Today Rui and I got a chance to discuss the upcoming Innovation Weekend events at the SAP TechEd Berlin and Las Vegas as well as the launch of the Code Exchange platform from SAP. Have a listen to hear when the attendees are going to get their hands on during the events!
It is with great pleasure and a huge honor that I can now announce to everyone a special guest speaker for the Las Vegas Innovation Weekend event taking place from October 17, 2010 until the 18th! Vinnie Mirchandani, blogger (Deal Architect and New Florence), mentor, Enterprise Irregular and author of “The New Polymath” will be joining us to kick off the event in a special “keynote” to talk about innovation and inspiration!
For those who don’t know Vinnie, you have to go and check out his blogs and see for yourself – I’ve had lots of contact with him over the years and each time I feel I walk away knowing and understanding more. Vinnie is a former technology industry analyst (with Gartner), outsourcing executive (with PwC, now part of IBM) and entrepreneur (co-founder of sourcing advisory firm, IQ4Hire).
He’s currently been on a world tour around his new book and we were lucky to find an opportunity where we could bring him to our event! His book “The New Polymath” is loaded full of examples of innovations happening all around us and in places many never dreamed of but yet Vinnie has not only found them but brought them to light in an interesting way and now he’ll be at the Innovation Weekend in Vegas to share his insights on true innovation with a group of people from the SAP communities who are about to take on a challenge of taking an idea to prototype inside of 30 hours with some of SAP’s newest innovative technologies and those of our partners! He’ll also be a member of the jury reviewing the prototypes at the end of the 30 hours to select the best one to join me during the Demo Jam event on stage the following night to showcase what they have come up with!
This won’t be the first time Vinnie has joined me on one of my crazy all night adventures he was also a guest on my last 24 Hour Marathon for the Doctors Without Borders so I’m very excited to have him joining us again for this event and I think his insights into the world of innovation will be a true inspiration for those attending the event! Plus I plan to sucker him into signing books when he’s there in exchange for letting him sneak out to sleep while we hack away for the 30 hours 
So bring your copy and come meet Vinnie during the Innovation Weekend in Las Vegas!
Over the years I’ve always tried hard to bring new technologies from within SAP to the forefront, into the hands of folks at our events as quickly as possible and when I made my transition to my new team this year I took the opportunity to push that personal agenda even further.
It was this motivation that gave birth to the “Innovation Weekend” at the SAP TechEd event in Berlin and Las Vegas this year – surprisingly I was not alone in my thoughts as several others were thinking of similar type activities so it made this event becoming a reality even easier!
So here we are in final countdown to Berlin and the Innovation Weekend is in full swing!
We’ve got sandbox systems, experts and some real life business cases we are bringing for you to sink your teeth into! We’re talking to lots of interesting people and we’ve still got room for you to join!
But I didn’t want to just bla bla bla you here though telling you things you are already aware of instead I wanted to share a personal story that I just listened to… I got a phone call from a friend who loves these types of events but he’s a student and not able to cover all of the costs associated with big events like this and he was calling to ask me if it would be remote broadcasted at all – we certainly plan to but as with any live event we’ll see how it works out in reality once we are there and onsite. This was disappointing for him but I managed to help that by giving him a free pass so now he only has to deal with his hotel and getting there – fingers crossed for you bud!
This made me realize though – what if others have similar problems or stories? Well I have a couple of free passes – in fact for Berlin I have another free pass to offer the Friday Morning Report community, this is a free pass to the Innovation Weekend only and I’m holding a contest on how you can win this free pass!
FMR is looking for a roaming reporter – someone who can show in a short video clip how they would spend some of their time at the event “covering” it in reporter like fashion – best video clip gets the free pass!
It’s that time a year again, for the annual SCNotties the award show for creativity in the community. Today we are joined by Jim Spath (@jspath55) to talk about what is going on this year.
Follow on Twitter: SCNotty
Homepage: SCNotty 2010
Video Replay
Talking Points
A couple of years ago I had a crazy idea that we should all sit on a train together for several hours from Frankfurt up to Berlin for the SAP TechEd event and it turned out to be one of the coolest things ever! Heck we even had the youngest SCN member in attendance with us!
There were several photos taken and videos made. More importantly though there were connections made! In fact so much so that last year the community themselves did it again!
So this year as we starting getting ready for Berlin once again a bunch of us decided it would not be the same if we didn’t do the Cluetrain once again! Therefore for 2010 we began as a community to coordinate our travel and thus the 2010 SAP TechEd Cluetrain has been born!
So if you want to join us, it’s quite simple – add your name to the list and then go buy your ticket for ICE 598 which is the train that those of us signed up so far have selected. If for some reason you can’t make that one there is an alternative train listed but the bulk of us are going on ICE 598. We are also heading up on Saturday to ensure we are there for the Innovation Weekend!
Those who have taken the ride with us have all walked away with the same thoughts – it was perfect and the best opportunity in the world to get to know my fellow community members before I even get to the event! So take the chance and take the ride with us!
Besides there is no telling what juicy tidbits of information those of on the train might be sharing along the way – maybe a project listing of over 200 innovations? Maybe the newest versions of something? Only one way to find out…
And for those not familiar with where “cluetrain” comes from – check it out!
