Everyone is on about this and for good reason this is just AWESOME!!!
I won't say much though just go read! Or better yet check out the video on Zoli's blog!
Link to Zoli's Blog :: Surface Computer: Microsoft Does Innovate, After All...
Now if that is not the best thing since sliced bread I'm not sure what is, with a price tag of 5K to 10K I doubt I'll have much a chance to play but man have I already got some cool ideas!
I'm always amazed when I am asked to "speak" at something, seems odd to me considering a few years ago I was hacking away at code in the basement of a company at 3:00 in the morning knowing I had 20 seconds to make my way the length of a football field to escape if there was a fire or basically die - that one project you never forget, but a story for another time. So back to this story. Robin, who I met in Atlanta sent over a request to find out if one of us (from the SAP Community team) would be available to speak and so it looks like I drew the "short straw" and will have the pleasure of taking on the task. Quite exciting as well...
Wednesday, June 06, 2007 - 1:00PM Eastern | 10:00AM Pacific
Blogs, social networking sites and other Web 2.0 functionalities have forever changed the consumer online experience. Now that these online communities are translating to the business world, they can be powerful tools for BtoB marketing.
Join us for a live Q&A roundtable, featuring industry experts from Ogilvy Public Relations, Ning, SAP AG and Communispace. The panel will discuss their experiences with building online communities, and the potential applications for business-to-business marketing.
Source: Registration
Here are a list of the featured speakers:
Now Robin actually did a little interview with each of us and recorded a small portion for everyone to have a listen to ahead of time.
So I'm looking forward to the event as well as each of you tuning in to listen! Extra cool is that I actually know the moderator this time around, it's Robin Fray Carey herself :-)
I got an email from Tim, over at ReviewBasics the other day inviting me to take a look at their site.
I found your blog online and welcome a chance for you to provide feedback and review our technology.
ReviewBasics is a feedback gathering platform which allows professionals across many industries to exchange ideas, gather thoughts, and review various types of creative, interactive, motion, and written content. We take a familiar, paper-based content review process and bring it online. Please visit our website at www.reviewbasics.com and you can demo our features.
Now that alone sounded a bit interesting to me so I decided I would not only look but write this small blog. Dealing with large numbers of users I like to find good ways of gathering feedback and perhaps this might be one of interest?
The site itself is very Web 2.0y in terms of icons and colors and the typical layout one would expect. Demos are available (video and all that), but my first turn off was "Pricing",
ReviewBasics is currently in Beta and offered at zero cost. You may sign-up via our website and start using ReviewBasics right now. We encourage you to try ReviewBasics to discover how our tools can meet and exceed your content review needs.
That line screams that they'll be charging soon and it also sounds more like a "textbook" line as opposed to someone excited about their product :-(
Signed up, less than 30 seconds so that was cool and the first page I get is about how to get started (simple and to the point which I like).
I've got to "Author Portal", but first I have to "Create Space", then upload if I want, then errrrrrr I MUST upload something and since I have nothing to upload I have no need to continue further - it was starting to show some promise as well...or perhaps I just need something a bit more generic and not around a specific document, image, etc.
Give it a shot yourself and let me know what you think.
Finally after many months and many many comments (30 or so) to their initial blog post, Zoho has finally decided to go and launch it for the public.
We are happy to announce the public availability of Zoho Notebook - Beta. Existing Zoho users can login here with your Zoho ID.
As many of you know, we announced Notebook at DEMO 07 and got excellent response. While it took longer than expected to get the app out of the door, we are happy with the product functionality today.
Source: Zoho Blogs
Now awhile back I got an invite to the "alpha" and had a blast looking around - made a little video even. Admittedly I've not been in much since but now that's it's gone beta I'll have to go in and take a look at all the new features and changes.
An unexpected side effect from some conversations in Vienna this week took place, ones I simply had not expected and was caught off guard and perplexed.
I've been playing around with a "book" now for probably going on two years simply to lazy to dig into it and finish it, yes I'm writing one and it's not a techie deal like this one. Well during Vienna one night, I think it was while drinking to RedMonk for their signing a new client (he bought champagne so...) well somehow or another someone was silly enough to ask me more details about myself and somewhere in the middle of it all my book "an Ami comes to Lippstadt" came into the conversation. Now this book is a blog like book of accumulated mini stories and thoughts on being an American (Ami) and moving to a small German town and my assumptions about Germans and theirs about Americans and how things unfold over the course of probably around 5 years of my time there. Which is one of the problems with the book and why I'm not finished I simply can't find a place to "stop" as I tell one little story it tends to remind of another BUT I'm making this a requirement (I think I did once before this year) and I will finish this book by October 31, 2007! I arrived in Germany October 31, 2001 so I figured it's fitting 6 years so that's one whole year (ok I was lazy so far this year) of reflection right?
