Blog it Forward – James Rapp

Hello Everyone,

A special thanks to Alexandre Papagiannidis Rivet for blogging this my way and giving me the opportunity to introduce myself to SCN.  You can have a look at the entire Blog It Forward (BIF) Chain to see just how pervasive this has been!

By way of introduction

I grew up on the west coast of Florida, in the Tampa Bay area.  Life at SAP began in Lake Mary, Florida in 2003, at a company called Crystal Decisions.  10 years and 2 acquisitions later I am now living in Denver, Colorado with my wife, 2 children, and one very large dog named Bizzy!

We enjoy hiking in the mountains, skiing, and generally taking advantage of Denver’s purported 300 days of yearly sunshine.  Sometimes I think my daughter Morgan likes the fresh, mountain air a little too much:

My role at SAP

I currently work in the Products & Innovations (P&I) group as a Technical Specialist and my primary area of expertise is around Business Intelligence and the greater Analytics space.  I’ve worked with the BI Platform since it was known as Seagate Info so the sizing, performance, and architecture of that product remains near and dear to my heart.  In 2013 I had the opportunity to record an openSAP course called BI 4 Platform Innovation and Implementation with a teammate, and it was a fantastic experience sitting in front of the camera and sharing some of the knowledge we have accumulated over the years.

My team now does co-innovation projects with customers who are making SAP HANA an integral component of their enterprise, and we have a chance to influence their use of the HANA platform and all the benefits that come with it.  I’ve been learning SAP River since it was released in December and am excited to put some of these new resources into practice in 2014!

Something interesting about me

Travel to new and exciting locations is what keeps me passionate on an every day basis.  Last year I managed to visit 6 different countries, and attend an equal number of SAP conferences to meet customers and partners.  My wife, Jessica, and I also like to visit new places together.  A few years ago, before we had children, we visited Cairo, Luxor, and Sharm el-Sheikh … it was a humbling experience visiting relics, such as the pyramids, that have been around for thousands of years.  Here we are on a river boat floating down the Nile:

Now onto the BIF questions:

What superpower would you like to have, and why?

Believe it or not, I don’t hold with the common perception that Aquaman is an overrated superhero.  If I could have a superpower it would be to breathe underwater and communicate with marine life.  Our oceans are vast and cover around 70% of the world … to explore them as a native denizen would be truly amazing!

If you were a flavor of ice cream, what would you be?

I would be Cinammon-Cayenne Ice cream because I firmly believe that we can all use a little spice in our lives.

If you were a chef at my restaurant, what would you cook?

This is a tough one as I love to cook but don’t have a firm set of “go-to” recipes.  I’d probably make coffee-rubbed rib eye steaks and roast cauliflower because they are delightful and the smoky coffee flavor compliments the tender steak wonderfully well.

I would like to blog it forward to my openSAP teammate Henry Banks, and my colleague Foroohar Rafiei.