Sap And Enterprise Trends Podcasts From Jon Reed (@jonerp) Of Diginomica.com

  In this frank video chat from Jon and Den's studio at SAP TechEd Las Vegas, ASUG CEO Geoff Scott offers up strong opinions on ASUG's relationship to SAP and to the German user group DSAG. Scott also shares customer views on S/4HANA and SAP's digital themes. He responds directly to criticisms that ASUG is "soft" on SAP and reacts to Jon's views on customer discounts for S/4HANA migration. 

In a special edition of "Jon and Den's digital dump," Jon and Den of diginomica.com break down three days of SAP TechEd Las Vegas. The guys assess the keynotes, the pros and cons of SAP's S/4HANA strategy, and whether the "digital core" approach is going to work. Will the "customer engagement" play work against CRM rivals? The guys also kick around SAP's progress on developer engagement, and give a final review.

In the longer, "director's cut" version of this SAP TechEd 2015 on-site podcast, Jon Reed and Dick Hirsch kick around the main conference takeaways and the S/4HANA challenge. Dick shares the main themes he was investigating and the latest on the SAP HANA Cloud Platform. SAP's open source initiatives, particularly Cloud Foundry via Hybris YaaS (Hybris as s service), are covered. The guys also set up the themes, particularly around S/4HANA, to look for in Barcelona. SAP's approach to bloggers/communications is also reviewed. 

Jon went on-site to Conversocial's NYC headquarters for an informal chat with Conversocial CEO Joshua March about the viability of social channels for customer service. March shares what his company has been up to since he and Jon first corresponded and they were a "cool vendor" to watch. Jon shares his social service beefs and March talks about how social customer service shouldn't just be lip service, but lead all the way to resolution. March also speaks to CRM integration, always an issue when you pursue a specialized product.

​​In this extended, director's cut edition, live from SAP Controlling 2015, Jon talks with SAP Mentor Julien Delvat about the buzz behind predictive, and the guys explore some new HANA use cases Julien is working on in the S4/HANA context.​ They also talk about changing customer views on HANA at the conference. 

Gary Cokins, internationally-recognized expert and author in EPM and predictive analytics, gives Jon some straight talk on analytics after his keynote at the Controlling 2015 conference. Cokins explains the rise of EPM, and the challenges CFOs are facing. Using memorable phrases like "management by embarrassment," Cokins peels behind predictive hype and explains the role of technology, not as a cure-all, but as an enabler. 

Vijay returns with Jon Reed to make sense of his adventurous career moves - now full circle and back at IBM. Vijay also expands on a blog post he wrote on social media disillusionment, and the guys hash out options for filtering the enterprise software media noise. A bit more about the problems of predictive and the failings of air travel customer experience, and it's a wrap.  

In the triumphant return of Vijay Vijayasankar to Jon's podcast series, Vijay talks analytics views from the field. Jon also asks Vijay to sort Internet of Things hype from BS. Vijay also shares some surprising views on agile. Part two of this podcast will get into Vijay's career moves and evolving position on social media. Also check the itunes channel for the full podcast archives.  

In the directors cut edition, Jon Reed of diginomica digs into the SuccessConnect 2015 show with outspoken SuccessFactors consultant Jarret Pazahanick. The show wrap finds Pazahanick suprisingly upbeat, but there are still key issues to discuss regarding consulting, certification, customer support, and sharing and measuring benchmarks.

In the extended "directors cut" edition, Jon Reed of diginomica.com talks with James Sinclair of Enterprise Jungle live at SuccessConnect 2015. The guys chat on the value of cloud platforms, and specifically extensibility on SuccessFactors. The talk focuses on building apps on the HANA Cloud Platform (HCP) and why that has such an impact on customers.  Then the guys shift to challenges SAP faces on HCP adoption, and what changes are underfoot to address them. 

Sherryanne Meyer and Chris Paine join Jon Reed of diginomica.com to hash out the latest SAP HCM developments, with an eye towards the S/4 HANA future. The focus of this informal chat is customer and partner reactions and views; Meyer discusses her new role as ASUG HCM customer advocate. 

In what has become an annual tradition, Jon and Dick Hirsch took over an abandoned room prior to Dick's plane flight to do the long-form/relaxed review of Sapphire Now/ASUG. Dick shares his cloud and S/4 HANA learnings, and both guys give a behind the scenes view of the challenges SAP is facing and what customers were saying. Keynote reviews are also included. Not covered in the podcast: Dick's daughter is VERY mad at him for missing the Jennifer Lopez concert!

In the "director's cut" edition of Jon's live Mobile World Congress wrap with diginomica colleague Derek du Preez, the guys review the MWC frenzy from an enterprisey point of view, and then review SAP's IoT strategy before moving on to a general talk on digital media disruptions, the state of reporting, and a bit on diginomica's own goals. Is the show taking on a new level of enterprise relevance? Derek also shares his Internet of Things show research, and how he approaches this show from an enterprise journalists' perspective - not any easy thing to do, given the amount of media babble about the latest smart phones. 

After day two of Everett McKay's UX Design Essentials course in Atlanta, Jon sat down live with Everett to find out how a developer like himself transformed into a UX instructor - and why UX matters. In this sixteen minute chat, the guys also talk about why intuitive design is a useless cliche (but not a useless concept), why all software has a personality, and why design concepts like forgiveness can change UX for the better. Everett also shares his view on why UX is gaining momentum in the enterprise. 

In this live podcast recording from the New York Stock Exchange, Jon Reed and John Appleby discuss the highs and lows from SAP's S4HANA announcement event, billed as the most important SAP product announcement in 23 years. 

In part 2 of their talk on SaaS skills transitions, Jon is rejoined by Jarret Pazahanick and Luke Marson to talk about the SaaS skills transition. In part two of of this informal evening chat, the guys take a much deeper look at the impact of SaaS on customers and consulting models. They also sort through the SuccessFactors training and certification options, with opinions-a-plenty.  

In part two of their content strategy video discussion, Michael Brenner of NewsCred joins Jon Reed of diginomica.com to dig deeper - into a frank look at the impact of content on marketing, the role of marketing tech and personalization, and the challenges facing the modern CMO. Note: part one of this podcast, which hits on why Michael is betting his career on content marketing, is featured on Jon's new "Busting the Omnichannel" podcast series.

In part one of a two part discussion, Jon is joined by Jarret Pazahanick and Luke Marson to get their insights on becoming an HCM SaaS consultant and the skills involved, with Luke and Jarret debunking myths about cloud consulting and sharing their view on how SaaS consultants must be different - and more current in their training. In part two, the guys will dig deeper into cloud consulting, as well as SuccessFactors training and certification issues.

In the longer second part of the SAP cloud shoot, Jon returns with SAP cloud expert Dick Hirsch to do a deeper dive into SAP cloud for those who want the nuances. The bulk of the talk follows Dick's recent blogs and how his TechEd/d-code insights unfolded. The guys also dig into the surprising persistence of ByDesign, and SAP's cloud platform and open source Cloud Foundry forays.

Fresh off the TechEd/d-code events, Jon chats with SAP cloud expert Dick Hirsch about how he sees the SAP cloud at this juncture. This video is intended for those who want an overview of the SAP cloud with some context on "S-Innovations" as well - the so-called "Simple Suite". A second, longer companion podcast, "Hashing the SAP cloud," digs deeper into the nuances of SAP's cloud strategy.