Here's an example of one of those stories,
I've just experienced for the first time the "Aldi Rush" or at least that is what I am calling it now. This morning I was up at 5:30 AM, my wife (wow I can say that now) she called me at 6:30 AM (she had already left for work) to remind me that today, June 22, 2005, there was a new "Special Offer" at Aldi. The offer was for a Swimming Pool (see Details).
Well needless to say in the the 30 minutes I was standing there and waiting for the store to open at 8:00 AM there were about 30 people piling up behind me, 2 in front of me at the first 10 wanted this pool.
The doors opened and we went in, then everyone, believe it or not, started to RUN, well the heart started pounding, adrenaline was building at the excitement started to grow (just a pool remember) so I ran as well and we found them.
Now here's the crazy part, there were only 6 of them standing there. I managed to snag one and I thought I might have to fight with someone but luckily not. I dragged it to a counter (didn't get a cart because I thought it's just a small box) paid and put it in my car.
The whole time I was thinking about the phone call I got at 7:45 AM from Nicole asking me to grab a few more items while I was there. So I called her back and explained what just happened and asked her what she wanted. Luckily she took pity on me and allowed me to take the Pool home and then go to work.
Never again will I do that!!!!Link: Original Posting
Basically you can pick up this book and turn to any page and read, think collection of short stories all around the same topic some being shorter and some being longer than others and the only flow is the fact that they all REALLY took place in my life (hey you don't have to buy it!) and it was over the course of 5 years of me moving to Germany (started with a list of 10 words you know). So there you have it and now that I blogged it so that means I have to do it right?
I checked in using one of those automatic machines in Vienna this morning (when I wrote this the date/time was accurate), got my flights confirmed and tickets printed. Checked my bag and the lady asked me if I knew where their Business Lounge was, I of course said no and she told me.
Now as I was walking and trying to figure out why she thought I would be interested in the lounge and I noticed my seat assignment for my flights 2D and the next flight 2A and for whatever reason (disbelief I guess) I thought wow I'm on a puddle jumper with only 4 seats or one of those little bit bigger planes with not many seats UNTIL I noticed the word "Business" across the top where I normally see "ECONOMY" and realized somehow I got upgraded. No idea how but wasn't going to question it.
I headed to the lounge and grabbed the free food snacks and drinks (only OJ I still gotta drive). Vendorprisey Twittered he was at the airport but he was already on the plane. After a bit I headed for my flight -- I ended up with more room, comfy chair and also noticed that the flight was not full at all so sat and speculated (with no conclusion) on how I got the upgrade (notice I still didn't bother to ask anyone right?). I arrived a short while later in Munich. Food in Business class on the flight was the same as in Economy just presented better including metal knife and fork. What happened to security I can have the metal knife for dinner but not my finger nail clippers?
Anyway now in Munich I hit the lounge as well and found it to be full, crowded and noisy and no where with an empty power socket so my juice is about gone :-( I grabbed a bite and finally headed to my gate for the final leg of the trip. Several people here but no familiar faces weird how active the airport (destination one) is considering the surrounding area I mean industry is not that huge in the area. Anyway I've got business on this one as well but the flight is not a big one I mean we go up get a drink, jug it down and then they hurry to give back the empty glasses because we are already ready to descend and land. So not sure it will make a difference but I guess I do get double miles right? I have over 10K this year and that's not including my Atlanta trip or this one.
After Atlanta I posted a podcast with my rambling thoughts on the event and now that I am sitting here in the Munich airport I decided to blog my thoughts for closing out Sapphire for 2007.
Actually I would podcast it but the Business Lounge is packed and actually quite noisy as well as everywhere else I've looked, this is not to say that there won't end up being a podcast or even a videocast but for now I will content myself to sit here with my Blackberry mooching the juice off my laptop (it's recharging) gotta love USB cables and devices that recharge while plugged in and don't need an extra power cable and power socket, and typing away.
So this was it, Vienna, Austria was the second and final SAP SAPPHIRE event for 2007 and I think someone said (think it was Charlie) that there were 8000 people there. I have to admit the energy levels were not as high as in the US but then again we didn't have 28°C weather the first day followed by oh around 12°C the second day with nasty rain and wind so that probably played a big role in the moods and the energy of each person attending.
