I received the following email from ASUG (Americas SAP Users Group) CEO (Chief Execu- you know, there are just some abbreviations you should already know) earlier this week.
"All,
It’s been a year now since I joined you at ASUG as CEO, and I would like to invite your collaboration on a fun project to celebrate the highlights of the past year and help us set the stage for the next leg of our journey--pausing to take the pulse of ASUG as it were - the living, breathing, and evolving community we are – as we continue on this road together.
Please join me in reaching out to our membership to rally their impressions and gauge their experience of events like the first ever ASUG Virtual Education Summit; GBN joining ranks with ASUG; organizational changes including fiscal measures to secure our passage through the recessionary tide, and a team fully dedicated to Communities and Knowledge Management; our very successful SAP BusinessObjects User Conference last fall; our role in SUGEN and creating choice in SAP support options for 2010; the well attended Education Planning Summit in Atlanta; a 2010 ASUG Annual Conference this past May that demonstrated our relevance as an SAP user group; and the member value we have rolled out with our partners in programs like the ASUG Demo Service and Marketplace.
In addition, your experiences, insights, and anecdotes of the past year will turn this into a compelling snapshot of who we are and what we do, and serve as proof of the real experience and real advantage we create in the SAP ecosystem. Thank you for all you have committed and contributed to keep ASUG alive and thriving this past year. Now please take the time to put your personal stamp on our efforts to stabilize and strengthen ASUG and position it as an evolving entity in the months and years ahead.
If you are in on this, please send your 100-150 word contribution to asugfirst@asug.com by Friday June 25, along with any photos you’d like us to include. And please invite your peers and partners alike to join in and help us take the pulse of ASUG at this important milestone.
Regards,
Bridgette"
I'm not sure if any of my response would see the light of day (I can't believe they still let me blog -- login required), so I thought I would share the thoughts I sent in here.
"ASUG has really taken a step forward this year to include the classic SAP BusinessObjects users, and it shows. Having been with GBN from the beginning, I was cautiously optimistic about how the merger with ASUG would go. This past year, ASUG leadership has proven not only are they dedicated to providing value for their SAP BusinessObjects members, but that they are listening. We said that we wanted to keep our conference separate, and it is still separate. We said we haven’t proven the value of a paid membership, and the preview window has been extended significantly. I was not surprised that ASUG put their money where their mouth was, but I was still very excited!"
In any event, I wanted to give a shout to ASUG, because they really have done a great job representing the non-SAP ERP BusinessObjects customers. And because they still let me blog.
