After lunch I went to the Community Clubhouse where I talked with Brian Bischof for a while. I had been introduced to Brian the night before; he is a well-known author, having published several books on Crystal Reports. He also has a series of articles on his web site (end of post for link) that talk about his experiences with self-publishing that I found very enlightening. I enjoyed the talk.

Last night I had dinner with several of the folks I had met for the first time here at the conference. Again, the conversations were very interesting, including some of the inside gossip that you can’t get anywhere else. For example, I heard from one person that there is a specific cap on the percentage of R&D dollars that can be spent on SAP integration of the Business Objects products, and the rest is to be spent on future improvements, existing product integrations, and new ideas. That comment was kind of a “throw-away” remark and I can’t share where it came from (protecting my source, so to speak). But it does make me feel better because a lot of the Business Objects sessions here at TechEd seemed to be all about the SAP integration.

Of course this is an SAP conference, so that’s probably to be expected. Still, hearing about the plans for future R&D was reassuring as a “legacy” Business Objects partner.

After dinner it was on to a private reception for SAP Mentors, and from there to the concert by the Black Crowes. Yes, I have a picture. Yes, it’s from my cell phone. Yes, it’s a terrible quality picture, but I will post it when I get home. And yes, they were loud. This morning my head still hurts, and I did use the free earplugs they provided.

This morning I am probably going to get to the convention center and have a few final conversations and then head to the airport early. Hurricane Ike is bearing down on Texas, and I would like to get home. Today.

If I had to pick my favorite part of the conference, I think it was easily the first day, the Community Day. I got to see some really interesting projects, talk to some fascinating people, and meet folks from around the globe that are as passionate about community, openness, and information sharing as I am. The rest of the week was good; day one was fantastic. I look forward to interacting more with my new friends online, no matter where they are.

Related Links

• CrystalReportsBook.com

But not much to report as far as specific track sessions, I’m afraid. So you, too, my blog audience, have the day off from the conference as well. Hope you were as productive as I was.

Day II of TechEd ended with an evening event that showcased contributor projects from all over. From what I understand of the process, it started with people submitting proposals (or perhaps even working code) to a selection committee. The selection committee members picked seven of the projects that sparked the most interest, and those project teams were invited to TechEd to share their work. Each team had six minutes to showcase their project and show off to the audience. As the moderator of the event remarked, “We show code here. If you use Powerpoint you’re booted off the stage.” Or words to that effect.

The first presentation showed how the Canadian National Railroad does plant maintenance using a custom application with a touch-screen laptop with cellular modem connectivity. For the railroad, their “plant maintenance” is over a million miles of railroad track. It was an interesting application and I thought it was well done but since he went first, I think the applause was a bit less.

The next application showed an interface that allows folks to build interface forms without code. The funny part was that as the gentleman turned around he had one hand stuck in his belt and announced, “… and I will do it all with one hand tied behind my back!” That got a nice round of applause, and he proceeded through his demo (which did include some typing) and did indeed do the entire demonstration with one hand.

After his presentation the moderator started talking about SAP and folks working with data and as he was rambling on another gentleman from the audience walked up on stage. I apologize for the lousy picture quality (cell phone camera, what can you do) but here he is:

In case the picture is too fuzzy, that’s Brent Spiner from Star Trek TNG. He played “Data”.

There was also a demo of the ESME project, which I have already talked about a bit. There were a couple of of demonstrations that showed iPhone integration. There was a project / database that was a reference of the extension points available in the current release of SAP. The winning project was an enterprise spell check. To be honest, the spell check application was nice, but it wasn’t my first choice.

I guess I wasn’t loud enough.

For example, the InnoCentive information I posted about just a little while ago came out on other blog networks while the general session was still going on! So I guess my “live” blogging is not nearly as live as it could be. When I went to the first-ever phpBB (the software used for BOB) conference in London I did live blogging from the main session room because there really weren’t any breaks. Here there is a separate (private) room for bloggers to set up and do their thing, so I’m not sure why (other than being “first to market”) they feel the need to blog during the actual presentation.

