One of the reasons that I choose to become an SAP customer is my respect for the people I’ve met. So the other morning when Carolyn Brock – the Director of Social Media Marketing who enlisted me to write for SAP on the Cloud – invited me to have a chat with Bonnie D. Graham because she was starting a “brought to you by SAP” Internet talk radio program, I was favorably disposed and totally on-board!
Yeah — I know, I know. These sorts of testimonial posts are supposedly more compelling when the narrator starts out full of skepticism and doubt and is then won over at the end. Let’s be honest, though: I am not an SAP employee and I’m not getting paid for this — but I have agreed to do an extended series of thought pieces and I associate myself with the SAP brand quite proudly. I am not unbiased. I am a big fan of these people. You can go to some other corporate blog if you want saccharine.
Speaking of things you can add to your coffee, SAP presented the very first episode of Breakfast with Game Changers on VoiceAmerica Radio last Wednesday at 11 am US-ET / 8 am US-PT. (If that time doesn’t work for you, you can also download the podcast on iTunes.) Bonnie kicked things off this with some thoughtful conversation about the nature of being “a game changer” with SAP’s Dan Mahowald. I even did some live tweeting to add to the discussion. Having a radio program is a really cool way for SAP to support the community every week. You can sit and eat your personal breakfast (be it a donut with sprinkles or an egg-white omelet — to each their own), check some e-mail while Bonnie interviews a business leader of interest in the background, and perhaps pick up some small bit that rattles around in your head. That rattling might lead to a seemingly trivial decision that you make differently during your day. You can tune in again the following week and maybe there’ll be another slight change to some choice. If you make a weekly routine of listening, sooner or later some of Bonnie’s food for thought could be the very thing that starts a chain reaction with game changing results for you. (Hey now — my point is dead-on and the wordplay was practically served to me on a plate.) As is always the case, though, Bonnie can only serve up the ideas. It is your job to convert those ideas into energy and action.
To wash this post down, I’ll anchor it with a theme that I’m mixing throughout my work: the best tools, technology, and processes are only a part of the recipe for success. To truly make the most of a powerful business infrastructure, you need deep thinking, practical insights, and great people. You can get a helping of all three of those things on Bonnie’s program on Wednesday mornings.
Click here to read other posts by Ian McCullough.
Ian McCullough is an independent project management and operations consultant for consumer-facing businesses. He has successfully deployed cloud-based solutions (including SAP Business ByDesign) at the companies he works with, so he is an active practitioner and builder – not just some random theorist. For more information, you can visit his LinkedIn profile. SAP strives to provide world-leading service to all of its customers regardless of size, so rest assured that the opinions presented in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of SAP or its agents.
Joker Breakfast © 2007 Malczewski Wojciech. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 license.
October 12th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Thanks for the shout out, Ian. I have to admit my personal Twitter account is lacking. I spend so much time moderating the @SAPByDesign account I fear I’ve neglected my personal account!