That membership will include full access to the online community at asug.com, the ability to attend all regional chapter meetings throughout the U.S. and Canada, and access to education and Influence activities specific to the non-ERP BusinessObjects customer. These are the primary services available via paid memberships, and the test drive through the end of 2011 should help prove what the true value is. I am guessing the reason they went to the end of 2011 was to show a full cycle of Influence Council meetings. The free membership is only for legacy BusinessObjects customers; it will not be offered to SAP ERP customers. That makes sense.

What happens for existing BusinessObjects customers that have already joined and paid for their membership? Bridgette covered that too. Those members will be recognized as “founding members” and will receive special benefits, including credit towards the upcoming BusinessObjects User Conference. There will be more details later, but I am very encouraged by this development. This is what we (the former GBN steering committee) and others were asking for. Obviously ASUG listened.

The ASUG board of directors announced that they intend to open a new seat dedicated to a Business Objects customer. This board position is intended to be filled by a customer that is not running any SAP enterprise products but has heavily invested in Business Objects technology. If you are a dedicated Business Objects customer and have a high-level executive that would be interested in sharing your viewpoint with the rest of the board and ensuring that your voice is heard then ASUG wants to hear from you.

I am no longer a member of the GBN steering committee. I didn’t get fired there just isn’t a need for that group anymore. However, ASUG has asked each of the steering committee members to stay on in a new role: I am now a Global Ambassador for Business Objects within ASUG. Or something like that. There were some details about the new ambassador program released at the planning meeting, but I expect that a more formal press release might be coming out at some point once the program has more details. In an interesting twist the global ambassadors (former steering committee members) have also been granted SAP Mentor status, which I already had. I certainly feel that’s a positive step because in my experience the Mentor program has remained primarily focused on the SAP enterprise products. The amount of content related to “classic” Business Objects products and services has been in the minority.

There were several activities going on in parallel during the summit. One group was focused on finalizing the selections for the spring ASUG conference which is co-located with SAPPHIRE in Orlando. Another group was working on plans for year-round content such as webinars. There were discussions about the influence councils. (I asked about the results from the Web Intelligence influence council from last year and was told it was essentially done and was being reviewed by the legal department. Hopefully we’ll see something soon.) I am assuming that a next step will be to request abstracts for the fall conference and repeat the planning process for that event.

I did a bit of work tonight on BOB to remove the GBN logo from the user profile screen. It has been replaced by an ASUG profile icon instead. I also swapped out the GBN logo from the sidebar of my blog and replaced it with the ASUG logo and a link to the organization home page. This will be my last blog post that gets the “GBN” tag as well.

Session Code: 902
Title: Return of the Variables
Session Date: Oct 19 2009
Session Time: 1:30PM – 2:30PM
Room: Fleur De Lis A&B

The past few years I have done a few presentations on universe design and I have another one this year too. I just finished a project where we had to deal with recursive (hierarchical) data, and we used quite a few interesting techniques to solve those challenges. I’m going to show various ways to model recursive data and the implications each design has on reports. The subject is a bit more specific than I usually like to use for a conference presentation, but it comes up enough that I decided to submit it anyway. I hope the folks that attend will find it useful.

Session Code: 1012
Title: Universe Models for Recursive Data
Session Date: Oct 21 2009
Session Time: 10:45AM – 11:45AM
Room: Grand Ballroom D

The conference is back in Dallas again this year, which means I don’t get to travel somewhere fun. More information on the conference (including a full schedule) can be found on the conference web site.

Related Links

• GBN Annual Conference

It was certainly different for me. Presenting to a live audience is not stressful to me at all anymore. I have enough experience that it just doesn’t bother me. Whether I am delivering a training class to an audience of ten, or a conference presentation to an audience of hundreds, it doesn’t make me nervous at all. But today on the call was a different story. I was quite nervous! I had all sorts of worries. What if my Internet connection goes down? What if my dog barks, or my doorbell rings? (I was doing the presentation from home to avoid the background noise from being in an office.) None of those things happened, which is good.

What I didn’t realize until going through the presentation was how much I “feed” off of and react to the audience during a live presentation. When I am delivering live content I get a feel for whether people are interested in what I have to say. As long as their eyes are open and facing forward, and heads nod in appropriate places, I figure things are going okay.

On a webinar, that wasn’t possible.

