A year ago, Jeff Nolan left his post at SAP Ventures to get back into operations. He joined the SAP Apollo Group heading up a competitive intelligence unit, primarily focused on Oracle but certainly spanning into a more holistic view of the competitive landscape.
At the time, I didn't know Jeff well but, like many of you, was an avid reader of his blog. Since then, I'm proud to say that Jeff has become a friend and someone whose perspective I value immensely.
Yesterday, just about a year after he left Ventures, Jeff parted ways with SAP. While Jeff is probably best known to those who don't know him personally as a VC and "SAP guy", it sells his legacy at the ERP juggernaut short to stop there.
One of Jeff's true passions is emergent applications and their applicability within the enterprise. You can see that in his investments at Ventures (e.g., Socialtext, Black Duck, mySQL). You can also see that in his evangelism of wikis and blogs within SAP. Jeff's been blogging for more than four years and, in his own words, was among the first to blog within SAP.
...When I started blogging over 4 years ago there were no other bloggers inside of SAP, except maybe Mark, to model myself on. So I wrote about what interested me, what I was seeing, and why I thought things that seemed important were so. In the process I really pissed off some people in our marketing and communications groups who saw my activities as a usurping of their authority. I am quite sure that were it not for a couple of key executives (and you know who you are) there would have been the dreaded cease-and-desist-or-find-a-new-job email, but that never happened...
Now, SAP is among the most proactive software companies in terms of embracing social software. SAP uses wikis internally and externally for a variety of purposes (marketing, product management, competitive analysis, sales). Blogging has become not only accepted, but embraced with dozens of SAP bloggers cropping up including fellow Irregulars Charles, Tom and Mark.
As impressively, SAP has embraced blogging as a key external communication touch point. Jeff spearheaded the Sapphire Blogger's Corner along with Mike Prosceno. As a member of that experiment, I'm proud to say it was a smashing success on many levels; and we continue to hear feedback that SAP employees and senior management were impressed with the depth and breadth of knowledge we enterprise-focused bloggers brought to the table. Without Jeff putting significant political capital to work, that would've never transpired.
And his efforts weren't in vain. Even though Jeff has left SAP, a contingent of blogger's is attending SAP TechEd as we speak (thanks again to the efforts of Mike Prosceno among others).
Finally, and certainly not least, Jeff's vision for the power of emergent technologies within the enterprise led to the creation of the Enterprise Irregulars. I don't think anyone among the group could've imagined such a passionate and consistent exchange of ideas across such a diverse group of thought leaders would emerge from our initial meeting at Sapphire; but that's what happened. Our numbers continue to grow; adding at least ten new members in the last few months. At any given moment, we're collectively engaged in multiple debates and its generated fresh ideas, new lines of communication, expanded professional networks and most importantly budding friendships.We have several wikis where we collaborate, as well as a private email group and discussion thread, and a rudimentary if not effective news aggregation site. We've hosted several conference calls, and have great things planned ahead.
Jeff has decided to hold off on announcing his next career move until the Office 2.0 Conference next month. It's a harmonious decision when one considers Office 2.0 is being run by fellow Irregular (and SAP Ventures portfolio CEO) Ismael Ghalimi and will be heavily populated by the broadest swath of Irregulars yet (I think at least 20 of us will be in attendance, if not more). Knowing what Jeff has planned, I'm excited for him and for those who will benefit from his involvement at his new initiative. At a minimum, it gives us a great reason to throw back some cocktails and cigars in October to celebrate his legacy at SAP and his willingness to leave something he loved for something he loved more.
Note: At the time of this writing I, and/or funds I maintain discretionary control over, maintained a long equity position in SAP. We also may, at times, carry derivative options on underlying positions as a hedge.
jeff nolan sap departure social software emergent technologies wikis blogs enterprise2.0 software irregulars enterprise irregulars woodrow office2.0
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