Reply
Apr 16

CodeJam, let the coding begin!

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Craig

IMG_7699.JPG

Very recently leadership at SAP has continued to express the desire to put our developers together with those of our partners and customers as we did in the beginning 40 years ago and get back to our roots of innovation! Taking a further step in that direction we’ve decided it’s time to rekindle the infamous Hacker Night from years past into a whole new format called the CodeJam! So bring your laptop and come join your fellow developers — it’s time to code, hack and create!

That’s right the CodeJam is on, and we’ve planned a few of them coming up here real soon so you can get your hands on the coolest newest technology! Several people for the last few weeks have been asking about the CodeJam and what I’ve been up to since coming back to SAP and so now it’s time to start sharing a lot more of what all that is…

CodeJamBerlin-180x768-72dpi.jpg

CodeJamLondon-180x768-72dpi.png

CodeJamTelAviv-180x768-72dpi.jpg

The CodeJam event is an opportunity to not only get your hands on something for free but to hang with your peeps to code and hack together! It’s chance to put yourself to the test and see what you can create! Not to mention rumor has it some of the “perks” of the original Hacker Night will be present as well ;-)

We’re so happy to announce that these first few events will be taking place in April and even more so about where! The first up is in Berlin, Germany on April 23rd starting at 2 pm. Followed by another hosted by our friends over at Bluefin Solutions in London, England on the 25th starting at 11am and then our third taking place down in Tel Aviv, Israel on May 1st!

It’s an exciting time and we are going to try it all! From the SAP offices to one of our partners to one of the cool local places and to top it off we’re going to share it, when possible, in Code Exchange and without a doubt blogs will be there for sure!

Some of you might be wondering, what another in a family of events at SAP? Yes that’s right! DemoJam which started back in 2004 to showcase the coolest of the cool, followed by the InnoJam which launched just a couple of years back giving everyone an opportunity to explore, experience and innovate around all SAP technologies is now joined by the CodeJam designed to give developers a very targeted look into our platforms!

Speaking of focused, that’s what CodeJam is all about, it is a short compact format of 5 to 6 hours to develop, code and exchange with your peers on SAP technology. These first 3 events are actually going to be Mobile focused which means the entire SAP Mobility Platform but rest assured we have already started talking to folks about the next CodeJam with the HANA platform in place as well as a few other surprises to come in the very near future!

Grab your laptop, your mobile device, imagination and be sure to sign up soon, it’s free but limited seating!

 

Posted in Development, Links, SAP | Leave a comment
Reply
Mar 05

SAP ventures into the Consumer world!

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Craig

Is it safe?

I’ve been back now a bit over 4 weeks and I’ve been blown away by how many things are going on especially in the Mobile side of the house. One of the most interesting aspects I’ve come across is the “Apphaus” a new initiative that is simply beyond rational thinking for the typical SAP mind, and I love it!

The “Apphaus” itself is actually a thought, idea and a thing. It’s what you would call a startup inside of the walls of SAP, a business inside of a business yet somehow separate and their goal is consumer based apps from SAP. Having launched last year they produced 6 apps from concept to production within 90 days each. One of those catching a lot of eyeballs and attention right now is the “Recall Plus” and as a parent I say “AWESOME”!

Having taken Hasso to heart (“no new product without community”), “Recall Plus” is already set with it’s own Facebook page where customers are worked with directly. Not to mention feedback and comments being taken to heart from the App Store as well.

One of the first reviews I saw was from fellow Irregular, Ray Wang.

At midnight pacific time, February 15th, SAP launched its first ever consumer app – Recalls Plus. This consumer app, downloadable for free on Apple‘s app store, was developed from one of the world’s leading enterprise software companies (see Figure 1.) SAP’s first foray into the consumer world will surprise many customers, influencers, and observers. In fact, in an exclusive conversation with Rishi Diwan, who’s the product owner for the new consumer apps team, he reinforced SAP’s seriousness to enter the market, apply lessons learned, and reiterate.

Ray also has several screen shots up as well.

The second piece I saw was from Alex Jospeh.

I personally love the concept, as few apps better symbolize the essence of this blog title ‘From Enterprise to Consumer with Love’! I knew the product was in the making for some time, but did not know any details. If you would like to find out more, please contact Rishi Diwan, the product owner. Here are some personal impressions as a consumer, after downloading and playing with the iPhone app for a while.

