#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:

1. “Digital transformation is real”
2. “Era – mobile – are instant feedback, delivery, interact with brand
3. Not the SAP platform building last 20-30 years

Some takeaways:

1. Connect – help volunteers for success
2. Massive distance to drive
3. 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:

1. Stable
2. Strong experience
3. Friendly
4. Approachable
5. Confusion about what ASUG did

Wants:

1. Connect
2. 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:

1. Provide a path
2. Foster an active exchange
3. Create for today

Values:

1. Join together
2. Work fearlessly
3. Lead the charge
4. Inspire trust
5. 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

1. build programming, knowledge sharing
2. Represent channel
3. 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:

1. Answer questions
2. Give advice
3. Share experiences
4. Discuss challenges
5. Share responsibilities

Results:

1. Inspire trust
2. Make commitment
3. 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 25 Years of Disruption

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?