My First ASUG

I’ve worked in technology my whole career, but I’ve spent 99.9% of the time in infrastructure – storage, compute and network.  Growing up in Massachusetts, right on 495, an area rich in technology and history being home to giants like DEC, Data General (and of course EMC), my fate was sealed coming out of college after a couple summers on South Street as an intern with EMC. That then turned into becoming a reseller, which then grew into a long and exciting stint at an infrastructure resource management automation company. For the past ten years I’ve lived in my bubble - never crossing the threshold of technology past the hypervisor. However,  my new adventure here at Pillir has opened doors to entirely new worlds that exist above the hypervisor. A recent engagement at the Colorado ASUG Chapter meeting was a very eye-opening experience for what the world is like on the other side! 

Infrastructure has its users groups – I think companies I worked for personally paid the electricity for the VMUG’s in New England for a large part of the last dozen years. There was a big difference compared to my experience with other user groups and what ASUG brings to the table – at least from my first experience.  The way I’d described other technology user groups is the technology is at the center.  This approach to user groups still unlocks a lot of value for members and attendees – you get to hear from other experiences, learn best practices, and also see and hear from companies that are able to get you maximum value for the platform at the center of the ecosystem.  It makes sense that those user groups are technology-driven and focused on platforms, because, at the end of the day, those technologies are critical pieces that companies utilize to build the right technological foundation for the business to support applications that drive positive outcomes.

ASUG does, in fact, serve a similar mission - helping people and organizations get the most value out of their investment in SAP technologies; however, ASUG is unique in the fact that the user is the center. This forces technology to be secondary to customer outcomes and changes the entire feel of the user group - a feeling I'm not particularly used to but am coming to greatly respect. At other user groups, when standing at a booth, the first thing I've always had to explain is how we work with Technology X - with X being the center of that user group; but, at ASUG, the first thing booth visitors expect is to understand how your solution is actually helping the user of said solution. It's personal - literally. People were networking to learn, focusing on education and enablement, and trying to understand how to drive true change in the context of SAP.  It felt as though the organizers and attendees were actually working together to shape the future and solve critical business challenges creatively – not fit inside the box that a technology vendor had built and forced an ecosystem into. 

Perhaps this is life above the hypervisor, at the application level – close enough to the business that outcomes are felt by the business directly – where no vendor is bigger than measurable business outcomes.  However, at first glance, it appears to me that ASUG has created an environment like none I’ve seen.  Bringing together folks from a range of industries, locations, roles and varying SAP expertise to focus on one thing and one thing only – helping members navigate the ever-changing business and technology requirements coming their way in relation to SAP.   So, I am super excited for our upcoming speaking opportunities at ASUG’s across North America – because it’s much more rewarding to explain to someone how we help customers versus how we fit in to some set platform or rigid ecosystem.  This type of environment should prove to serve a customer centric organization focused on driving outcomes very well, and given the unique approach we are taking with modernizing SAP user experience and extending SAP to the edge, I expect to have a lot of positive and exciting conversations over the next few ASUGs just like we did last week!