A Teched Speaker – Michelle Crapo – the answer to is she crazy?

Well – a big hello again to anyone brave another to read a blog that I write!   My session at Teched is:

DX133 – Personas or Not Really Personas: Old Version Trick to Create a Nice Layout

And yes – I meant to highlight the session name.   The actual blog about my session is in – well a different blog.   I realized I hadn’t put any information about myself in that blog.  I could have updated it.   But then I knew I would be too wordy.   AND then the blog would have been huge!

Oh boy Teched is approaching fast!   I’m very excited!  EXCITED!   Like jumping up and down in my seat excited.     After reading others blogs on their excellent session, I noticed I didn’t really introduce myself.   Perhaps it slipped my mind on purpose.   One never knows.   One meaning – me – I never know.   So I will interview myself!    I think that’s talking to myself and answering myself.   Maybe I should be worried.

I’ll start with the boring questions.

What is your current job? 

My official title is SAP Developer.   The better question is what do you do?   My company is small.   The IT staff is small.  SO I get to learn even more fun things.   There are no functional team leads.   There are no configurators.   There are no…  Oh boy I better just list what I do.

Some Basis support – that one was new at this job

• Designer
• Developer
• Functional expert and I get to play in SPRO
• Project Leader
• Project Member
• Support specialist
• Copywrite person – it’s just a way of saying I design the screens and what is put on them.
• And I’m sure there is more I’m forgetting…

So the best way to talk about my current job is that it is cool!   I get to learn EVEN more about the SAP system.  And take some time for training during slow times.   Not that there are many slow .times.

A side note – I work from home almost full time.   Sometimes it’s interesting interacting with others at my company.   But technology is a wonderful thing!   I love Skype.

What type of business do you work at?

They are special.  AHA!   I bet your business has things that are different than all other companies’ too!   That is why your company has you!

Anyway, I would say it is agriculture – for the most part.  They’ve been a personally owned company for over 100 years.  The sell innovative products to the swine, beef, and poultry companies.

What is your experience in SAP?

I have worked with SAP since 1997.   I believe I started with 3.1H or G or something like that.   I’ve been thru one full implementation and several partial implementations of SAP.   I have also done a lot (Over 6) of upgrades.   I have not upgraded to HANA yet.   We are planning that for the end of fall.  But our real business may get in the way of that.

I’ve been a developer, project manager, consultant, functional expert, designer…  And more.  It’s been a lot of fun!   My areas of expertise in the old way of speaking not the new way of order to cash, etc.  Anyway my areas of expertise are SD, PP, PM, MM, IM and WM.   Wow!  Look at all the acronyms.   Here we go – sales and distribution, Production, plant maintenance, material master, inventory management, and warehouse management.  I can work in costing and finance if I HAVE to.  And I do from time to time.   I had a great time with MII – Manufacturing integration and intelligence.  I got to learn HTML and other fun stuff.

I have only been trained in FIORI and UI5.   I did a course for Personas.  Hence my drive for this session at Teched.   I have barely touched HANA.

So I’ve learned a little of everything.   And a VERY little, maybe even a thimbleful of knowledge of the new stuff.

How did you get started?

Simple the company I worked for decided to buy and install SAP.   But don’t ask me how that went for the first 3 months.   Remember it was back in 1997.

So..   I think I might want to visit your session, why should I?

I guess why should I might translate to are you serious about it?  Well, yes I am.   I want you to leave with just one thing you can apply to your work.   My course is set for beginner and that’s what it is.    If you are more than a beginner I can’t guarantee you’ll leave with that one think.   But I hope you find it entertaining.

I hope the session is interactive.  Meaning I allow questions throughout – not just at the end.   BUT I do try to allow for questions at the end.

I used to try to do my sessions where my examples where on a live system.   Now I don’t.   Basically because connection issues just occurred way too much.   And then there was the time delay..   So don’t expect live examples.   But DO expect taped examples.

Now…   To the fun stuff

What do you do for fun?

I was waiting for you to ask that or for myself to ask that, whatever.  I have animals!   I have 3 dogs that love long walks in my backyard.   I have 15 acres for them to walk with me on.   When they are not with me or one of my family they are in the house on our furinture or outside in their fence.   Outside our youngest dog has taken over my lounge chair.   Another thing I do for fun.  Lay out there and just watch the world go by.

