ASUG Vol­un­teers recent­ly gath­ered in Chica­go for three days of net­work­ing, cel­e­bra­tion, and plan­ning for ASUG Com­mu­ni­ties events in the year ahead. 

Empha­siz­ing inspi­ra­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and suc­cess, the annu­al ASUG Vol­un­teer Meet­ing, held Jan. 26 – 28 at the Fair­mont Chica­go, Mil­len­ni­um Park, pro­vid­ed ASUG Vol­un­teers with oppor­tu­ni­ties to exchange ideas and best prac­tices to inform the con­tent and struc­ture of future Chap­ter meet­ings, also gain­ing insights into ASUG’s vision for growth in 2024. 

“There are a lot of things you are going to see start going into motion,” ASUG CEO & Chief Com­mu­ni­ty Cham­pi­on Geoff Scott promised dur­ing a fire­side chat with Car­olyn Dolezal, ASUG Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer. ​“We are in con­ver­sa­tions with SAP senior lead­er­ship, and they rec­og­nize that what we do in ASUG Chap­ters is incred­i­bly impor­tant. And we need to do more of it.” 

The entire land­scape of enter­prise tech­nol­o­gy is in ​“inter­est­ing times,” Scott said, amid seis­mic changes stem­ming from arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) impact­ing all orga­ni­za­tions and job func­tions. ​“This com­mu­ni­ty is need­ed more than ever, by all the prac­ti­tion­ers that are in it,” Scott added, fur­ther empha­siz­ing ASUG Com­mu­ni­ties as ​“bea­cons” and ​“guid­ing lights” dur­ing this time of change. 

Through­out the week­end, ASUG Vol­un­teers net­worked, shared chal­lenges and suc­cess­es from their involve­ment in ASUG Com­mu­ni­ties events and dis­cussed ways ASUG can help its mem­bers con­tin­ue to learn, con­nect, and grow. 

Top take­aways as ASUG moves into 2024: 

•  This marked the sec­ond year the ASUG Vol­un­teer Meet­ing was held in per­son fol­low­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. ​“The most impor­tant thing we can do as a com­mu­ni­ty is come togeth­er face-to-face,” Scott said. ​“We saw the Chap­ter expe­ri­ence sky­rock­et in terms of engage­ment in 2023. Thank you to every sin­gle one of you for that.” 
• ASUG is pro­gress­ing its oper­a­tions into a uni­fied con­tent engine to enable a more com­pre­hen­sive deliv­ery sys­tem through which ASUG research, con­tin­u­ous SAP edu­ca­tion, and sto­ries of ASUG mem­bers trans­form­ing their busi­ness­es with tech­nol­o­gy mod­ern­iza­tion projects can be effec­tive­ly shared across ASUG Com­mu­ni­ties events. 
• ASUG award­ed four Vol­un­teers for their stand­out work in 2023: 
  • ASUG Chap­ter Vol­un­teer of the Year: Vin­son Bar­ber, Ora­cle Data­base Admin­is­tra­tor and Mem­ber of the ASUG Ken­tucky Chapter
  • ASUG Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance Vol­un­teer of the Year: Lin­da Diet­zel, IT Direc­tor for Sup­ply & Man­u­fac­tur­ing for The Her­shey Com­pa­ny and Mem­ber of the SAP S/4HANA (ERP) Com­mu­ni­ty Alliance 
  • Com­mu­ni­ty Advo­cates of the Year: VerNeil Mesech­er, SAP Sr. Direc­tor of Cus­tomer Engage­ment Events Liai­son, North Amer­i­ca; and Kris­ten Schef­fler, SAP Vice Pres­i­dent of Cus­tomer Engage­ment for North America 

“The ASUG Vol­un­teer Meet­ing is such an impor­tant event in the ASUG ecosys­tem,” Tay­lor Weath­ers, ASUG Direc­tor of Com­mu­ni­ty Oper­a­tions, said after the event. ​“It’s a per­fect time for our amaz­ing Vol­un­teers to con­nect with oth­er Chap­ters and real­ly dig into the year’s vic­to­ries and chal­lenges. I’m also glad we could share the excit­ing plans the ASUG Com­mu­ni­ties team has lined up for 2024.” 

Con­nect­ing, Face-to-Face  

On Fri­day, the meet­ing kicked off with a Cana­da Chap­ter meet-up fol­lowed by a Roar­ing ​’20s recep­tion where atten­dees dressed to impress in cos­tumes inspired by flap­pers, gang­sters, and swing dancers of the period. 

On Sat­ur­day, ASUG Vol­un­teers from all 38 region­al ASUG Chap­ters attend­ed ses­sions about ASUG’s strat­e­gy for the year ahead, as well as mar­ket­ing sup­port for Vol­un­teer activities. 

Sep­a­rate­ly, meet-up ses­sions focused on ASUG Chap­ters and Com­mu­ni­ty Alliances, adopt­ing a fish­bowl struc­ture in which a revolv­ing inner cir­cle of 10 par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed their alliances as the rest of the atten­dees lis­tened and took notes. Across three 10-minute ses­sions – led by Ron Gilson, CIO of Organ­ic Val­ley; Kim­ber­ly Sharp, Man­ag­ing Part­ner at EverBlue Part­ners; and Tam­my Powlas, Senior Busi­ness Ana­lyst at Fair­fax Water – par­tic­i­pants gained insights into how their peers approach con­tent pro­gram­ming needs and helped their peers extract the most val­ue from SAP investments. 

