My favorite event of the year!!!! It's here. Yes! It's almost over. Oh no. Or maybe back to yes again. I'm tired. It is a good tired. I have learned a ton. I have met a lot of people. I have gotten my brand new Mentor shirt. I feel like a new mentor now. What an amazing week. Here's my recap.
It started with a BANG!!
Innovation weekend. I have been looking forward to this event for a long time. I was hoping for the moon. (And some stars thrown in.) Did it deliver?
Sort of. Kind of. For the most part. As with everything innovation weekend was not exactly as I expected. Is anything ever exactly as you expect it?
I was on the business case number 2 - National to regional coordination. It was the one that I have been blogging about. Dreaming about. Thinking about for a while now. It was - at least I thought - to start at a national level and then aggregate down to the regional then down to the individual level.
My strange thought was to take the business case and work the technology into it. Let the business drive the technology. But I was thinking in the old "as-is" "to-be" framework. The name of the weekend was innovate for a reason. So the team I was on changed directions. We decided to start with what we could deliver, and then work backwards into the business case.
We ended up with a good result. During our demo there were some technical difficulties. That made everything a challenge.
So for the next innovation weekend - what are my words of wisdom for the next group?
- The smaller teams seem to get more done. Larger does not mean more productive.
- Be flexible. Keep your options open. We struggled with getting automation from Streamworks. It was authentication issues. There are only 24 hours (really) in the event. If a technology is taking too long to get working, then stop. Use a different technology. This is innovation weekend. The specifications are up to you.
It was a great way to start Teched. I had fun, and learned a lot. The drawback was the time limitation. I think code exchange will be a great place to take all of our ideas. Maybe we can build them out some more.
Monday night was my first Mentor meeting. I got THE shirt. THE MENTOR SHIRT. I now was a "real" mentor.
Next on to the big show:
SAP Teched.
I went to a lot of very good sessions. I learned a lot. My head hurts I learned so much. Here it goes:
Tuesday - It was a blur.
First was a session on BPM. I really didn't even know how to spell BEE-PEE-EM. Now at least I have the basics.
Then I skipped a time block. I wanted to be ready for my presentation. I presented on ABAP tips. I think it went OK. I had some technical issues prior to the session. That meant that everything didn't go as smoothly as expected. But it was fun. Again I met some great people afterwards. I met even more later at my expert networking session.
Next I learned about web services. I picked up some new tricks.
DEMO JAM!!! It was the event of teched. The demos were exceptional. The crowd was wild. The excitemen was in the air. Maybe too much excitement. Those of us who watched were completely entertained, and our attention was grabbed.
However, there were some rather loud people who were in the back by the bar. They never attempted to watch and therefor did not benefit from the work that everyone did. So if you go to Demo Jam, do yourself a favor, and watch the demos. If you don't want to watch them, don't come. I am all about networking and meeting new people. But not while an event is going on. Yes - I'm on my "high horse". Sorry I had to put my negative comment in as well as all the positive ones. Most people watched the presentations. Once they did they were hooked. Wow, the things people can thing of. (But watch the taped version. It's more fun than reading about it.)
Wednesday:
I went to some morning sessions. In one session, I heard a speaker talking to his co-speaker. They were saying they had a "rock star" in the crowd. They were talking about me!!!? It was my mentor shirt. Very strange, I must say. But it did make me set up a little taller, and pay more attention. Rock star? Maybe not. But I must say the shirt made me stand out.
My hands on session was 2 - 6. Update your ABAP Skills to SAP Netweaver 7 and beyond. Thomas Jung was the presenter. Need I say more? It was an awesome session. There was a small book of exercises. There was all kinds of goodies in this session. Including an ABAP object refresher, BRF+, Web Dynpro, it was a true buffet.
Thursday:
Web services Alchemy - very good. I learned some un-orthodox ways of doing web services. They will come in handy.
World Wide Ways of Workflow - WOW. This session gave the results of a survey done by ASUG about workflow. The results included some tips to solve real world issues. This is a great way of showing how spending some time on a survey will help shape training material for others. What a great way to do things. Train people on things that they have problems with. If one person is having an issue. You can bet there are more. I had to leave early for my very first Web interview.
I was interviewed by Gail Moody-Byrd. It was the first time I had ever done anything remotely like this. It was a live streaming video. I was under the lights and VERY nervous. I don't have the link right now so I can't add it to my blog. (I'm real sad about that. Real sad. Sure, I am.) I was interviewed with Simon To. Now he is an interesting person. He is helping to build out and promote Business Objects.
Then it was on to learning about some more about Webdynrpo for ABAP. I can't get enough of that.
And now. Now I'm tired, and writing this blog.
What did I like the most?
Meeting people. Making connections with people I know only from SCN. It was fun meeting you all.
Friday is the last day. I'll be happy to get home to my family. But I'm sad to see Teched end. I can't wait until NEXT YEAR!!!!
