Two people (Dan and Thomas) I like a lot have been hitting on a subject lately and it's centered around the user experience and how darn picky the end user I guess is. I think it goes far beyond that to a simple matter of choices, openness and the future.
Many may not know it or not but I've been doing the dev thing since I was 8, sat hacking away at a Commodore 64 keyboard typing in huge amounts of code to run and see what happened, my initial response after the first program of 575 (yes I remember it) was total and utter disappointment at which point I began to truly hack away and try different a new things.
This progressed through the years to Basic, Pascal, Turbo Pascal, QBasic, Quick Basic, Delphi, Java, Perl, Visual Basic, JSP, Lisp, ABAP, PHP, etc. Ah Delphi was one that I won't forget wrote many a game for my little sister she just couldn't get the ones you bought at the store for kids and she had that Easyball mouse.
Basically I've given a lot of thought to "design" and user interface across multiple languages, I still remember the days of developing huge Microsoft Access databases for several companies while going to high school and the one thing that I spent the most time on each and every time was the interface.
Dan makes a point, one that I learned quickly while doing what I did,
How different can be quickly mapped as you go down generations, the younger you start to use computers the higher your expectations are. I can’t stand when Ctrl-C doesn’t work or when I can’t turn on and off toolbars or when the screen is so full of information I don’t need all I can see is a box 200px by 150px. When this happens I go find another tool — this is why you should be scared.
I saw it first hand as time progressed and I developed applications for various ranges of companies and generations of people. I remember one particular customer I had, he had landscaping, odd job, home improvement, type business for a large (very expensive) community in South Carolina. He requested an MS Access style database to manage his business - every aspect of it and he wanted MS Access and nothing else. His reason was he had been using it and was used to it and the interface was to his liking. I of course went with it and developed probably one of the largest MS Access DB's you can imagine we are talking 137 MB DB without data, the archives of each quarter was around 300 MB he bought extra tape drives and hard drives just for this and then we networked the whole thing. Then one fateful day his new assistant a much younger person called and said they were dropping it and wanted something else that was flasher and nicer looking (see jaw dropping open now) kind of went along the lines of something else Dan said,
If someone gives me a piece of software I “must use” and it is horrible, the first thing I do before using it is to see if there is another tool I can quickly use the way I want and then just plug the numbers into the horrible tool.
So being the fact I'm not that much older than Dan (30 almost 31 now) and I tend to think the same in terms of the above comment it was tough being on the other side and totally responsible. SAP is a bit on that side right now, years of process definition and building and of course making some of the best run processes and definition in the industry today, how will SAP (we) cope as we move into the new year and of course with people like Dan and me as we move up the ranks and begin to become primary decision makers?
So how does a company like SAP cope? What and where does it focus in the coming years? Well they've made two huge jumps in the right direction in 2006 already and a third unknown to the public jump as well. So what were these 3 jumps, the launch of the BPX community, launch and refocus on Enterprise SOA and of course the public unknown is the huge group within the company focused not only on UI but on the UI experience. Now this unknown is a group of great folks going through SAP as a global company and literally tearing apart of all the UI thinking and user experience thoughts and coming up with a new plan of attack, couple that with focus on the processes, "the other side of the iceberg as Thomas says and you've got a game plan a winning one!
Here at SAP we think a lot about processes. I hear it all the time in the corridors and meeting rooms in Walldorf. It is one of the main reasons for SAP’s success. It is goodness, and it is very tough to emulate. (We are pretty damn good at the other bit of the iceberg it seems) It is a significant competitive advantage.
One of the things that spurred Thomas on was a post on SDN recently,
The reason why I’m writing this post at all is that I stumbled across something in SDN. David seems uncomfortable with concept of “enhanced user experience”, deriding it as selling Viagra. I think he has it wrong on two counts.
It seems that SAP is coping with two issues, one those that want the new experience and those not aware many parts are already staring them straight in the face.
There have been so many changes, advancements and leaps forward in the last 12 months that the next 12 are looking to be an exciting time - be it with Secondlife, Scripting Languages, Widgets or other items of interest I can't say (no really I can't) point in fact that times are changing and we are seeing so many innovative and exciting things coming down the line that are going in the true direction of MVC (Model View Controller see Wikipedia definition), SAP is making huge efforts to separate the processes from the front end - to give the users what they want without a huge TOC or with one point being they make it your choice!
This new openness of SAP is something that is not only a "first in class" but one that has not gone unnoticed. I never really paid much heed to Analysts in the past I was never in a position to use their knowledge or recommendations like I wanted to so I saved myself the trouble but lately one of my favorite Analysts (these are the folks that hit the topics that interest me the most and have been very useful for me and my job as a Community Evangelist for SAP and SDN) -- Redmonk.
James sums things up with one small header,
SAP kicks ass, Others wait and see
You can't get any clearer of a statement than that I don't think! He goes on a bit to discuss why,
SAP is evidently the most blog savvy. It has a formal blogger relations program, with a budget and other dedicated resources. That says a lot. P&L in blogger relations - whatever next? Trust SAP to try drive fiscal discipline into the equation. Vendorprisey indeed.
Few if any other vendors can say the same thing - they are still at the “should we invite a couple of bloggers?” phase.
SAP is the most committed of any of major enterprisey software vendors (not just the three vendors I am talking to here) when it comes to directly addressing the next generation of influencers by program. Well done Michael Prosceno for taking the initiative by volunteering to run the program - he is quoted in this case study from techdirt that talks to SAP strategy for blogger relations (where on earth is your blog though, Mike?). Said case study could be very useful if you’re looking for some budget to run a blogger relations program and you work at an SAP competitor… Of course Jeff Nolan was instrumental in getting SAP more blog savvy, but anyone that gives him sole credit for the company’s efforts is on crack. Nolan didn’t singlehandedly change SAP any more than Scoble did Microsoft. These guys are change agents, but they fit within a cultural context. Corporate troublemakers without very understanding bosses don’t last very long.)
2006 was the year SAP opened up more than just 100% of their source code which they opened many a moon ago, this was the year that they opened themselves more than any other Enterprise company out there right now and have held fast despite bad vibes from Vinnie Mirchandani. Granted some may call this new found "openness" a marketing ploy or smoke and mirrors or what not but considering how much freedom, encouragement and endorsement we (SAP insiders) are getting these days one can't help but see that this is the real deal!
I still remember my first time being introduced to one of the "Pro" bloggers it happened to be James and it's a relationship that has proved quite beneficial to me, in many ways not to mention his helping me interact with other evangelists out there. Now one quick thing I learned of these new Blogger Analysts is that they say it straight and they do ask the hard hitting questions that many assume they don't; I had to think hard on many an answer and was at first very cautious of what I said and what I didn't say. That lasted all of about ten minutes and at that point I realized these guys were out to get the story, the truth and to really test to see how "open" we really were since then I've been more than happy to converse, speak and share with all of the Enterprise Irregulars.
So here's to 2007 and what's to come...
Link to Thinking about the user. SAP ZEN « Vendorprisey
Link to computers should be less friendly » Blog Archive » SAP’s users of Tomorrow
Link to James Governor's Monkchips » Blogger Relations at Adobe, Oracle and SAP (and a bit of IBM, Microsoft, Sun)
Link to deal architect : Blogger relations at major vendors
Link to James Governor’s Monkchips » SAP seeks Adobe Moderator for Developer Network, Doesn’t Care About UI's
