funny and layered.