ASUG Leadership 2.0 Social Media Panel to Feature Olympian and TV Analyst, Business Intelligence, and Communications Experts

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A panel session on Tuesday, Oct. 11 with experts on social web influence will kick off the first event of the new ASUG Leadership 2.0 initiative. The launch event, hosted by Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG), the world’s largest independent community of SAP professionals, will take place during the four-day ASUG SAP® BusinessObjects™ User Conference in Orlando, Fla., Oct. 9 – 12. The panel session will focus on what technologists and business leaders in the SAP ecosystem can do to build influence through social media platforms, leveraging them to achieve organizational and professional leadership. A real-time Twitter Chat will run under the hashtag #L2dot0 throughout the session, allowing attendees to submit questions and comments via tweet.

“The ASUG Leadership 2.0 initiative is a great example of ASUG doing what it does best”

Panelists will include experts on business intelligence (BI) and SAP BusinessObjects solutions; research and communications executives; as well as four-time Olympic gold medalist, two-time Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) champion, and television studio sports analyst Lisa Leslie, who was named as the inaugural ASUG Leadership 2.0 team captain by ASUG CEO Bridgette Chambers.

“The ASUG Leadership 2.0 initiative is a great example of ASUG doing what it does best,” said Chambers. “We are putting the power of the community to work by bringing together expert resources – online and face-to-face – to share knowledge and insights on new opportunities for our members to maximize their skills and influence.”

The panel discussion, Social Media @Work: Gaining Influence and Leveraging it to Lead, will take place from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. EDT Oct. 11. Advance registration is required and is available on the new online forum for ASUG Leadership 2.0 at www.asugleadership2-0.com.

"We're looking forward to a lively discussion involving industry insiders and communications experts who know from experience how to effectively leverage social media. Our panelists will share their insights on topics such as defining your mission and voice, measuring impact and, most important of all, how participation in online communities and publishing content can advance your personal and organizational influence as you focus on building online reputation," Chambers said.

The discussion also will cover emerging trends and tools, including developments in the social economy.

Panelists include:

ASUG Leadership 2.0 Inaugural Team Captain, Olympian and TV sports analyst Lisa Leslie – Leslie brings considerable leadership and team-building expertise to her role as inaugural team captain. She was the first player to win all three Most Valuable Player awards – for the WNBA regular season, All-Star Game, and playoffs – in the same season. She has won four Olympic gold medals and two WNBA championships with the Los Angeles Sparks. She is the author of the book “Don’t Let the Lipstick Fool You: The Making of a Champion” and is an executive coach who advises executives and elite athletes on how to maximize their leadership skills. Leslie also is a former commentator for ESPN and a current analyst for ABC.
High-Tech Research Expert Bruce Richardson – Passionate about the social economy and social intelligence, the future of work, Big Data, and new tools for visualization, Richardson brings to the panel more than 30 years of experience in high tech. He gained most of his software market knowledge during his nearly 20 years with AMR Research, which was acquired by Gartner in 2009. Richardson led or initiated much of AMR's analyses of new software markets and authored the popular "First Thing Monday" blog, which had more than 39,000 subscribers in nearly 100 countries. He is co-founder of Stellwagen Research and author of the current blog series, "Circumnavigating the Social Economy."
BI Scorecard Founder Cindi Howson – As the founder of BI Scorecard®, a resource for in-depth BI product reviews, based on exclusive hands-on testing. She has been advising clients on BI tool strategies and selections for more than 15 years. She is the author of Successful Business Intelligence: Secrets to Making BI a Killer App and Business Objects XI: The Complete Reference. Prior to founding BI Scorecard, Howson was a manager at Deloitte & Touche and a BI standards leader for a Fortune 500 company. She is a TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute) faculty member, contributing expert to Information Week and the B-EYE Network. She has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Irish Times, and Business Week. She has an MBA from Rice University. Contact Cindi at CindiHowson@biscorecard.com. Information Management recently named Cindi as one of the "17 Women in Technology You Should Be Following on Twitter."
SAP BusinessObjects Solutions Pro Dave Rathbun – An ASUG SAP BusinessObjects influencer and highly regarded conference presenter, Rathbun has worked with BusinessObjects solutions for over 15 years. He is a founder of the BusinessObjects Board (BOB) – an online forum to provide free and open discussion for individuals to ask questions, provide answers, and share experiences with the SAP BusinessObjects solutions offered by SAP – and he blogs on business intelligence at www.dagira.com.
Global SAP BusinessObjects Expert Timo Elliott – An industry veteran with 20 years of combined expertise at Business Objects and now the SAP BusinessObjects division, Elliott has spent the last quarter-century working with customers around the world on information strategy. His popular Business Analytics blog tracks innovation in analytics and social media, including topics such as augmented corporate reality, collaborative decision-making, and social network analysis. Elliott is a regular presenter at IT and business conferences on subjects such as why BI projects fail and what to do about it, and the intersection of BI and Enterprise 2.0. He is also the author of the SAP Web 2.0 blog covering SAP, web 2.0 and cloud computing.
Public Relations Executive Mary Erangey – A senior vice president at the integrated marketing communications firm Public Communications Inc. (PCI), Erangey has 20 years of communications and public relations experience. She advises executives and organization brands on development and implementation of social web communications strategy, including its integration with traditional public relations tactics. In addition to leading communications campaigns for health care, association, and education clients, she currently leads a strategic public relations program for ASUG.
Moderator Courtney Bjorlin – Co-editorial director of ASUGnews.com, Bjorlin brings to her role seven years of reporting experience and a passion for reporting on the SAP ecosystem through a vehicle that speaks directly to and for end users. As editor of SearchSAP.com for three years, she covered SAP and the enterprise applications market for TechTarget. Through articles, blogs, videos and podcasts, Bjorlin identified IT trends and provided SAP news analysis for SAP users and application professionals. Before working at TechTarget, Bjorlin was a daily newspaper reporter at The Union Leader in New Hampshire and The Eagle-Tribune in Massachusetts.

Please register online for the ASUG Leadership 2.0 panel session on the events page at www.asugleadership2-0.com. Online registration forms also are available for the ASUG SAP BusinessObjects User Conference (BOUC). Now in its fourth year, the ASUG SAP BusinessObjects User Conference was launched by ASUG as the first customer-driven event for users of SAP BusinessObjects solutions. This year’s conference will be held October 9-12 at the Walt Disney Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando, Fla. For questions, please contact memberservices@asug.com.

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