I admit I went to the Munich TechEd with the best intentions. I had picked out all my sessions before I arrived. Of course, I had to reduce the number of sessions taking into my account my own session and then my presentations at the BPX Roundtable table. Unfortunately, I ended up only going to two of the sessions that I selected before I arrived. To tell you the truth, I don’t know whether I should be ashamed or proud of this fact. Because I was a speaker, I received a lecture-only session pass, so I guess I shouldn’t have a guilty conscience regarding the price of admission. I just ended up sitting in the Clubhouse listening to the various roundtables / sessions that were presented there and talking to other SDN / BPX community members.
I especially liked two roundtables at the BPX Knowledge Table where Amir Rubin (product manager in the SAP NetWeaver Product Management group, specializing in SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer) discussed Visual Composer and Thomas Volmering (Senior Product Manager for Business Process Management) / Wolfgang Hilpert (Senior Vice President of Business Process & Event Management who leads development of the next generation business process management) discussed the new Process Composition Environment with the Eclipse-based tool –code named “Galaxy” that was demoed during the Keynote. The roundtables were small groups with max 8 participants – that were open to all those interested – with high-powered SAP managers.
After being accustomed to large sessions where interaction was often difficult, here I was sitting at the same table with these guys. This gave me and the others at the table the opportunity to pepper the executives with questions. Owen Pettiford has And You Thought Galaxy was Chocolate Bar...but it is a new BPM Tool from SAP - TechEd News the results from the roundtable with Volmering / Hilpert and his blog has important details for BPXs. I always think that such roundtables are much more fulfilling than the normal lectures. I was amazed that more attendees weren’t crowded around that table. The fact that both product management teams came to talk to BPXs was an indication that SAP is serious about developing technology that meets the needs of the BPX. Both groups were interested in hearing our opinions, ideas (irregradless of how crazy they were) and reflections as BPXs. Thanks Marilyn for organizing them.
I had other great conversations with other SDN/BPX community members and found it interesting to discuss various ways to nurture both communities in a way that allows both to evolve separately but still support one another - interacting where such actions are possible and desirable.