I logged in to the webinar website as the presenter from my laptop. I also logged in as an attendee from my desktop. By doing that, I was able to monitor exactly what everyone else was seeing. I think that helped because it was easy to make sure I didn’t get ahead of the screen refresh. I also tried to keep an eye on the chat room and watch for questions. When I could, I tried to incorporate answers from chat questions into my talk. I think that process went okay, but I know that I would do a better job next time.

In any case, if you’ve joined the GBN you’ll soon be able to review the webinar online and judge for yourself. I don’t have an estimated time for publication, but as soon as I find out that the session is available I will be sure to post it here.

There are other speakers from the GBN conference that will be delivering their presentations in this format as well. I just get to go first and iron out all of the bugs in the process.

I have been asked by a few different folks about evaluations for the conference, both from an attendee perspective and for speakers as well. For previous conferences conference attendees filled out evaluation forms before leaving the site (that’s how you got your conference t-shirt). For the GBN conference we didn’t do that. From what I hear, conference attendees will be soon receiving an email with a link to an online survey, at which point you will be able to provide any feedback about the overall conference.

I don’t know how much of the details for the conference feedback will be made public. Business Objects did not release the overall conference evaluation numbers to the public. I do know that every single comment will be read, categorized, and evaluated. This was the first year for a GBN-run conference and I think everyone recognized that there were some differences. The opportunity before us will be to sort out which differences were important, which should be repeated, and which should be fixed.

For example, one bit of feedback that I intend to provide is related to the room configuration. The room I was scheduled to speak in was quite large, and fairly deep. I don’t know how many rows of chairs there were, but it was more than a few. Yet there was no raised platform for the speaker in the front of the room. I am sure that impacted how visible I was in the back of the room. I imagine everyone could hear me, but hearing is not the same as hearing + seeing at the same time. I think for larger rooms we want to make sure we have elevated platforms next year.

Speakers, on the other hand, will be waiting a bit longer to get our feedback. I don’t have exact dates, but I am told that each speaker should be getting an email soon with more details on when we can expect to see our results. I know I look forward to seeing the numbers. I have had some great comments over the years, and I do strive for the best overall ratings that I can get.

Survey response percentages are typically very low. If you attended the conference and you’re reading this, I would encourage you to fill out the survey once you get the link. The function of the steering committee is to “steer” or guide in the desired direction. It is your voice that should determine that direction. Let’s hear it.

I haven’t drawn the winner for the cup either, so that’s coming soon.

Not too long ago I was selected to be on the steering committee for the newly forming global user group now known as GBN (short for Global Business Objects Network). While I was busy preparing for and attending TechEd 2008 GBN launched our new web site (in the related links for this post), provided a PDF for the press release, and gave me a logo to add to my posts. Of course having the logo is the most important, right?

The steering committee had our first face-to-face meeting in Chicago last month. I thought the meeting was very productive, but there was one important part that was not entirely present. I am just one of several steering committee members. Each of us has our own ideas and our own concerns. I want to be more… I want to carry your ideas and your concerns too. The most important part of a global user group is the middle word “user” as without it, the group has no purpose. That’s where you come in.

At the meeting we were each given an early look at some of the “swag” branded with the GBN logo. As you can see from the picture below, it’s a nice insulated travel coffee cup.

People that know me personally will probably remember that I don’t drink coffee. Therefore this snazzy insulated travel coffee cup is really of no use to me, and I want to give it to you. Really, I do… no strings attached. I’ll even cover the shipping anywhere in the world. So what do you have to do to win this precious one-of-a-kind (okay I made that up) item?

Tell me how to make the GBN work for you. What services do you want to see? What can we provide that will make your Business Objects life easier, more productive, or just more fun? What should our focus be? Frankly, it can be any or all of the above… just use the comment form at the bottom of this page and enter your suggestion / comment / idea / concept or anything else that comes to mind. Share your concerns and your hopes for this new organization. I will read each and every one of them, and I can promise that I will take them all – even the silly ones – to the next committee meeting and share them.

What do you get for your efforts? Other than the self-satisfaction of knowing that you’ve provided input into a very important process, in roughly one month (Friday, October 17^th) at midnight, central time, I will take everyone who has posted a comment and drop their names in a hat. The name that is then drawn from the hat will win this prestigious GBN Cup (okay, now I’m really over the top). If the winner will be attending the conference in Dallas later that month I will hand deliver it. Otherwise I will contact you for shipping information and send you your cup.

So, how about it? What can we (the GBN) do for you? Tell me.

Related Links

• GBN Announcement (Press release in PDF format)
• GoGBN.org

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

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.