SAP Inside Track 2011 Vancouver – Wrap Up

[Former Member]

SCN Community Network Vancouver, led by Community Collaboration Manager, Jason Cao, hosted an un-conference style event called Inside Track again this year. It was a success with over 90 attendees gathering in the impressive new Executive Briefing Center (EBC) of the SAP Vancouver campus. Attendees consisted of clients, partners, independent consultants, students and SAP employees. This lively, informal meeting boasted 9 speaker sessions in separate rooms, Vancouver and Victoria (2 tracks), with networking and hands-on product demo sessions.

Managing Director, Kirsten Sutton, along with Jason Cao, each gave a welcome and there was an ice breaker session called “Getting To Know You Bingo” which injected the morning crowd with some energy and enthusiasm to kick off the first session. The first person to answer all the bingo questions within a 15 minute period won BI 4 t-shirts. Throughout the day, participants were encouraged to contribute to the SWOT analysis set up in StreamWork and the one with the most complete work would be the proud winner of an iPod nano donated by Laura Jamieson.

SCN Community Network Vancouver, led by Community Collaboration Manager, Jason Cao, hosted an un-conference style event called Inside Track again this year. It was a success with over 90 attendees gathering in the impressive new Executive Briefing Center (EBC) of the SAP Vancouver campus. Attendees consisted of clients, partners, independent consultants, students and SAP employees. This lively, informal meeting boasted 9 speaker sessions in separate rooms, Vancouver and Victoria (2 tracks), with networking and hands-on product demo sessions.

Managing Director, Kirsten Sutton, along with Jason Cao, each gave a welcome and there was an ice breaker session called “Getting To Know You Bingo” which injected the morning crowd with some energy and enthusiasm to kick off the first session. The first person to answer all the bingo questions within a 15 minute period won BI 4 t-shirts. Throughout the day, participants were encouraged to contribute to the SWOT analysis set up in StreamWork and the one with the most complete work would be the proud winner of an iPod nano donated by Laura Jamieson.

Ty Miller led the first session and it focused on Business Intelligence and a brief examination of a paradigm shift in the way we consume our data – we are now an instant gratification, highly dynamic information society. He delivered a solution oriented and inspiring talk on the BI 4 suite.

The second session had City of Vancouver’s Darrin Fast explaining the how the SAP Business Analytics Suite was implemented within the City’s systems. A hot issue at this discussion had the attendees discussing the bike lane information and it had the audience agreeing that bikers are picky! Philip Coldrey from SAP hosted the 2nd half of the City of Vancouver session. The 2^nd track introduced speaker Eric Laroche from SAP IT Services for “SAP runs SAP”, and described how the Vancouver lab uses its own SAP software to power its work.

The SAP and You - Let's Get Closer session had Michael Dar, Susan Andrews, CJ Harmer and Kuhan Milroy to chat about a variety of avenues for you to engage with SAP to get up to date with what’s happening and contribute your important feedback. Opportunities to offer ideas in roundtable discussions with the entire development team can be achieved with Customer Interact or the Customer Engagement Initiative, which encourages feedback across the entire SAP product offering. Along with the SCN community, Idea Place focuses on open, collaborative methods to connect and share with customers, partners and thegreater ecosystem. Session 5/Track 2 in the smaller Victoria Room hosted Innovations in Learning for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 with Megan Mittler and removing barriers to learning and efficient user adoption in the Business Analytics suite. It was a fun and full session with 80’s pop culture references that had the spectators engaged.

During the lunch hour, Loren Ha demonstrated the very cool Kinect enabled video wall in the EBC Lounge area with pre-loaded visually spectacular real-time data. Product demos included the new iPad 2 debut loaded with SAP business analytics software.

The afternoon sessions included Patrice Le Bihan breaking down for users the BI 4 and HANA 1.0 software while Track 2 had Pete Scholtens and Jeff Gan making the audience laugh while learning all about StreamWork. Building better dashboards with David Lai and “running better anywhere” with SAP’s mobile analytics software with Nic Smith rounded out the speaker sessions. The Inside Track event wrapped up with a door prize draw and a farewell from Jason. Stay tuned for news about next year’s Inside Track!

Ty Miller led the first session and it focused on Business Intelligence and a brief examination of a paradigm shift in the way we consume our data – we are now an instant gratification, highly dynamic information society. He delivered a solution oriented and inspiring talk on the BI 4 suite.

The second session had City of Vancouver’s Darrin Fast explaining the how the SAP Business Analytics Suite was implemented within the City’s systems. A hot issue at this discussion had the attendees discussing the bike lane information and it had the audience agreeing that bikers are picky! Philip Coldrey from SAP hosted the 2nd half of the City of Vancouver session. The 2^nd track introduced speaker Eric Laroche from SAP IT Services for “SAP runs SAP”, and described how the Vancouver lab uses its own SAP software to power its work.

The SAP and You - Let's Get Closer session had Michael Dar, Susan Andrews, CJ Harmer and Kuhan Milroy to chat about a variety of avenues for you to engage with SAP to get up to date with what’s happening and contribute your important feedback. Opportunities to offer ideas in roundtable discussions with the entire development team can be achieved with Customer Interact or the Customer Engagement Initiative, which encourages feedback across the entire SAP product offering. Along with the SCN community, Idea Place focuses on open, collaborative methods to connect and share with customers, partners and the greater ecosystem. Session 5/Track 2 in the smaller Victoria Room hosted Innovations in Learning for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 with Megan Mittler and removing barriers to learning and efficient user adoption in the Business Analytics suite. It was a fun and full session with 80’s pop culture references that had the spectators engaged.

During the lunch hour, Loren Ha demonstrated the very cool Kinect enabled video wall in the EBC Lounge area with pre-loaded visually spectacular real-time data. Product demos included the new iPad 2 debut loaded with SAP business analytics software.

The afternoon sessions included Patrice Le Bihan breaking down for users the BI 4 and HANA 1.0 software while Track 2 had Pete Scholtens and Jeff Gan making the audience laugh while learning all about StreamWork. Building better dashboards with David Lai and “running better anywhere” with SAP’s mobile analytics software with Nic Smith rounded out the speaker sessions. The Inside Track event wrapped up with a door prize draw and a farewell from Jason. Stay tuned for news about next year’s Inside Track!