Perspectives on Innovation

Hey SAP Solvers - did you know that now, in addition to having your own Challenge pavilion, containing Challenges specific to your expertise, you can also earn SCN points for submitting Solutions and for winning awards?

The announcement below is cross-posted from Martin Raepple’s SAP Developer Network blog:

Earning SCN Points with InnoCentive

Exciting news for all who have worked on any of the Challenges in the SAP Innovation & Technology Pavilion at InnoCentive: The SCN Contributor Recognition Program has been extended to award all SCN members who actively participate in SAP’s new Open Innovation program, announced this year at SAP TechEd Las Vegas. (more…)

Bob Fucci is InnoCentive’s SAP relationship manager. He has been at TechEd in Berlin this week, getting to know the European SAP community.

Greetings from Berlin!  As I write this, TechEd Berlin is wrapping up. The conference was attended by more than 10,000 SAP customers, partners, and prospects.  It’s a great testimony to SAP customer loyalty and the “trusted advisor” status SAP has earned.

It is a very interesting and fluid community. People seem to be trying to foster and develop an atmosphere of creativity and independence while at the same time finding a meaningful contribution to corporate performance. It’s quite interesting to see.

To my surprise, InnoCentive was the only SAP Partner highlighted by both Zia Yusuf and Leo Apothker during their keynote presentations. Both of them talked about the strategic nature of the partnership and urged attendees to visit our booth. SAP also announced that SDN members who register as Solvers will receive SDN points - a significant number of new registrations happened as a result.

At past SAP events, sales and customers drove the direction and the purpose of the discussion. The sales “white space” was filled with partners and the single focus is to sell more to clients. That’s less true at TechEd. The premium is about education - the “white space” is new and different ways to collaborate. It is much more about “individual brands”, personal stories, shared experiences and for InnoCentive the challenge to tap into that and build the story will be critical.

Our partner manager Martin Raepple, from SAP, won a “Top Achiever” award and was recognized in the keynote session. Congratulations Martin. Martin and I also posted a video that helps describe our partnership and our goals going forward.

Overall this event really opened my eyes to the opportunities presented by the partnership, and the enthusiasm of our global SAP audience.  Thanks to my SAP hosts for a terrific week!

Bob

Leia este post em português. I am an IT Manager with around 18 years of IT experience. During this time, I worked as a software engineer in government departments, as an IT consultant for the United Nations and, during the last few years, as an IT manager in a multinational company. I live with my wife in Porto Alegre, south of Brazil.

The good thing about innovation is that everyone is always trying to reach it or work with it. You will never see someone saying something like “My job is very boring – all we do is innovate and innovate”. As a manager, I know how important is to stimulate people to think “outside-of-the-box”, to innovate, and to find new ways to do things (sometimes, new ways to do the same task). Innovation not only results in ideas that can solve problems in an easier way, but it encourages people to keep learning and stay self-motivated in their day-to-day activities.

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I’ve spent the last two days at SAP’s TechEd 2008 conference in Las Vegas.  At this gathering of 6,000 enterprise software developers, business process experts, analysts and other IT stakeholders, we launched a strategic partnership aimed at changing the way companies innovate in Computer Science and IT.  I’ll be writing more extensively about this relationship over the coming days, but I wanted to share some initial thoughts right away while they’re fresh.

Participation and engagement in SAP’s online communities has exploded over the last few years.  There are now 1.3 million members in the SAP Developer Network (SDN).  Several other related communities span an additional 500,000+ members.  Taken together as the “SAP Community Network”, this ecosystem is actively helping to  shape SAP’s agenda and success.  Many members are employees at major SAP customers and partners.  The leaders in these communities have a strong voice – on SAP’s site and through their own independent blogs and networks.  It’s been great to have a chance to share our model and vision with them and listen to their input and questions.

Here are some quick takeaways from the event so far:

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