SAP TechEd Las Vegas – Outside the Lines, Following Kindergarten Lessons

Similar to ESPN’s show, “Outside the Lines”, I will cover some things I saw this week and share my experiences.

Registration

I registered Sunday where there was no lines and everyone was wearing their favorite NFL jersey. 

Mobile App

While I installed this on both my iPhone and iPad it only really worked on my iPad.  When I went to look at sessions I only got this “Loading…” message.

In all fairness I had no time to report this to the team.  And what do you know when I just checked the apps on the iPhone there is a new version of the TechEd app to download, so maybe this fixes the problem I was having.  As a result I didn’t do all the “session check-ins” with the new mobile app.

In terms of completing evaluations of the sessions, it appears you can only do this using the mobile app; for the hands-on sessions I think it would have been better to have them online/desktop, similar to how SAP Education handles session evaluations.  I wonder what the return rate will be on session evaluations?

Food

A big thumbs up for the snacks as it offered healthy options such as fruit and a nut mix (no salt).  This is good for those of us who have to watch what we eat.  Still I did not like the coffee, but that is typical of convention centers.  I should have gone to the SCN clubhouse for gourmet coffee but did not have time to make it to the show floor.   Instead, I spent a small fortune at the local coffee shops.  (See the coffee place featured in this TechEd video. )

The food at lunch was good too, offering a variety of vegetables, fish, and chicken.  Dessert also included a fruit cup if you wanted something healthy.

Wi-Fi

The wi-fi in the convention center worked, which was very nice; this is unlike other conferences where the wi-fi was spotty.  I still maintained my schedule on paper as there were times when my e-mail would not “send”. 

Meeting People

I met Andreas Giraud of DSAG and it was interesting to learn how they are set up and how they operate independently of SAP.  It is different from my experience with ASUG and now that we met, hopefully the dialogue continues.  This was one of the first times I met anyone from DSAG.

I also got to meet the great Jocelyn Dart who came from Australia.  It was good to see her honored Tuesday night as an SCN Moderator, which is not an easy job to have these days. 

Lines for Hands-on Sessions – “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”

First, take some lessons from All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum – “play fair” is one.  For the most part the lines for hands-on sessions went without incident – until yesterday an attendee caused a scene by trying to cut in line.  Fortunately the attendant at the door didn’t allow it but it was sad to see this person not play fair.

Sessions

I’ve written about some of my sessions in the other blogs, but here it is in pictures/music:

I am still TechEd tired but I want to thank the SAP TechEd team including Chrissy Kuhn, Erica Morales, Christina Miller  Chip Rodgers  and Christine Godek

Also thanks to the SCN team for listening to me this week Audrey Stevenson Laure Cetin The specified item was not found.

I never made it to the show floor as I was attending sessions the whole time (the “Ed” part of TechEd) and yet it was still an amazing experience.