As the summer winds down, fall event season is about to heat up, with a slew of events from SAP (and SAP's biggest competitors). But what do customers need from SAP right now? And can fall events deliver on that? How do you get what your team needs from hectic events, without getting lost in the vendor narrative? It's time for another SAP-in-review podcast with Jon Reed, Josh Greenbaum, and Geoff Scott, CEO of ASUG. The podcast kicks off by assessing what we learned since SAP Sapphire, and where SAP may be headed next. Then we shift into fall event discussions, including a review of ASUG's upcoming events and a very intriguing SAP Connect event. We also get into the need for SAP business case development, particularly for technical SAP leadership, and how that has evolved into a new workshop for ASUG Tech Connect in November. This is mostly a US-centric event review, but we recommend listeners also check in with their international events and user groups, including: DSAG's Annual Conference: https://dsag-jahreskongress.plazz.net/ UKISUG Connect 2025: https://www.ukisugconnect.co.uk/

Get ready for another round of enterprise highs and lows, with Brian Sommer and Jon Reed issuing their top picks (and pans) of the month, and unveil another unexpected half-time segment - deconstructing AI and recruiting, with surprise guest Bonnie Tinder of Raven Intel. The three dig into the provocative prediction of the end of recruiters in six months, via Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. Tinder also shares what she's learned from her own AI experiments, client deliverable, and her new AI show. Note: viewing the slides isn't necessary for the audio version, but if you want to see the slide deck, check the YouTube replay at https://www.youtube.com/live/RBC5ja21TO4.

Is LinkedIn now the business TikTok? Are keynotes legacy artifacts? And why are Watch Parties the future of enterprise keynotes? Here's the full version of Jon Reed's talk with Brent Leary of CRM Playaz - where we learn why unscripted video content is more trusted - and builds buyer confidence. Note: you don't need the video version for this one, but if you want to see the before/after of Jon's camera test, check the YouTube replay at https://www.youtube.com/live/B-LHU1tp5Gw. If you enjoy unfiltered enterprise content with no sponsors or commercials *ever*, consider giving me a review so I can beat that algorithm...

At the end of the first official day of SAP Sapphire Orlando 2025, we taped a live podcast at the ASUG Hub with questions from the audience. On the mic: Jon Reed, your host, ASUG CEO Geoff Scott and analyst Josh Greenbaum. We gave our instant keynote reactions, and discussed the topics SAP needs to address to deliver for users - at Sapphire and also beyond. Audience questions kept this one spicy, including a surprise question from Constellation analyst Holger Mueller, who was passing through the show floor. Note: this on-site podcast was a diginomica-ASUG collaboration, originally released as part of the ASUG Talks podcast series. ASUG produced this podcast audio.

As event season winds down, prognosticators have a lot to say about the future of the enterprise. Do Jon and Brian agree, or are these fever dreams? Let's review what we've learned this spring - and where customers go from here. As always, bring your savviest and snarkiest commentary, as you are an integral part of this show....

If you want to see the slides, you can see them on the YouTube replay at: https://youtube.com/live/DiqT53hdqXY. 

On the final afternoon of Salesforce Connections, I catch up with Rebecca Wettemann, CEO of Valoir, to make sense of the what we just saw. Rebecca has some instructive thoughts on Salesforce's planned acquisition of Informatica - a topic we didn't hear much about at the show, but one worth discussing. We also discussed how this show compared with Valoir's prior research on Salesforce and customer adoption of agentic AI. And: what does the end of "no-reply marketing" mean, and are customers ready for the Agentforce transition? How has Agentforce progressed since Valoir's initial research. Time to hash it out...

At Salesforce Connections 2025, Salesforce announced the Marketing Cloud Next - as the end of "do-not-reply" marketing. Is this a realistic goal for marketers? Is Marketing Cloud ready for the challenge? Time for a quick hot take from Constellation's Liz Miller, who was up for the challenge.

In a time-honored Sapphire 2025 tradition, I located an empty hallway and commandeered a couple of chairs to debrief on what we heard in Orlando. This time, with a new guest, Conor Riordan, Chair at UKISUG. Riordan brings a fascinating perspective to this conference review, as he's had a deep career in SAP IT leadership before moving over to the business side - and that's the gap that SAP (and all of us, really) still need to fully bridge. How well did SAP do? How did SAP's AI announcements stack up with UKISUG member data and priorities? Does Riordan agree with my take on the importance of public cloud ERP (formerly S/4HANA public cloud edition?). Are customers getting what they need to migrate and modernize? Is SAP's innovation strategy resonating? What has Riordan's team learned from their own dialogue with SAP? These are just some of the key topics we hit on, before we escaped to pack for the return.

For SAP Sapphire 2025 opening keynote, we took the old school retro chat backchannel, and turned it into a public watch party. I invited special guest commentators Bonnie Tinder and Josh Greenbaum, and it seemed to go pretty well. So for this podcast version, you can hear our pre-game keynote expectations, and then a post-game keynote wrap to see how it stacked up (the replay of most of the keynote commentary is also available on Jon Reed's LinkedIn stream). Many of the issues raised are ongoing topics to keep an eye on. If you haven't seen the keynote yet, you can still catch free on-demand replays on the SAP Virtual event site (just search on SAP Virtual Events and it will come up).

Yep, it's time for another Enterprise month in review. Join us live as Jon Reed and Brian Sommer issue their enterprise picks and pans. Our special guest on the virtual couch will be HR tech PR maven Jeanne Achille, who will help us sort through vendor hype and PR gotchas and chime in on the top HR tech stories. As always, bring your snarkiest/savviest comments and questions... Note: all my podcasts are free, with no sponsors and no ads etc. If you like this unfiltered approach to enterprise content, consider giving me a nice review or rating to help others discover. Thanks.