As an ASUG volunteer, part of my responsibilities are to try to gauge what the attendees at the annual event are going to want to learn about. It's not as easy as it sounds, because we have a very diverse population here. We have people who have been working with SAP for a dozen years - and people who are thinking of using SAP. Technical folks and business folks. Developers and CIOs. I think all the ASUG Program Chairs bear this audience in mind, and try to select a variety of sessions and speakers, for all skill levels, and from varied backgrounds.
And for me, it all boils down to those wonderful 'Aha!' moments - when I see somebody in the audience light up during Miguel Viera's session 'Workflow: A Beginner's Guide to Drive Efficiency and Productivity' - where he told the tale brilliantly of his own 'Aha' moment, as an FI functional person, how he learned to turn on workflow and how his company has seen the benefits.
Or, at Mike Pokraka's session, Workflow Events: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques - when you look around the packed room, and see people nodding and saying 'Now I get it.'. Mike has worked diligently and generously in many forms to enlighten people about various usages for SAP Workflow. See a sample blogSAP Business Workflow FAQ And when you travel perhaps thousands of miles, you really want to want that bang for your buck. I think a lot of people got that here.
For me, the lights come on at this conference all the time. It's when I meet up with my fellow volunteers and we catch up after a year. We can exchange tips and tricks, and have some laughs as well. It's when I catch mark.finnern/blogand we can talk about TechEd09 - and the excitement for that event starts to build.
It's when I attend the Michael Hill session, Business Process Management with SAP NetWeaver... and the lights go on. Someday? Me and NetWeaver BPM? Wouldn't that be cool?
And what about an 'Aha!' moment at the Hasso Plattner keynote address? Columnar storage instead of traditional table columns and rows? That had a lot of developers' mouths watering.
Or have you seen how much Sustainability is being talked about here? Is that not an 'Aha' for all of us?? Check out Jim Spath's blogs - always enlightening (no pun intended)
