I got accepted to present at the fall Business Objects conference again this year. Things are really on a tight schedule; we only have about two weeks from acceptance to the date when the first draft is due. 
With all of the work required to keep up with client obligations, Integra projects, BOB stuff, this blog… well, blog posting may be a bit sporadic over the coming month or so.
Having said that, it seems that I will also be able to go to the SAP TechEd conference next month. I’m finalizing travel and other arrangements now. I hope to be able to do “live blogs” like I did from Berlin earlier this spring since I will be there primarily as an attendee and not as a speaker. There is a bit more news on that front but I need to get final confirmation on a few details before posting anything further.
Busy. Busy. I’ll be back when I can.
A few days ago I posted about the new GBN (Global BusinessObjects Network) organization. They’re going to be responsible for the user conference this fall that is replacing the “Insight” conferences run by Business Objects in the past. One of the questions posted as a comment to that post was this:
Will the Global BO Network be organising the conferences around the world?
We over here in the Asia-Pac haven’t had one for awhile…
I did some digging and asking around and some guessing, and at this point I have some rumors to share. 
From what I can tell, the intent is to sponsor several conferences a year. If that is the case, then the Asia-Pacific Rim area should be on the short list of options to consider. I suspect that we will see plans for GBN-sponsored events in both Europe and Asia-Pac in 2009 along with at least one large “Insight-style” event in the US. Part of the reason for me guessing this is they will want to put their best foot forward in order to secure long-term support and interest for their program, and the best way to do that will be to get out in front of the users. By doing that, they can share their vision and mission with the largest group of people… which should ultimately prove beneficial for both parties if they can deliver. And from our first conference call (in my earlier post I mentioned that I was selected to the steering committee for the GBN) one of the focal points was the “G” or “Global” nature of the program.
Getting global events running would be the best way to reinforce that concept, yes? 
The EU-Insight from earlier this year was in Berlin along with the SAPPHIRE conference. Given that the GBN wants to emphasize the independence from the product company I would expect that future conferences will not be held in conjunction with SAPPHIRE but will instead be a separate venue. Most of this is guess-work at this point as the new organization is just getting off of the ground. If I learn anything concrete I will be sure to share it when I can.
There has been quite a bit of speculation on BOB about what the future holds for the annual conference. As many readers will know, I have been a very active participant in the conference for more than a decade. I attended my first conference in 1995 and delivered my first presentation in 1996. I have been honored to have been selected as a presenter every year since.
But that was then, what about now?
Continue reading “What’s Happening to the Annual Conference?”
The final speech has been spoken, the final demo has been given, and the final beer has been consumed. (What do you expect, the conference is in Germany… 
) The beer was consumed by someone other than me (I don’t drink beer) but I sure enjoyed the company anyway. One of the things that I have found both this year and last is that with the smaller conference people are much more available. Obviously the full SAPPHIRE conference is very large (up around 9,000 people I was told) but the Business Objects portion of it remains smaller than the American Insight conferences. That means I get to talk to many more people that are both interesting and interested in what I might have to offer. Today was a great day for that. Continue reading “SAPPHIRE Day 3 - It’s Over”
I had an opportunity to meet the head of ASUG at lunch today. It was a good lunch (I’ve already posted about the food ) as we got a chance to discuss some of the initial feedback on BOB regarding how user groups are going to be managed under SAP. I posted a few notes about it here already. In a nutshell there are some potentially exciting things that will be coming in the next year or two for the regional user groups. But of course that’s not all that’s going on today. Continue reading “SAPPHIRE Day 3 - Part 2″
Wednesday has dawned (bright and early, thanks to Alan Mayer who I am sharing a hotel room with ) and so I am able to post some thoughts before the day gets along too far. I watched only a portion of the general session this morning so I don’t really have any comments on it. The first track session that I plan to attend is on the text analysis tool that Business Objects purchased last year. If you haven’t heard of it yet, it’s essentially a tool that allows you to scan unstructured data like blog posts or forum topics looking for information. One of the standard demonstrations shows how this tool can let you scan hundreds or thousands of emails that come into your customer service department and get an overall “feel” for the sentiment of those communications. It’s an interesting idea.
While I have time, some general thoughts and ramblings about the conference experience… Continue reading “SAPPHIRE Day 3 - Part 1″
I called this “Part Only” since I didn’t get to do a “part 1″ today like I did yesterday. My presentation was this morning so I took the extra time this morning to complete my preparations for that, and then Alan Mayer (another Integra presenter) had his presentation this afternoon. As a result I have not managed to get to too many other presentations. I just got finished watching Tim Nightingale present on the benefits of migrating to XI 3.0, and there are some interesting new features that he called out as specific benefits. Continue reading “SAPPHIRE Day 2 - Part Only”
This is my second post of the day from Berlin, Germany, where I am attending the SAPPHIRE conference. This is the first merged conference since SAP acquired Business Objects, and it has been interesting to see what is the same… as well as what’s different. Continue reading “SAPPHIRE Day 1 Part 2 (Wrap-up)”
So far I’ve been to the general session and one track session. I was wondering how the logistics were going to work with SAPPHIRE and the number of people here… it worked out fairly well. Once the main room filled out they sent overflow people to the “theaters” which are located throughout the conference facility. It was a good presentation; they showed some nice integration between SAP and various Business Objects (or other) products, and according to the presenters these are technologies that are available right here, right now. Meaning they’re not future integrations, they’re already here.
There was also plenty of new stuff (or so it seemed) for the SAP folks in the same presentation.
I also managed to track down one of the folks that has been responsible for the Insight conferences in the past and tried to confirm the information going around (or lack of information 
) regarding the fall Insight conference. At this point he could not formally confirm anything, so I guess we’re still in the dark at least for a while. I know that there have been some announcements regarding a fall conference in Dallas, and we did talk about that. Essentially I got the “can neither confirm nor deny those allegations” sort of remarks.
The conference overall is huge, of course. But it’s relatively easy to find the Business Objects wing and hang out there. I’ll try to post more details about the track sessions and other information as I have time (and laptop battery) to do so.
One of the advantages of living in a big airline hub city like Dallas is that flight connections are generally good. Things start to fall apart for international flights… especially for some destinations. Berlin is one of those places, it seems. Continue reading “SAPPHIRE 2008 - Getting There is NOT Half the Fun…”
