After a wonderful Vegas & Madrid session, the band wagon 'InnoJAM' hits Bangalore. Previously known as as Community Day, then re-branded in 2010 as Innovation Weekend, and baptized last year with a vibrant name - InnoJAM!. Great! So, what do you do in InnoJAM? Everytime I see/hear the word "explain" on a test or conversation, a little part of me dies. But let me try my efforts to para-phrase it again. This is a 30-hour long design and coding competition will be commencing shortly today at 9:00 IST at SAP Labs Bangalore. (KPIs in the next blog soon)
Behind the scenes
Before I'll have to begin something here, I must only thank few jet-lagged souls who spent their time working nights ensuring all laptops for each session & coding challenge as well as the war-room is ready for the battle, checking pings! Rui Nogueria, Vitaliy Rudnytskiy, Uwe Kylau & many others I might have missed to mention here like Craig Cmehil, Anne Hardy, Marilyn, Gigi Reed behind this thought to engage devs in this event.
Fig 1. (C) Via Rui's Twitter feeds
Experts from SAP Labs, Design thinkers, Product development experts, SMEs & SAP Mentors in various domain, and technological expertise also help your idea, transform it & scale it up to the expectations of a wider audience. Yes! these guys help you put socks in the boots; square blocks in round holes. Not to exaggerate, but I am hoping to keep up some promises today. And, just as I was about to begin my trip to B'lore, I was bombed with a very strange question from one colleague - "So, is it like big brother?" Who else thinks there are secret cameras in their house? In any way I am expecting to take part in this {-;
The challenge for our enthusiastic folks here would be to build applications with some niche tools or best described just-out-of-the-factory products, with their sweat & brow that one good season it helps an entire city, referring to the theme - Urban Governance. At the beginning of each session, the plan is to present how to go about the idea, try validating it and do a quick feasibility, if all application features can be achieved with these latest SAP tools & that your expertise in 'tools of trade'. But before the focus I wanted to convey in this blog on story telling, synthesis & idea brainstorming & the rest of the fun activities that is yet to happen today, its exciting to get prepped up for some action from http://developer.sap.com. There are a few references added to the wiki page which we hope would help you rapidly skim the essentials of the new SAP tools like HANA, Neo, SAPUI5, Gateway & SUP etc. It's much encouraged for all participants/session presenters to blog here on their experiences & add them as blogs in the main wiki page : http://goo.gl/fc6BU
Jam like never before
Mingle, learn, huddle, hack, sweat, present, win! What I am hoping today is to work with a bunch of exciting total sap experts, non-sap newbies, the visionary innovators & people with a passion for arts. Pulling my focus only to a bit technical side for now, as I'm always gravitated always towards those who work on Ux. As always being in InnoJAM, its heart-filling moment to make something which you'd think makes the 'big' impact. IMHO, we can always cherish the proud moments! So, I am thinking to keep my jokes aside & have fun sharpening my axe in beginning
Tailor your minds - Design thinking
I cherish few opportunity to attend few similar RAD prototyping events as a small time developer few years back; which focussed on open platforms doing MVPs, where the team has to stick to one development kit, wherein comes the skills advantage & USP of the product; & probably more if the refinement is made for specific themes. There are some design challenges everywhere; perse will have to blend with tools the team decides the right fit. This year I find it convincingly very transparent methods in event organization of these InnoJAM events; which has gained a immense appreciation in the product developer community #scn. Having interacted with few of my ex-colleagues who now currently work at SAP Labs & RMZ building; the focus of the company as a whole is now fully into providing the end-users #runlikeneverbefore moments! Although this best suits for a challenge for other open tools as the choice is 'unlimited' in this space.
'The Art of Living' the Persona
But I certainly believe there must be a justification why this is important & not to be confused in many jargons of abstraction; some of the widely conceived notions when a term called 'gamification' was introduced to the industry boards was it meant to have a game designed, but thanks to the experts in social media & management, who again proved me wrong. Maybe we’re jaded, but we’ve seen all these other terms from board as well, really abstract ones! Based on some course works by hester.hilbrecht & Ulrike Kleifeld (SAP Industry Public Services) conducted in Madrid, the focus this year is more on 'Persona'. What is Persona? How person centric a design challenge has to be? In short from my opinions on this SAP InnoJAM sessions to be conducted today, the focus of each team would be more on issues as a imaginary person, write up his/her challenges every day, channel your ideas to leverage any SAP based solution to help this person free his/her pain points. Yes, the applications & thoughts about this challenge is many, not only restricted with a set of people, but a group like a challenge for city.
Prototyping something out is very challenging is this part, as you must just pull up your persona's shoes. So, based on some his course works, you will have to interview few people understand their viewpoints, and bring a 360 degree overview around his life style. One of the most fascinating aspects I like find from InnoJAM Madrid & these course works are an art to help the members make notes, or may be it loosely termed also as 'shadowing', taken excerpts like an biography, his/her experiences on the subject in focus; some sweet & bitter points from different outlooks. Well in my opinion, at the end of the day, there should be something which is 'quintessential', which is best described like a work-life balance chakara #wheeloflife for any of these characters you build the app
Fig 2. (C) Mindtools.com - Finding balance in your life.
InnoJAM : Powered by crazy sleeplessness. Catch more updates via Twitter #innojam #innojamblr
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