This one was also quite a bit more hectic for me personally and I did more but have less content to share? I've yet to figure out how that actually happened, I did however do a few live SDN TV broadcasts the most successful I recorded as well, around 27 minutes of mayhem and unstructured content. Two of us (me and James) announced the link in Twitter and over the course of the 27 mins we had (peak) 11 viewers and actually several questions. Many of the bloggers did come on and say who they were and what they blog about (request from viewers) however I was quite disappointed with myself as I was hoping for something a bit more structured (I had a former TV producer sitting next to me and wanted to impress - you know) I hope no one was overly disturbed by the mayhem that ensued it was my first time with actual viewers in a live setup and I do plan to work it out and make sure that NBC and CNN know they have serious competition on here ;-)
I did a couple of blogs while there, and only two podcasts, both of which are the next episodes (first published) for Starship Enterprisey Radio. I also hit the floor and have several minutes of video footage and a few sound bits from Kartik, I've not actually reviewed it but I do hope it all turned out and maybe I can get something useful out to everyone.
My first "big" SAP event was in 2004 at TechEd Munich (this year I come full circle!) and I was an attending, it was also my first big exposure to the SDN community in person. Then it was as event staff for TechEd Vienna (save venue this year for SAPPHIRE) , TechEd Boston, TechEd Bangalore. The following year I attending SAP SAPPHIRE Orlando as a guest of Dennis for the "kick off" meeting about how SAP was going to do what it could to support the community around Scripting Languages, or was it the year before? Then event staff again at TechEd Las Vegas, Amsterdam and Bangalore again. I never actually thought I did that much traveling - just got a printout from the Lufthansa lounge on my miles - 75k+
In all honesty I think attending as a Blogger was more stressful than event staff - it could also simply be because as staff I knew what I had to do from the get go because I was part of the planning. All in all though I think that things worked out beautifully.
I managed 8 podcasts, 6 blogs and 3 live broadcasts, sounds like a lot but I think my fellow bloggers managed much more and some very cool stuff so much so that the SDN and BPX groups apparently now will have a Community Lounge at all future SAPPHIRE events like they did here in Vienna. I'm still blown away but everything in terms of the openness and access everyone (even me) got and I met so many people both internal and external and learned so much along the way. I got interested in several topics like GRC (still don't understand it all) while there, that I probably never would have given a second thought had I remained in my dev world. The whole deal with PR and Marketing took on new meaning to me as well as I watched Mike in action and talked to Stacey a lot (she rocks you know!)
Being at the Global Communications evening events parties as well was a tremendous learning experience. As an SAP employee we have access to the executives however I never really took that much advantage of it until these past couple of weeks and although I've not blogged most any of what I've talked about, it's not because I can't it's simply because it's not all quite clear to me yet, I'm not dense and it's not complicated it's just foreign to me and completely out of my realm of experiences - I mean the world of finance took on a new meaning to me thanks to Dennis and HR thanks to Thomas. What Analysts do is quite intriguing thanks to James (and Coté in Atlanta) as well as Michael that I met while here. Alex gave me an education on SAP history in the cab this morning and Prashanth and I talked culture (continuation from the panel at SDN Day in Bangalore last year).
I sat through a critic of my attempts at video from Maggie (we're talking instant respect here) who gave me some tips and some pointers that I plan to give a lot of thought to and one of the reasons I will be giving a lot of thought to the live SDN TV as I move forward and how I want to structure it. Marilyn is probably falling off her chair right - YES Marilyn I did say "structure" the content more!
The whole experience has given me quite a different perspective on SAP and it made me really think a lot about why I work here, don't worry I'm not going to tell you everything is rosy and perfect but I will tell you why I enjoy working here and why I chose to in the beginning. It actually came up a couple of times this week. I first applied at SAP because I love the platform, at my previous job I was given anything and everything that was new and not standard R/3 and I loved every minute of it and I explored every aspect of it that I could to make sure it not only did what I wanted but that it did the way I wanted and you know what? IT DOES! Now that I am here and working and part of the SAP world and family I gotta say it's awesome! Many will disagree and say that it can't be, we're closed off and not open, frankly the only thing I can respond to that type of statement - come visit me next time you are in Walldorf!
This is the beginning of the year, the beginning of my normal "event circuit" and thanks to SAPPHIRE not only am I ready but I want to take on a more active role like I used to so SDN Day - I wanna present! Maybe even in the RedMonk track! The year is looking good for me so far - I'm taking part in two panels in June and either a teleconference or maybe even in person deal about quality contribution and making a stake in the world of SDN with Wipro (anyone else interested just let me know) then TechEd coming up - who knows maybe I'll be doing the Demo Jam again which was total fun but if not then I'll work on doing more at the Clubhouse instead! My intent is not to travel all over the place and be gone the whole time but rather to share my thoughts and this awesome feeling that I have from being part and, well and evangelist for SAP, Community and Collaboration.