Not much time to check facts or add references that way either.

After the Xcelsius session wrapped up after lunch we made our way back to the larger ballroom for a question and answer session with Jimmy Wales. I don’t know if you know who that is (I did not, until I read his bio). He is the founder of Wikipedia, and he was really interesting to listen to. This session was a bonus; he was also to be the guest speaker at the opening keynote later this evening but as a part of Community Day we got him to ourselves for a while. This was probably my favorite part of the day… and it didn’t even have anything to do with SAP or Business Objects or anything. The idea behind bringing him in is that he’s made a top-ten internet destination out of a huge community project. Since today was “community” day it certainly made sense to hear what he had to say.

Oh, and my “technical issue” that I mentioned earlier, about not being able to get hooked into the wireless network at the convention center? It wasn’t a technical issue. I just need new glasses. The network access instructions (including the password) were printed on the back of my conference badge. Despite this, I didn’t take the time to get my laptop out during the rest of the afternoon as I was getting more benefit from talking to people around me.

I have to say that I have been given an extremely warm welcome here. It seems like everyone I meet or am introduced to knows about BOB and our own little community, and everyone seems genuinely glad that I’m here. I finished out the day with a very warm and fuzzy feeling. And if you’re wondering, yes, that’s a good thing.

What is ESME?

After the session with Jimmy Wales I attended a topic about something called ESME. The acronym stands for “Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment” and if you boil it down to its simplest description it’s a corporate version of Twitter. Twitter is one of the many new applications that are part of the “Web 2.0″ movement, and it essentially lets people post short text bits to a server where they are then broadcast out to subscribers. ESME is built on top of the Netweaver platform and is designed with corporate use in mind rather than the broader open internet audience. Is there a value in a twitter-like platform within the enterprise? The folks working on the project certainly seem to think so, although they do recognize that there will be challenges with getting the “corporate suits” to buy into what is essentially an industrial strength text message system. Even though the audience was small for this talk I found it to be very interesting, and even managed to make a suggestion that the team seemed to like. Ultimately I think this would fit somewhere in the collaboration toolset very well. It will be interesting to see how things turn out for this project in the longer term.

We were supposed to have the SAP CTO Vishal Sikka talk to us later in the afternoon. Unfortunately his plans changed, so Mark Finnern turned the time into a general Q/A session with those folks that decided to stick around anyway.

Jimmy Wales Keynote Speech

The last talk of the day was Jimmy Wales again. This time it was much more formal has he was the keynote speaker just before the evening reception. He talked about the organization and philosophy behind Wikipedia and included some interesting statistics about the growth of that service. He touched on Wikia as well. Wikipedia is designed to be an encyclopedia … a reference on specific topics. Wikia is more of a free-for-all in that anyone can set up a subject and start writing articles on it. For example he showed the wikia page on the Muppets, which had over 15,000 articles and was still growing. That’s a lot of talk about Muppets.

Finally, he talked about his most recent venture, Wikia Search. I was fascinated by this part of the talk since I think that Google is going in the wrong direction with their search process. Wikia search is designed around the same community participation aspects (where they’re appropriate) as Wikipedia. In that sense they (Wikia Search) have two major milestones to reach: they must index a large enough cross-section of the Internet to be relevant, and they must also reach a critical mass of community participation. Without the community aspects, the system doesn’t work. I would like to do more research about this project (and perhaps blog about it more in the future) but for now I will simply say that the talk was fascinating.

Oh, and I went up and talked to Jimmy after the talk and shook his hand. He was very approachable and was extremely happy to stay around after his talk and visit with the audience.

Evening Reception

We finished the day with dinner and some games. Lots of games. They had 3 Wii systems set up (they raffled them off at the end of the night… I didn’t win) along with two pool tables, foosball tables, air hockey… and a table with Legos for those that wanted to sit down and play. There was a band at the end of the room playing a nice mix of songs (keyboard, guitar, drums, and bass) and at just the right volume for the room. I played a couple of foosball games (won both) and visited with some more very nice people.

