SAP TechEd – Las Vegas 2012 Reflections

I am on my way back from SAP TechEd Las Vegas after spending an extra night and losing some extra bucks. TechEd + Vegas doesn’t allow you to stretch out for more than 4-5 hours and after an unsuccessful attempt to grab a nap in a miniature Bombardier plane, I decided to compile my TechEd journey in this blog. This was my 3^rd TechEd, the first in Vegas. It was different. Without getting into the details of the differences, I will jump on sharing my perspective and utilize it as an opportunity to Thank some key individuals for making it a wonderful experience. 🙂

Networking, Knowledge and SAP Mentors

For me, networking and knowledge go side by side. It was an awesome week of networking for me. It all started the first day itself with the new SAP Mentors welcome meet-up where I met some old friends, got to talk to some new ones and others with whom I never got any opportunity to talk to. While talking to any SAP Mentor, I find myself at the receiving end trying to capture the overflowing knowledge, not sure how much I succeed though. SAP Mentor meeting with Vishal Sikka and Mark Yolton are always inspiring and collaborative. I got a chance to spend some good time with Daniel Graversen talking about future of SAP PI and Process Orchestration.

P.S. A special thanks to Mark Finnern for all his hard work for the SAP Mentors’ pack.

I met some fellow Integration leads/consultants/developers, some customers, product owners talking about PI, Process Orchestration, B2B roadmap brainstorming the suggestions and ideas. Some sessions about SAP NetWeaver Gateway, Cloud Integration and B2B integration with Process Orchestration cleared many doubts hovering in my mind since few months. Ever smiling Karin  Tillotson helped me getting introduced to ASUG PI influencer council initiative.

Running out of your business cards is both good and bad sign.

It was a pleasure to talk to Simha Magal, a very respectful and distinctive individual sharing his experiences with University program and how SAP Mentors can contribute in simplifying the SAP world for his students.

                         With Daniel Graversen                                                       With Gali Kling Schneider

SCN Moderators

I was extremely excited to finally meet fellow Moderators at “EXP185 – SCN Moderator Meetup meet-up”. The half an hour meet up appeared to be very short talking about the Moderator’s concern and suggestions. In my opinion, an hour meet would be more appropriate. Laure Cetin shared her views about the upcoming Gamification on SCN and some very thoughtful comments were shared by our Innojam winner Henrique Pinto. After several emails/SCN conversations, I finally had opportunity to meet Gali Kling Schneider, Laure Cetin and Jason Lax in person. I was glad to seeJeanne Carboni again after TechEd Bangalore last year.

You guys rock!

Role of Empathy in Design thinking

Always inspirational and kind Marilyn Pratt wrote this blog about Role of Empathy in Design thinking. Thorsten Franz also gave beautiful words to his thoughts here. The workshop made an introvert person like me share his hidden thoughts with a group of wonderful  and supportive people Greg Chase, Karin  Tillotson and Graham Robinson. Graham and I talked about Cricket and his recent century as well. 🙂

And..

There were several miscellaneous activities going on and with the overlapping calendar items I missed several key sessions as well. However, overall I feel tremendously satisfied with the way this TechEd went for me. If you find any of these guys during other TechEds or anytime in future, please make an effort to talk to them and you will see yourself dealing with knowledge, fun, collaborative attitude and Empathy. Cheers! 🙂