“If you’re doing an SAP S/4HANA imple­men­ta­tion, it bet­ter be busi­ness-dri­ven,” one par­tic­i­pant stat­ed, amid a con­ver­sa­tion about the neces­si­ty of con­nect­ing IT and busi­ness stake­hold­ers when under­tak­ing trans­for­ma­tion projects. Bob Bucy, IS Busi­ness Ana­lyst, Busi­ness Solu­tions Sup­ply Chain at bio­Mérieux, who serves as the ASUG Car­oli­nas Chap­ter Chair, also dis­cussed the val­ue of the ASUG Cam­pus Con­nect pro­gram, a recent­ly relaunched col­lab­o­ra­tion between ASUG and the SAP Uni­ver­si­ty Alliances, shar­ing tips for con­nect­ing with learn­ing insti­tu­tions to bring this pro­gram­ming to region­al Chap­ter meetings. 

ASUG rein­tro­duced its Women Con­nect pro­gram at the event. Eliz­a­beth Tuck­well, ASUG Con­tent Coor­di­na­tor, and Kel­ly Dowl­ing, ASUG Direc­tor of Con­tent Strat­e­gy, led the ses­sion, which detailed the program’s renewed direc­tion and focus while ded­i­cat­ing time for par­tic­i­pants to share their expe­ri­ences on top­ics rang­ing from find­ing men­tors to eval­u­at­ing work­place suc­cess.  

Pro­pelling ASUG Forward

Two mem­bers of the ASUG Board of Direc­tors — Mark LeClair, CIO at Cur­rent Light­ing, and Lau­ra Tibodeau, ASUG Board Mem­ber — shared their respec­tive visions for ASUG and how ASUG Vol­un­teers fac­tor in. 

“When we talk about what pro­pels ASUG for­ward, it is absolute­ly you — the vol­un­teers,” Tibodeau said, com­ment­ing that the board’s annu­al trip to SAP head­quar­ters in Wall­dorf, Ger­many, is large­ly under­tak­en to advo­cate on behalf of mem­bers around issues they express through ASUG research sur­veys and ASUG Com­mu­ni­ties events.

The dia­logue with SAP lead­er­ship, described by Tibodeau as ​“very gen­uine, real, and trans­par­ent,” serves to keep SAP informed of ​“what’s on the mind of our SAP com­mu­ni­ty,” and reflect­ed that SAP is will­ing to let the ASUG Board of Direc­tors ​“guide and steer” in con­vey­ing the con­cerns of ASUG membership. 

Dis­cussing the val­ue of the ASUG Com­mu­ni­ties pro­gram­ming, Tibodeau urged vol­un­teers to com­mit to show­ing up at their Chap­ters and to focus on meet­ing as many oth­er like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als as pos­si­ble. Per­son­al­ly, she said, the ben­e­fits she’s unlocked through reg­u­lar­ly con­nect­ing in per­son with indus­try peers around shared busi­ness chal­lenges have been immense. ​“The per­son­al net­work­ing is going to yield so much more than an email push could ever do,” Tibodeau added. ​“It could be career-changing.” 

Vol­un­teers can suc­cess­ful­ly share and lever­age cus­tomer sto­ries, such as those shared through ASUG edi­to­r­i­al and web­casts, for their events. It’s crit­i­cal, Tibodeau said, for ASUG to cre­ate ​“curat­ed con­tent” that vol­un­teers can lever­age at their events, and for ASUG to empow­er vol­un­teers to effec­tive­ly share that con­tent. On behalf of ASUG, Tibodeau com­mit­ted to con­nect­ing the Chap­ters to a robust mix­ture of con­tent curat­ed for group-lev­el access; ​“We can share across indus­tries, and we will share across indus­tries,” she said, promis­ing ​“a larg­er forum and rich­er dia­logue” in the months ahead. 

“We from an ASUG per­spec­tive need to be much bet­ter at bring­ing you infor­ma­tion and con­tent that you can bring into your Chap­ter meet­ings,” Scott said dur­ing his fire­side chat, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of this focus for ASUG. 

Scott also offered his thoughts on the role ASUG Chap­ter Meet­ings and Com­mu­ni­ties will play in the larg­er ASUG ecosys­tem mov­ing for­ward, not­ing that ASUG Vol­un­teers have a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to lead the con­ver­sa­tion about key SAP top­ics, includ­ing how emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies, like AI, fit into the SAP ecosystem. 

“I am hop­ing that ASUG and this com­mu­ni­ty are at the fore­front of [AI], ush­er­ing it in, and doing every­thing we can to change minds and hearts,” he said. ​“Because if we don’t inno­vate, our com­peti­tors will.” 

Keep an eye out for more cov­er­age from the 2024 ASUG Vol­un­teer Meet­ing in the weeks ahead.