My first day here at SAP SAPPHIRE '07 in Vienna proved to be a most excellent day and in fact a humorous little story.
I sat down with a most excellent person (I'm a total new fan of this person and what they do - been picking their brain this morning already on media related stuff) yesterday to record some audio and asked if I could use my cool little iPod Nano mic as well - I was met with a response around the lines of "oh that little thing, I just don't know how the quality will be" but they let me anyway and oh how karma tends to work in the world around us.
It was a 30 minute conversation with them and their fancy equipment and me and my little mic - mine just sat there unmoving and their's they would move here and there to be sure of good audio quality and that all was coming through in the best way - monitoring the levels the works.
Well low and behold (this is the karma part) it seems that the audio levels that were being picked up were from a different mic and not the one up close and personal therefore for them to use their audio it would take a bit longer to work out the amplification and everything of the audio so I tossed my audio over to them and said they were welcome to check it out and use if they like as I never intended to post it just wanted to compare it to some more high level stuff ;-)
I finally arrived here in Vienna, two short flights, a train and then because I just didn't want to deal a taxi to the convention center.
My short stay in Frankfurt was met with a brief run in with Mark, now it's actually quite funny. Mark is of course my boss and he saw that I was heading to Vienna on Monday therefore he thought that the event was only two days and starting on Tuesday morning. I guess he didn't realize that I had changed my original trip for Mother's Day - it was the first for us :-) unfortunately he's actually still in Frankfurt waiting for a flight at 5. Hope he makes it for the dinner tonight!
Found the blogger table and several familiar faces then got dragged away into an interesting conversation about something new coming out of SDN around TechEd and now I am back at the table and am only one of three people here - a session started and due to the VERY interesting conversation I missed the beginning and decided it would be rude to walk into the middle - you can follow along on Twitter though through:
Today has been of course a new and different day for me as I've gotten to know new people like Maggie Fox who did a podcast with Mark Yolton and myself on community then took a short trip out to the floor and saw Danielle (didn't have a chance to chat though so that is a plan for tomorrow) then as the day came to a close (great session with Dennis Moore) Thomas, James and I headed out for a quick beer and managed several pieces for RedMonk TV as well as two podcasts for Starship Enterprisey. Then it was off to the evening reception where I ran into Mark again (got a podcast with him as well), some great food, drinks and conversation which continued at the hotel and now finally I am in my room ready to crash, but tomorrow is a whole new day...
Received an email inviting me to take part in the Private Beta testing of Zoho Meeting, the newest service from Zoho.
Now this is one I'm quite eager to test simply for the fact that I've tested about 20 different ones over the past year or so. All my testing revolves around the SAP Developer Network and providing the best possible online meeting environment for our community.
I've tried WebEx, Interwise, GoToMeeting, Vyew and several others so it'll be interesting to see how Zoho stacks up to these others.
So going in and setting up a meeting was super easy a matter of just a couple of clicks.
Even adding others was super easy.
Needed to install a small plugin
there you go.
Not bad now time will tell on performance, etc. but looking good so far!
Thomas and Craig kick off their new podcast series with a chat about JavaOne, Scripting Languages and the up and coming SAP SAPPHIRE in Vienna.
Source: Starship Enterprisey Radio
I've not met Martin yet but Thomas did a rather funny email intro for the two of us. Thomas met him earlier this week.
When I asked Thomas why I should met him he said "He Twitters, is into scripting languages, and has some ideas on SDN." followed also by "He is also younger than you". which had me laughing for quite a bit (considering most people beg me to be about 8 years older than I really am - but anyway) I jumped over and checked out Martin's Twitter account and noticed his twitter post, "Trying to do some ABAP to JSON transformations about 22 hours ago from web " which was like an immediate "ice breaker" for me so I added him as a friend and responded in Twitter to him, "@grundprinzip check out http://tinyurl.com/2c2pm9/p..." shortly after I came across a blog post about this whole thing.
Since I started twittering recently I posted this to Twitter. Today I found in my friends list a post from Craig dedicated to me to have a look at the SDN for a blog post where somebody already developed an ABAP to JSON converter.
But what is all this about? Not the JSON to ABAP converter, but connecting people with different background using social media networks. Web 2.0 at its best. Even in companies where you wouldn’t expect it.
Source: Faster than light at Martin en Neukoelln
Now first off that is just a perfect reason for using Twitter and secondly I can't wait to hear what Martin has in mind about SDN.