Even if this was the only day of this week that I attended, I think I would have considered it a success. The good news is, there are four more days. Perhaps one of them will top today.

Related Links

• More about ESME
• Twitter
• Wikipedia article on Jimmy Wales

One of the other interesting details they shared was something called the Food for Points program. They revealed that they had just gone over the 2.5 million points level, which means that SAP will donate one hundred thousand euros to a program that feeds school children in different countries around the world. It seems that in earlier years that SDN (SAP Developer Network) would recognize outstanding contributors by sending them t-shirts. This year instead of wasting the money on shirts and postage they are sending the money to an international food fund. I think that’s an awesome decision, and it got quite a round of applause when the audience was told that they had just exceeded the 2.5 million point mark required for the minimum contribution. There are additional contribution amounts that will be made at 3M and 3.5M points if attained before the end of the year.

As a very basic level, from what I can tell anyway, points are a bit like the “Topic Points” system we have on BOB. If people ask questions and get good answers, they can award points. The total points is an indication of just how active the community is. The more questions are asked and answered, the more points are generated. The number of questions answered is also increasing the value of the community for other members as well. It’s a “win” all the way around.

They had one slide where the recognized the newest members of the SAP Mentor program, so I got to stand up and wave. I was introduced as the founder of BOB; I wonder how may people here know what BOB is.

We’re just about to break for lunch. I have been attending a presentation from Ingo Hilgefort, one of the product managers for Business Objects. We’re going to be setting up an Xcelsius dashboard that uses SAP data (naturally, this is an SAP conference). I have not had a chance to work with Xcelsius much (I still have to think about how to spell it!) so this will be fun for me.

I’ve taken a quick peek at the activities for the rest of the week… it looks like a lot of fun, and a lot of information. I have so far not figured out if there is a conference access password for the convention center wireless network (like there was in Berlin) so I am blogging from the class laptop. I don’t know if I will be able to keep up the “live” blogs for the remainder of the day, but I am working on that. It’s just a technology issue… and I should be able to solve that.

And during all of this (along with client work) I got an extremely wonderful complement myself a few weeks ago: I have been recognized as a member of the SAP Mentor program. What the heck is that? That was my initial question.

In short, the SAP Mentor program appears to be a super-sized version of the BOB Member of the Year program. A link to the FAQ page appears in the releated links section at the bottom of this post. The description from the page reads as follows:

A program to find and promote the best active SAP experts in the whole SAP world. Giving them direct and early access to information and SAP employees as well as helping them to spread their knowledge within their network. Use their passion and knowledge to improve SAP products and processes.

I clearly am no SAP expert. But it’s not news that SAP now owns Business Objects, and I do have some expertise in that area. I assume that I was offered the honor because of my ongoing role as the BOB Administrator as well as my active participation in the national conferences over the years. I was not told the exact reasons for my selection, so I am simply guessing. I certainly appreciate the honor.

As part of that honor I was invited to attend the TechEd event that starts tomorrow in Las Vegas. Day 1 of TechEd is the “Community Day” where I will get to meet other mentors and attend presentations. I was quite pleased to review the agenda and see more than a few presentations related to Business Objects. What I hope to do is do daily blogs from the conference (much like I did from Berlin earlier this year). As this will be my first experience at a TechEd event I hope that my first impressions will be interesting to other folks from the Business Objects side of the fence. I’m also very happy to be going to a conference without seeing my name on the speaker list.

So, hopefully I will be “talking” to you quite frequently next week. The primary goal will be to share my experiences with TechEd, but I also have some unfinished posts related to the GBN launch that I would like to get out as well.

Now I’m off to print my boarding pass and finish packing my bags for Vegas. In this case, what happens in Vegas will be posted here. Within reason, of course.

Related Links

• SAP Mentor Program FAQ
• SAP TechEd 2008