I have 3 cats.   And I…   Wait I  don’t do anything with them.   When the decide to allow me to pet them, I pet them.   I’ve also learned the skill of typing with one on my shoulder.

I have 2 horses, 2 miniature horses, and 1 pony.   The horses – I love to ride them.   The pony and miniatures are retired.   A fun fact my mom rides with me – yes I won’t give up her age, but I am 48…  So she is a little older than that.   Oops I mean I’m 25.   I stopped counting at 25.  That’s when my car insurance rates went down.

Last but not least, I read.   I mostly read romance books.  Gasp!  Non-Sap books?    I also play on Facebook.   And trust me that can be a lot of reading.  But it’s worth it to learn what is going on with my friends and to read the funny memes.   I read them out loud to my husband.   Yup, I’m married and have a son.   He’s in college.   The monster child decided to go to college in a DIFFERENT STATE!!!!   We see him on summer, winter breaks and most holidays if they are long enough.

Talking quietly….  I also work on some OpenSAP course material too.   Not very often in my free time.   But sometimes I have been known to do some of it.  From a comment on a different blog, by Peter Inotai  have been look at the free courses on the OpenHPI site.

Oh and Yes it is for work but it is for fun too!   I get to go to SAP Teched as much as I possibly can.   I always learn something.

What is your favorite type of music?

Easy, mostly, everything!   If I hear something I like, I try to put it on my player.   Right now it is dance and DJ.

Any funny stories?

I have many, many, funny stories.  But the best was the day before I gave birth to my son.   My midwife had decided I could no longer work.   My husband was at work.   I looked at my car.   It needed to be cleaned up.   At least it did in my hormone raging brain.   I couldn’t clean it.   So I went on a road trip (Not very smart either) to the local car dealership.   I decided to buy a car so my baby wouldn’t come home in a dirty car.   My husband got a pretty good shock when he came home and I told him he had to sign paperwork at the dealership.   The car would be ready for pick up on Monday.   On Saturday I had my baby.   My husband wouldn’t leave our side.  My baby came home in the “dirty” car.   It was only dirty in my mind.   So we got our son and a brand new car!

No, No Any Funny Work Stories?

Well I have a work story that is fun now but not when it happened.  I had just started at the company.  REPEAT Just started as in it was probably my first month there.    I was programming in CL and RPG at that time.     I had this wonderful tested program that printed a report and then deleted it from the spool.   Simple right?   I tested, and tested it.   It worked.   It worked great!   I was pretty proud of it.   It moved to production.   I went in the next day to a disheveled systems person, Wayne Kline.   And a note on the board with ALL of the spool reports had been deleted.   Some were being saved, and had been there for years.  People just didn’t want to give up their snapshot in time.   So he had been up all night restoring the reports that he could and trying to figure out what caused it.   Well, I felt my stomach drop.   I felt kind of sick.   I went up to him and started with a heart felt apology.   Then I explained what my program was supposed to do.   And yes, I had used logic that I had never tried before.  He was so nice.   He said no problem, if you aren’t making errors you aren’t learning.   That has stayed with me since then and I will never forget his kindness or those words.   It wasn’t funny at the time, but looking back I have to laugh.   I a junior programmer had deleted all the spools.   Yup even of high managers.   They didn’t fire me, they didn’t watch my code closer (that I knew about), they were wonderful.  I looked up the quote and it is from Hall of Fame basketball player/coach John Woode.

With that I’ll leave you.    I hope you skimmed to parts that interest you!   I know this is long, right?   But I wasn’t really sure what to write.  With no clear guidelines I seem to write a lot.  I was going to add pictures.   I may edit and add them.   BUT there are just too many to add.

Please leave comments – positive, negative or just fun ones.   Have I answered the question am I crazy?   I’m talking to myself in this blog, perhaps I’ve answered my own question.

I hope to see you at Teched!   At my session sure – but just get there!   Breathe in the excitement!  And above all have fun!   Yes, I guess to make your boss happy, learn something to!   But you don’t even have to try doing that.  Just by going you will learn something whether you want to or not.