ASUG Western Canada (Calgary) Chapter Meeting – 06Oct2011
I’m looking out at a rainy Calgary from my hotel room after attending the ASUG Chapter Meeting. I enjoy my frequent visits to Calgary, but would rather have snow and cold than all this water. Hopefully it lets up a little so a walk to dinner or along the Bow River isn’t miserable. With reports of our first snowfall at home, it appears that winter has arrived.
This meeting was an ASUG Roadshow, one of 15 being held across North America between April2011 and April2012. I hadn’t had the chance to see a Roadshow yet, so was interested in the content. I was also excited to hear about ASUG’s future from CEO Bridgette Chambers, especially after getting a preview from June at the Seattle ASUG meeting. In addition to the ASUG presentation, the 3 sponsors (IBM, NIMBL, Kingfisher) filled up the agenda.
I mentioned after my last visit that the Western Canada ASUG Chapter was in need of volunteers and am happy to report that they now have a full team with 2 from Alberta (Tim and Janet) and 2 from Saskatchewan. This could mean future meetings will be held not only in Calgary but also in Saskatoon or Regina. At this point, the next meeting in June will be in Calgary. After a quick welcome and safety review by host TransAlta, Bridgette kicked off the Roadshow.
ASUG is celebrating 20yrs with 20 new improvements that will help us better utilize their services. Bridgette touched on 3 of the 20 (we learned that it is really 42 but “20 in 20” was more marketable).
- ASUGnews.com
- Set it as a favorite and visit often. ASUG membership not required.
- Features award-winning seasoned journalists Thomas Wailgum and Courtney Bjorlin
- Chapter Improvement Initiative
- Resources for ASUG Chapters to run meetings so they can concentrate on content
- ASUG.com
- Complete re-design is 2yrs in the making and beta version will be ready by end of 2011
She also spoke about navigating On Premise-On Demand-On Device solutions, Infinite SAP ROI, and SAP’s goal to reach 1 billion users by 2015. So much to look forward to!
The rest of the day included presentations on DB2, Business Analytics Consulting, BOBJ Lifecycle Manager, and Solution Manager Project Administration. There was also a Roadshow Panel Discussion where the sponsors gave their views on BOBJ, BW, HANA, etc. These topics are not in my daily SAP life, but they are very important for many customers and the future for SAP so it was good to get some overview and know some experts. Presentations will be available on the ASUG website, check them out and try to attend a future ASUG Roadshow in your region!