Personal Insights
#ASUG Volunteer Meeting 2020 Recap #ASUGVM2020
This weekend was ASUG volunteer meeting in Chicago. I was lucky, as I flew into O’Hare airport; it seems others who had flights to Midway airport experienced delays.
These are my rough notes. I did not attend all sessions available – such as Chapter best practices, the new ASUG.com, the ASUG research survey.
ASUG has a new renewed mission, in helping others get more out of SAP investment
ASUG Board spend build trust, says highest it’s ever been regarding the relationship with SAP.
Ron Gilson, ASUG Board member, was in attendance, and the ASUG Board has made progress with SAP on Licensing, where future of licensing goes
Geoff Scott, ASUG CEO, said that ASUG is SAP’s most outspoken user group. This is Geoff’s sixth volunteer meeting. Geoff said ASUG is a “role model of how user groups work”
Influence is the strongest it’s ever been, and after returning from FKOM, SAP wants to talk to ASUG, how they come into our chapters, how they can influence better
ASUG values – join together, work fearlessly, celebrate customers, lead the charge, inspire trust
- Geoff said they (ASUG) is working on their culture internally
- Inspire
- Values – internally focused
- Lead the charge
S/4 HANA adoption journey- Ann Marie Gray, pulse of the community research report. Response rate doubled from last year. 624 respondents have a plan to move to S/4. What are customers facing, doing enough? Some quotes from the survey:
- “Digital transformation is real”
- “Era – mobile – are instant feedback, delivery, interact with brand
- Not the SAP platform building last 20-30 years
Some takeaways:
- Connect – help volunteers for success
- Massive distance to drive
- Journey is not done
Where ASUG is doing well – best chapter community teams
Focus on 2020
Customer information, lag information systems, customer journeys
- University alliance – go to customers – take through S4 journey
Geoff Scott, ASUG CEO, thanked ASUG Volunteers for spending their weekend in Chicago and he wants us to succeed
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Building the ASUG Brand
Cheryl Parsons, ASUG Chief Marketing Officer, reviewed the new ASUG brand.
Source: ASUG Activity Feed
She covered the Apple brand, that everything Apple does is tied to their corporate brand with mission, vision, value statements.
For the ASUG brand, where begin? Look at market wants and needs. ASUG looked at the data from 2018, using focus groups and data engagement.
What they heard about ASUG:
- Stable
- Strong experience
- Friendly
- Approachable
- Confusion about what ASUG did
Wants:
- Connect
- Clarify “what’s in it for me”
ASUG’s mission:
To help people and organizations get the most value out of their SAP investment
Vision: (Cheryl said this should be “lofty”)
Most impactful technical community on the planet
Principles:
- Provide a path
- Foster an active exchange
- Create for today
Values:
- Join together
- Work fearlessly
- Lead the charge
- Inspire trust
- Collaborate with customers
The core brand of ASUG is that it empowers you to “push boundaries” for SAP technology
Experience – provide a path – choose guidance over exploration
Foster an active exchange; ASUG is a network and experience ensures people pass expertise to others and collaborate openly
Create for today – do more.
Cheryl said the color orange for the brand is dynamic, adaptable, and can be seen on the new ASUG.com. The color is also ADA compliant
Eventful Conferences is now ASUG Events
Source: ASUG
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ASUG Education:
State of (ASUG) education going forward
Jeff Branham is the General Manager of ASUG education
Arie White is conference sales
Zoey Wallace is the business program manager
Kara Hughes is the associate producer for conference programs
Jennifer Divelbiss is VP enterprise content
Kelly Dowling is now manager of enterprise content
Jennifer explained that ASUG folded Eventful into ASUG organization – enterprise content together, to provide a holistic, year round content strategy including webcasts, podcasts, and classroom education
3 takeaways per Jeff
- build programming, knowledge sharing
- Represent channel
- Shape beyond product
Accomplish
Build confidence proficiency productivity
“Educators” enablers advisors
ASUG is now in “Fork in journey”, been too myopic on product and wants to build community around people, skills, community, how prepare, including human centered focus groups.
Also, ASUG U is now ASUG Education
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SIG Operations
Goal is to foster an “active exchange”
Objectives are as follows:
- Answer questions
- Give advice
- Share experiences
- Discuss challenges
- Share responsibilities
Results:
- Inspire trust
- Make commitment
- Experience networking
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ASUG Influence Councils (the best part about ASUG, in my view) are purposeful peer groups to shape product enhancements and road map. Identify functional gaps, assess needs, prioritize ideas, amplify member engagement. Results include improvement requests, planned enhancements, improved road map.
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Also we had some great conversations at lunch with the new Head of SAP Developer Advocacy Thomas Jung – free tools, more about SAP CodeJams and bring them to the chapters. Ina Felsheim shared some early plans for SAPPHIRENOW. I am grateful/thankful to all the SAP points of contact who came to Chicago, including Ingo Hilgefort
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Previous year’s recaps:
ASUG Annual Volunteer Meeting (2015)
ASUG Annual Volunteer Meeting 2019
ASUG Annual Volunteer Meeting 2018
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What do you think? Or if you were there, what did I miss?
Great to see everyone, and thanks for the summary, Tammy. My summary is that the changes with SIGs, Communities, Think Tanks, and the new asug.com are going to take awhile to understand.