One really needs to wonder if there is something brewing, Hasso's presentation has been the talk of the town since Atlanta, even internally everyone wants to know if we can use his new "style" it just rocked! Now Zoli just posted about seeing a version of that same presentation at Software 2007:
The 'New Idea" will likely be the last time Plattner turns the Mothership around. Next he will need to find "another Shai" to make sure there is a strong tech DNA in SAP's leadership, as the Sales/Marketing types take over at the helm.
Source: Zoli's Blog :: Software 2007: Plattner to Turn the SAP Mothership Again
You need to read all of what Zoli wrote as well as what Dan writes here.
Now I'm a huge fan of "new ideas" and A1S is one of those but what Hasso has in the works smells of more (like others are saying) so I think I'll be "storming" the 6th floor in Walldorf to see if anyone is willing to talk more...
Updated Bloggers and Blogs
Last month I was in Atlanta as part of the "Blogger's Corner" from SAP and had a blast, rumor has it the Enterprise Irregulars decided they would not kill me either for trying to impersonate a blogger ;-) just kidding the guys (and gals) were fantastic and I had a blast! For those of you not aware, the SAP Blogger's Corner is where SAP invites and sponsors several industry leading bloggers around Enterprise software and services to attend the event, gives them access to executives and press conferences and let's them have a free hand in asking questions and digging deep.
Thomas and I are both off again next week to Vienna for the next SAPPHIRE event!You'll be able to follow along with the action by the following links:
and the bloggers that will be present are...
Axel Angeli
The Mentors of the Service Oriented Architecture
Maggie Fox
Social Media Group
James Governor
MonkChips
Dennis Howlett
AccMan
Thomas Otter
Vendorprisey
Prashanth Rai
CIO Weblog
Sigurd Rinde
Forthcoming
David Terrar
Business Two Zero
Charlie Wood
Moonwatcher
Dale Vile
Freeform Dynamics Blog
Not confirmed yet...
Manoj Ranaweera
Manoj Ranaweera EIPP Blog
Then there is me, Craig Cmehil still a bit daunting to be thrown in with these folks I mean I subscribe to most all of these (actually all of them now) as well but after Atlanta I think I'm ready and I certainly plan to do more Podcasting as well as some live video!
Remember you can consider me your input, your voice box to the whole thing. You send me, comment here, or call me with your questions and inquiries and I will do my best to find out answers for you while I am there.
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It's so close I think I might actually have to plan to attend (if possible) anyone been to one before?
I could not resist but share this little video clip I came across on YouTube of all places!
Another little bit of proof that SAP is open and out there for everyone to take a serious look at, with a light undertone of course!
I think this will be a continuous theme you see this year as we move forward SAP is open and does get it!
Just came across Jeremiah's presentation posted over on SlideShare.net, his narration can be found here.
Here's my presentation that I did at webvisions, watch the video a more
Source: Social Media Strategies for Corporations » SlideShare
Came across this in the SDN forums and thought it was kind of interesting, more interesting would be how you respond of course.
"What innovation is needed to meet the needs of the future workforce?"
In the coming years, a new generation called the Millennials (who are born between 1980 and 2000) will enter the labor market. The Millennials are supposed to live their life much more out of their own interests and out of what satisfies them. The question is how can large international companies like SAP attract and keep these bright minds in the future when there will be a huge lack of skilled information workers. What can we do to cope with the Millennials, to innovate in order to meet the need of an emerging generation?
I would very much appreciate your feedback on this question. Thanks, Stephanie
Please click here to reply.
Source: SAP Network Blogs
So here we are into the final stretch of the new office.
Still does not look like much and we've still a ways to go but you can see the large "thinking" (translated game room) area there in the front and the back there the door to my "working" area.
It'll really be interesting to see where I do more work at my desk in the back or the very comfy chair in the front thanks to WLAN (WiFi)?
The windows (except the little one up top in the back) are in and the wiring will be run this week so then the floors can be put in. Once the floors are in then we add the doors.
We've still got to paint as well the outside will be a darker color.
I've been out with a cold, flu, what have you since returning from SAP SAPPHIRE Atlanta and I've been basically completely offline. Man has my inbox been on fire though with people wanting to know if I was going to respond to "it" I decided I don't need to respond to "it" because we get "it" and that's enough. Take for example what Ignacio Hernández has just thrown together as well as made available to everyone!
A Wiki made with ABAP, now some might ask why? I say why not? ABAP is a cool language and SAP is a cool platform so why shouldn't we experiment and have some fun?
Nice going Ignacio!
