May 18 2010

SAPPHIRE / ASUG Annual Conference Day 2 Part 1

Categories: 2010 Annual Conference / SAPPHIRE Dave Rathbun @ 11:58 am

This morning I got up bright and early. That is to say, the sun was bright and I was early. I made my way down to the ASUG lounge area in order to participate in a “meet the experts” session with fellow SAP Mentor Ken Hartman. We had a small but enthusiastic (meaning awake) group of folks at our session, so that went well. After the session I visited with a gentleman from Australia, talking about the Mastering BusinessObjects conference that’s coming up in a few weeks. He told me not to expect to go surfing this time. Apparently Melbourne gets ocean currents delivering water from the southern ocean extremes… Antarctica in other words. 😯

I skipped the keynotes this morning in order to catch up on some work email and other items. After the keynotes I had a meeting with Laure, one of the folks responsible for the configuration and operation of the community software used by the SAP Community Network (SCN). It was great to talk to her and share thoughts and ideas about working with online communities. That’s not exactly breaking news on the BusinessObjects front, but I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. It also helps explain why I don’t have much to report this morning.

Oh, I did stop by the booth for RoamBI. They’re giving away an iPad, and I didn’t bring any business cards. I didn’t bring any because I didn’t print any when I joined my new company, so that’s my fault. I checked in with a few reporting ideas and they said they should be able to get something put together. Anything is better than concatenated text emailed to a Blackberry, right?

There is a funny video they were playing on a loop last night that featured Hasso Plattner interviewing himself, asking questions about in-memory column databases. I watched the entire thing before I realized that he was on both sides of the picture. 😆 He was dressed differently and had different hair styles and everything. I didn’t care about the interviewer, I just wanted to see his responses. When it looped and started again I realized what was going on as I paid more attention to the interviewer. Funny.

No keynotes this afternoon, but a few Mentor sessions and then the ASUG Volunteer reception.

Not looking like I’m going to hit any roller coasters this year…