As this blog is coming very late than it should come on (27th Nov). Nothing else to blame for it than my own laziness and some problem with my blogging profile. The problem just got resolved and immediately after the resolution I am posting this weblog....My apologies for the delay.....
I used to hear that the SAP Community Day always rocks and even I was expecting the same in Bangalore after seeing the various blogs about the success stories of other SDN Days at Las Vegas, Munich and Sanghai. Now after attending this I can say it was much more than what I was expected. It was about Breaking Records in Bangalore.
The general session given by Mark Finnern and Mark Yolton was quite impressive. The fact & figures given by Mark related to the SDN growth was itself showing that how fast the SDN has grown in the past and at what rapid speed it is going ahead. Interesting & amazing figures....Some changes in SDN rewards was also a major point to notice which I think in-turn will push more quality contributions. One best thing here was, more we SDNers contribute; more SAP will contribute towards the charity. So it’s SDNers Contribution=SAP Contribution for charity for a noble cause Food for Points... Fantastic initiative...
By the time this session was going on I have recognized many of the faces to whom I was knowing through SDN as Mark F., Mark Y., Marilyn, Gali, Uri, Abesh and many others as these people can be seen near to the stage but still I was missing Craig and could not get to search for him as I was totally busy in listening the session. Suddenly I noticed one person just next to me moving his hand in the air with a paper sheet "5 Mins" towards the stage, I moved to see that person and said myself "Hey it’s Craig." Even after sitting for more than 50 minutes at a distance of hardly 1 foot from Craig I could not notice him. Now you can imagine how well the sessions were going on. By the time I had a thought that yes SDN is very different from other communities but why; I never tried to figure it out. And after attending the community day that question was no more in my mind which depicts how good the community was and what a nice experiences it was.
Speed Networking was obviously one of the best parts of SDN day. Interacting with many people, getting known to each other and sharing contact details was fun-filled. The last section of speed networking was the best part of it. People from their specialized area were gathering at one place to knowing each other to exchanging their views. Even I met with many (known names on SDN) from XI/PI along with Prasad Illapani, who gave some idea about the upcoming release of PI7.1 and it was good to know that the new release will have many more new & advance features which will help us while working on it.
Followed by speed networking it was the time for lunch; which followed by different BOF sessions. First session "Creating a Global Online Community Culture" hosted by Marilyn & Mark F. was totally an interactive session with few good cooments/feedback on the community culture from the participants.
The last session SAP Community Day B'lore: Panel Discussion on "Future Trends/IT Trends and their consequences for career" was another feather for the community day. It was hosted by Mark Yolton and the panel was comprises of Ravi Vasudeva, Vijay Mallampati, Sandeep Sosale, Prashanth Raj, Karl Kessler. This discussion had given some thoughts on what is emerging and what to follow going further. Just after the panel discussion it was the time for dinner, which was stupendous..:)
Altogether it was a SDN buzzing day which rocked completely!!!!!!!!! Meeting with some of the SDN enablers Craig, Marilyn, Mark Y., Mark F., Gali, Uri and others was a good experience. I always wondered why anywhere talk goes about SDN then suddenly Craig's name comes in between, but after meeting with him and seeing his enthusiasm level no wonder at all. He is having fabulous energy in him. After meeting Abesh I can say he is gonna the next generation Craig Cmehil!!!!! Apart from SDN enablers there were many people with whom I met and some of them were from the same field as I work on. Meeting & talking with Rajesh Banka and Mrinal Wadhwa was also quite good.
At last I can say the SDN provided the best platform to many individuals to come together and share their knowledge and thanks to the initiative like Community Day which bring us together. Till that time I had known to the people by their name/pics (virtually) on the SDN. I can say earlier I met with those people virtually but meeting with them in person (realization) was really amazing. It was all about virtualization to realization especially for people like me who attended this for the very first time. Altogether it was Bangalore - community of friends... as said by Craig.
