Dates: October 18-21 2009

Location: Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas

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For those of you not yet fortunate enough to attend a SAP Business Objects User Conference, try and picture several thousand of your peers spending four intense days learning, interacting, networking, talking shop, and just having fun.

From the opening keynote to the numerous hands-on education sessions, product influence GBN council sessions, lunches, executive dinners, networking receptions and much more – BOUC attendees find themselves immersed in products and technologies, and emerge the better for the experience several days later.

Just in case you remain unconvinced, here are my own…

Top 10 Reasons to Attend the 2009 SAP Business Objects User Conference in Dallas:

1. Awesome Keynotes: including Business Objects CEO John Schwarz, Talent is Overrated author and Fortune Magazine Senior Editor at Large Geoffrey Colvin and Technology Futurist and Business Strategist Daniel Burrus.
2. Networking, Schmoozing, Chatting, Late-Night Bar Sessions: Whatever your style, you’ll find hundreds of like-minded admins, developers, analysts, managers and executives who’d love to share and hear from you. For many people, this ability to associate faces with e-mail addresses is the highlight of BOUC.
3. Hands-On Learning Sessions: Don’t just listen. Do! Take advantage of 60-minute hands-on training sessions on a variety of products and technologies, all taught by certified instructors and product experts.
4. GBN Influence Council Sessions: Spend time with the individuals responsible for the products you use and rely on. Like a feature? Tell them. Have a suggestion? Great, they love feedback. Even complaints (should you actually have any) are accepted and appreciated.
5. Product Roadmap: Be the first to see the latest technological advancements in the Business Intelligence space. Take away ideas and strategies to align your business goals with new product capabilities. Provide your input into this process to guide the direction of the technology you have invested in. Network 1-on-1 with the SAP Business Objects’ product development team and ask those burning questions that only they can answer.
6. Partner Showcase: Get Access to SAP Business Objects’s top Partners in a professional and resourceful environment with knowledgeable experts onsite and down-to-business in our partner exhibits pavilion. Learn how they can help you get the most from your deployment.
7. Be Inspired: Get out of the office and join SAP Business Objects and your colleagues, building alliances with peers who are working through and solving many of the same challenges your may be facing. Leverage others’ experience.
8. Shirts, Bags, and Other Apparel and Goodies: Those of us who’ve been attending year after year have saved fortunes on our clothing budgets.
9. Sneak Peeks: BOUC attendees are often the first to see stuff that are product teams are cooking up.
10. It’s In Dallas! For many of my customers in the South West, you’re only a short car ride or plane trip away.

C’mon – do you really need another reason? BOUC is more than a conference, it’s an experience.

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3. Event: Texas Rangers vs. Minnesota Twins August 19th 2009

I will be sharing some APOS success stories from companies like AT&T shortly, but in the meantime check out the full APOS white paper below. Alternatively, if you prefer to download a PDF copy of the white paper to your desktop, please click on the link below to download the PDF file from SlideShare.

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Earlier this afternoon, TechCrunch leaked confidential Meetup.com shareholder docs to the public. Although the leaked info didn’t seem to be a major concern to Meetup.com CEO Scott Heiferman based on his light-hearted Twitter account response, this is yet another example of the importance of putting up proper security firewalls around sensitive financial and customer data. Obviously, confidential stamps and do not forward warnings on PowerPoints aren’t enough to deter people from leaking confidential data outside of the firewall into the hands of competitors and alike!

With that in mind, this security breach could have been easily prevented with the implementation of the row-level security features that are built into the Business Objects Enterprise business intelligence platform and LiveOffice. Whether you are displaying information online in a corporate portal or sharing data in Microsoft Office documents like PowerPoint, Word or Excel, you can ensure that only those with adequate permissions are able to access and view the information. Further, you can even establish different views of the information based on user level (executive, management, supervisor, staff, etc.)

P.S. Scott if you’re reading – give me a call if you’d like to prevent this from happening in the future!

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