Dave's Adventures in Business Intelligence

I was fortunate to once again be invited down to the Mastering BusinessObjects conference in Australia. I hope this conference continues to do well because I certainly enjoy going. Two weeks prior to this conference I was at ASUG Annual Conference / SAPPHIRE, and the difference is substantial. SAPPHIRE is HUGE, which might explain why their name is in ALL CAPS. 😀 The Mastering conference is much smaller (they’re only just getting started, really) and feels much more intimate. I talked to quite a few folks and got to hear some really interesting stories.

And like last year I got a few pictures… Continue reading “Mastering BusinessObjects 2010 Review”

If you procrastinated just enough to miss the deadline, or if you were inspired by some extra stupendous ideas just after the submissions window closed, you are in luck. 🙂 The call for speakers for the fall BusinessObjects conference has been extended until June 13^th.

To repeat something I mentioned earlier (a tweet from Jamie Oswald)

Did you know that speakers at #SBOUC get free admission. That’s like making $1,000/hr. Go submit an abstract. http://ow.ly/1KefI #ASUG #BOBJ
10:40 AM May 19th

Today we closed the Mastering BusinessObjects 2010 conference. I presented my “Return of the Variables” talk, and afterwards I had someone come up to me and saw what I always love to hear: “You just solved one of my problems.”

Tom Nather did a very detailed session on setting up the configuration for single sign-on (SSO). I’ve been away from the server stuff for a while, so it was good to see the process laid out so cleanly.

Fellow SAP Mentor Ingo Hilgefort did a keynote this morning where he outlined current (SP3) and future (XI 4) product features, concepts, and directions. He was (rather predictably I think) asked about Desktop Intelligence, and just like every other time I have heard this question asked, the answer was: “It’s gone.” With folding now in 3.1 and the data manager coming in 4.0 it really seems like it’s time to read the writing on the wall and move on. The only big remaining “gotcha” for Desktop Intelligence users is the lack of scripting support (VBA) in the rich client. In many cases what I have seen scripting used for is now covered by the standard scheduling or other processes.

I had some really good conversations with folks here in Melbourne, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time here at the conference. It’s so much easier (it seems) to connect with people in a smaller setting.

After the conference Tom invited me to go with his family to eat dinner on a train. Who was I to refuse? 🙂 It was a wonderful dinner, served on a trolley car that drove around the city for an hour and a half while we ate. The food was wonderful, the company even more so.

Tomorrow I am delivering a full-day seminar titled, “From Universe Development to Report Generation: The Untold Story.” It should be fun. 😎

Yesterday was the first full day of the conference, and it went very well. Timo Elliott did his typical excellent job of opening the conference with a keynote full of possibilities. He remains very enthusiastic about the social aspects of BI, which is something that I think I agree is coming even if I’m not exactly sure when or how it is coming.

The second keynote was from Rubbermaid. They have done some interesting stuff with dashboards (which was fun to see) but one of the most impressive things to me was the statement that their company has at least one product in 90% of American households. That’s some serious market penetration.

I thought my talk went well. I had some great conversations afterwards about working with recursive data, including one interesting challenge related to investment funds. No, not a ponzi scheme, it’s a legitimate question. 🙂

The evening keynote was from Glenn Singleman. I had never heard of him, but he was an excellent story teller. He started out his career as a doctor in the emergency room. One day a co-worker asked him to go “canyoning” on the weekend, and when he asked what it was (and found out it involved hiking through deep canyons and the occasional descent over a waterfall) he was inclined to pass. A different co-worker then asked him to take his weekend shift so he could go, and Dr. Singleman decided that he would rather go hiking in wet canyons than work yet another night shift. The decision changed his life. He’s now an adventure documentary film maker along with being a doctor, and the adventures he has had…

He and his wife recently set a number of records by base jumping off of the highest cliff they could find, something over 6,000m (23,000 ft). From their web site:

On May 23rd, 2006 that strength and persistence prevailed, and they achieved their dream. Glenn and Heather successfully climbed Mt Meru in the Indian Himalaya and BASEjumped in wingsuits from a ledge at 6604 metres. It was a new world record, a world first for a woman and a husband and wife team.

And here I thought remodeling a house was the scariest thing a husband and wife could do together… 😆

Related Links

• BASEClimb.com

I had a (long) flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne; the flight went very well. By that I mean I slept through most of it. 🙂 They also had a “tail cam” which was really fun once the sun came up. They had a camera mounted in the tail so you could see the view from behind the plane. It was especially fun to watch the landing from that perspective.

The folks at Eventful Management have once again done an outstanding job. I took a quick tour of the facilities, and everything is quite nice. We have over 200 folks attending the conference this year which is up from last year. I like smaller conferences because it’s much easier to connect with folks. I’ve already met Josh in the lobby, and Tom and his lovely family in the lounge area. I will be going with Tom on a tour of the city later today, then tonight there is a speaker orientation meeting. The opening keynote and reception follow.

Maybe they’ll have more of this:

I initially had some difficulty coming up with ideas to submit for the fall BusinessObjects conference, but I did eventually come up with a few. I was really hoping to get a pre-release copy of XI 4.0 to play with so I could talk about some of the really cool new universe stuff, but that didn’t happen. Once I got over that disappointment I decided there were still some interesting things to say about our current technology. Besides, I imagine that quite a few companies will not upgrade to XI 4.0 for quite a few years anyway.

I submitted to the Universe track as well as the Webi/Deski track this year. Those are my primary areas of interest and therefore the subjects I most enjoy speaking about.

If you haven’t submitted any ideas yet, there are still a few days left! Take an hour out of your weekend and see what you can come up with. If you get accepted to speak you don’t have to pay to attend the conference. As Jamie said:

Did you know that speakers at #SBOUC get free admission. That’s like making $1,000/hr. Go submit an abstract. http://ow.ly/1KefI #ASUG #BOBJ
10:40 AM May 19th

Related Links

• Call for Papers for 2010 fall conference

I’m home after an uneventful flight. (I assume it was uneventful, I slept most of the way.) The last bit of fun was a concert from Carlos Santana. During the concert he started talking about “consciousness” and he really extended the sound of the “s” at the end of the word. Then he paused, said “A”, paused, and wound up with a “P” at the end. Ssssss…. A…. P…. you can see what he did there. 😛

Oh, and I got a tweet displayed on the jumbotron during the pre-concert activities! 😀

As with last year the in-memory technology was getting a lot of mentions. This time they’re taking it beyond reporting and starting to talk about embedding it within the application itself. One example given was for the planning applications. Instead of having to plan at a weekly level and wait for the application to crunch numbers, go ahead and load everything into memory and run your planning app at the daily level. Instant response. From a forecast / planning perspective I can see where this would be attractive, as planners always seem to want as much data as they can possibly get.

Last word: Desktop Intelligence wasn’t showing up anywhere, and everyone I talked to that would have reason to know was saying that it’s gone as of XI 4.0.

Time to start making plans for our own (BusinessObjects) conference this fall. Have you submitted your abstracts yet? I have a post coming up early next week with some ideas on how to improve your chances of being selected to speak.

Yesterday afternoon I attended some SAP Mentor sessions, which unfortunately I can’t talk about because of NDA. Suffice it to say there are some very creative and enthusiastic folks that work for the company. After the conference ended yesterday I attended the ASUG Volunteer reception where they handed out awards for the past year.

This morning I participated in a panel discussion sponsored by the ASUG BI SIG. Fellow mentors Ingo and Ken were there, along with SAP representative Dan Kiernan. Lots of good questions were asked, some about specific technical issues (page numbering in PDF files created from Web Intelligence) and others about the broader roadmap (when will the products work together better).

Hasso is the keynote for this morning. As with last year he is talking about in-memory databases, a subject that he is obviously quite passionate about. He covered some of the same concepts in his keynote last year. Shortly I will be heading out to see new SAP Mentor and founder of Everything Xcelsius Mico Yuk do her presentation, followed by a BOB lunch gathering. This afternoon is filled with more SAP Mentor sessions, so I’m not sure how much I will be able to share from those.

This morning I got up bright and early. That is to say, the sun was bright and I was early. I made my way down to the ASUG lounge area in order to participate in a “meet the experts” session with fellow SAP Mentor Ken Hartman. We had a small but enthusiastic (meaning awake) group of folks at our session, so that went well. After the session I visited with a gentleman from Australia, talking about the Mastering BusinessObjects conference that’s coming up in a few weeks. He told me not to expect to go surfing this time. Apparently Melbourne gets ocean currents delivering water from the southern ocean extremes… Antarctica in other words. 😯

I skipped the keynotes this morning in order to catch up on some work email and other items. After the keynotes I had a meeting with Laure, one of the folks responsible for the configuration and operation of the community software used by the SAP Community Network (SCN). It was great to talk to her and share thoughts and ideas about working with online communities. That’s not exactly breaking news on the BusinessObjects front, but I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. It also helps explain why I don’t have much to report this morning.

Oh, I did stop by the booth for RoamBI. They’re giving away an iPad, and I didn’t bring any business cards. I didn’t bring any because I didn’t print any when I joined my new company, so that’s my fault. I checked in with a few reporting ideas and they said they should be able to get something put together. Anything is better than concatenated text emailed to a Blackberry, right?

There is a funny video they were playing on a loop last night that featured Hasso Plattner interviewing himself, asking questions about in-memory column databases. I watched the entire thing before I realized that he was on both sides of the picture. 😆 He was dressed differently and had different hair styles and everything. I didn’t care about the interviewer, I just wanted to see his responses. When it looped and started again I realized what was going on as I paid more attention to the interviewer. Funny.

No keynotes this afternoon, but a few Mentor sessions and then the ASUG Volunteer reception.

Not looking like I’m going to hit any roller coasters this year…

The big news for BusinessObjects customers was from Bridgette’s keynote, and I’ve already posted about that. They keynote ended with a very interesting and highly entertaining speech from General Colin Powell. Turns out he has a Corvette. And he gets speeding tickets. 😆

Tomorrow morning Ken Hartman and I will deliver an interactive session in the ASUG lounge where we will talk to customers about the various tools. Since most of the customers here are likely to be SAP ERP customers that are still looking for insight on BusinessObjects products we will try to provide that. We may film parts of it, and if so, I’ll post it here. 🙂

Altogether it was a good day today. Tomorrow I will be meeting with some different folks, including one of the people responsible for managing the community for SCN. It will be interesting to share stories about managing a large and active online community. 😎