This
year’s Mastering SAP Technology Conference will play host to some of the world’s
eminent SAP thinkers and influencers, namely the SAP mentors.
SAP
Mentors are community members who have been recognised both by their peers and
by SAP as hand-on experts in their field.
They’re
also known for their willingness to share their wealth of knowledge with
others, particularly at events like the Mastering SAP technologies Conference
in Sydney this
March.
Attendees
at the conference will have the chance to meet and interact with the Mentors, amongst
a number of other influencers and CIOs from SAP customers across the globe.
Event
organisers highlight this as one of the key drawcards for this event.
“People
want to meet these Mentors. Our value proposition at eventful is about
providing access to networks, and that’s what a lot of people come for,” said
Steven Morris, Managing Director- Production at Eventful Management.
“Throughout
the conference all the speakers are available for ‘meet the experts’
opportunities. We book rooms for you to meet them and quiz them. It’s not one
way where you’re a spectator- you have complete access,” Steve continued.
One
such Mentor is
Australian Graham Robinson. A veteran of the Australian IT industry, Graham is
actively involved in the SAP online community, the SAP Developer Network.
Graham
will be making several appearances at the conference, including a presentation
on the SAP Enhancement Framework and a demonstration of a little known
NetWeaver module available out of the box.
“One
of the big features of the mentor group is that they tend to be people who are
prepared to share information,” Robinson said.
“It’s
a very small group, but while a lot of them work for customers and partners,
were all generally outspoken”.
Other
mentors include ABAP guru Thomas Jung, Tony de Thomasis from Australia Post
(AUS), security expert Gretchen Lindquist (USA), BusinessObjects specialist Ingo
Hilgefort (Canada)
and Karin Tillotson from Valero Energy (USA).
Keynotes
include Abbe Mulders, CIO- Dow Corning (USA) and Andrew Baker, CIO- BlueScope
Steel Ltd (AUS).
To
maximised access to the Mentors, most will be speaking twice at different times
across the event.
“(SAP
Mentor) Thomas Yung is delivering a full day workshop about the technology he
is working on and people are just queuing up to come and spend the day with
him,” Morris said.
“The
overseas guests are really well known (on the SDN). These people are really
active in the online community”. Robinson said.
To
keep the event relevant, ideas for content have been drawn from customers
themselves, to gain insight into the problems the community is grappling with.
As
testament to the events status as the premier SAP technology event in the
region, workshops from last year’s Tech Ed event are being updated and re-run,
and some speakers will be revealing content from their Sapphire 2010 presentations.
Organisers
say the conference will not only cater for Basis and ABAP consultants, but also
the strategists and architects.
For
more information about this year’s conference, see our events
page, or visit the event website.
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