As for my own thoughts on the app, as a parent I constantly wonder – how do you know when something is a problem? I mean the local toy store often has something up about recalls but do you really want to stop by the toy store every week and then it’s only toys they sell. The news? Only if it’s “big” otherwise you have to sit there and check website after website and then how often do you remember to go checking 20 websites every week? So an app that lets me put up a watch list and scan multiple sources all at once – brilliant!

Posted in SAP | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
Reply
Feb 21

SAP helps with gambling??

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Craig

I know the title is a bit risque but it does kind of head in that direction.

Sea Life aquarium’s Paul the Octopus, made famous from his 100% correct soccer tournament predictions from 2010 is back in action. Play against Paul by predicting the outcome of the European Champions League Soccer match games and try to beat Paul’s precognizant prowess. Face off against Paul and your friends by testing your knowledge against Paul’s deep archive of facts and figures. Dive in and experience Paul’s vast knowledge of European Champions League. Created by SAP in conjunction with Sea Life. Powered by SAP HANA.

In reality though this is another in a growing number of consumer centric apps from SAP together with various partners! SAP HANA in action and not just to crunch numbers but to give you a small bit of an escape from the norm. Give it a try!

If you’d like to know more about the growing number of Apps in the SAP Ecosystem I’d suggest you give it a look for yourself, here. Or direct from your mobile device itself such as Apple or Android.

Posted in Links, SAP | Leave a comment
9
Feb 03

A choice made…

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Craig

Bridges never burn

Well here I am, once again writing a life changing moment in an post to so many people that I know out there. I’ve done this type of post before but I’m not sure I’ve done it with as many happy thoughts in my head swirling around distracting and exciting me at the same time.

Over the years I’ve done a lot of things, I’ve tried a lot of things and I’ve experienced a lot of things. I have no regrets; it’s something that I am extremely proud that I can honestly say! So what am I babbling about now?

Well as of February 1, 2012 I’ve started a new job at a new company, many of you will know the company and many of you will probably either laugh or stare right now with wide eyes. I’ve decided after long and careful thought to rejoin SAP as a Technology Evangelist.

Evangelism is no strange term to me and I’ve always been extremely happy being able to sit down with the non-believers and show them that all that marketing hoopla is actually based on reality! So coming back to work at SAP right now where the number of non-believers has grown recently is a challenge that I am eager to take on!

HANA, Mobile, Cloud, Gateway, the list goes on in terms of the technologies that I will be dealing with and I can’t wait to get my fingers into the mix and see what can be done and push the limits even further!

The past 10 years has been a strange ride for me, from moving to Germany to getting married to having children to getting divorced to changing jobs from one industry to another to making my own start-up and selling it to joining another start-up to working in development, community, communications, influencer relations.

Interestingly enough though, in my professional life there has always been a constant about what I do and how I do it and it’s always revolved around passion, motivation and dedication to something I believe it. So when the opportunity came up late last year with SAP I eagerly entered the conversation and as I learned more about what is happening and what is coming down the pipeline I simply found it harder and harder not to say yes. I’ve watched SAP change so much over the past several years and it looks to be changing even more as we speak!

Now is the time when I’ll be especially curious about what my friend and mentor Dennis Howlett has to say and of course Jon Reed, and of course what they say together. I’ll also be looking at every possible angle I can to convince another friend Vinnie Mirchandani that innovation is taking place and then the list goes on and on with all of the Enterprise Irregulars and of course my own buds over at the Enterprise Geeks.

It’s still the very early stages of the job and I’ve a lot of catching up to do on all sorts of things such as HANA, and there is a lot of stuff – have you seen all of this??

Not to mention the Mobile things, which Sami and I will be reconnecting on the “Mobile World of SAP” podcast. Then there is Gateway and so many other projects to find out about!

Ones you may never have even heard about like Process Orchestration!

It’s truly an exciting time to be into Technology and be at a company with so many things moving forward! I’m overwhelmed but not for long and I’ll do my best to bring it to all of you as quickly and easily and plainly as humanly possible!

In just 3 short days I’ve seen and heard about things that folks like Ed Herrmann and Dan McWeeney would say “let me at it” and folks like Anne Petteroe would say I’m in and even folks all the way over in India like Abesh Bhattacharjee would go nuts to get their hands on.

Expect to start hearing a lot more from me as the days go on!

Posted in SAP, Thoughts | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments