By this point in the year, most of us are settled into the rhythm of work. Vacations are behind us and those projects that promised to start in “early January” are bearing fruit. We are “getting on” with business.

But in this day and age, it’s no longer good enough to “get on” with business. We have to keep our skills sharp and in alignment with the directions of our industry. And one of those trends is the convergence of technical and business skills. Sure, this has been “in-train” for over a decade, but we are rapidly getting to a point where a balance of technical and business skills is no longer a “nice to have”, but a key to career success.

And as Jon Reed points out in his excellent SAP Career Outlook 2010 – this means looking not at the skills you need in the future, but at the skills you need now. He suggests creating a “skills menu” – identifying those areas (especially in the BPX field) which you need to enhance – and that are best suited to your particular (ie current) role.

From a skills development or prioritization point of view, this means that you have to continue to maintain your core SAP skills, but begin to cultivate broader (or what Jon calls “edge”) skills. He provides a couple of examples, but there will be plenty of variations – that will apply to your own area of expertise.

Winning SAP Technical Skills Combinations

Winning SAP Functional Skills Combinations

OK – so you may have identified your Core and your Edge skills, but what do you do next? You could start by putting some Personal Learning practices in place. Be sure to read through Jon Reed’s entire article over at the SAP Career Center – and then get to back to work. There’s learning to be done.

If it is true that storytelling is one of the most compelling ways for us to learn, then YouTube, web video, podcasts and so on will revolutionize not just our personal learning, but also the way that we do business. Never before has it been so easy to produce content – and share it.

But sometimes it takes a great storyteller to tell a great story. And often the most compelling storyteller is the person who speaks from experience, who is able to recount their successes and their failures with the authority that only comes from “being there".

From today, Learning on Demand by SAP provides access to a premium collection of stories from some of the world’s most respected business leaders – including JW Marriott Jr (Marriott International), Dame Anita Roddick (The Body Shop), Peter Ellwood (ICI) and Dina Dublon (Microsoft). In fact, there are over 60 business focused videos contained in the 12 month subscription (with more to be added during the year).

Produced by 50Lessons, the world’s leading digital video business library, each video presentation is bite-sized, meaning that you can easily watch it on the way to work, at lunch or in-between meetings. With over six hours of useful, practical instruction, this new subscription will be a great way to extend your business skills and sharpen other aspects of your personal learning program. And at only $129 for 12 months access, it represents great value.

Here is a short example of the approach and style of the learning content from 50 Lessons.

When it comes to career development, many people don’t know where to start.

This short guide builds on a series of blog posts that were written over the last few months, and is designed to help prepare you (and your career) for 2010 and beyond. The guide explains how learning can be incorporated into your every day (working and learning) life, how to set some goals for your career, and importantly, how you can use technology in a way that accelerates your learning and skilling process.

To make life easier, the book is available as both an eBook AND a printed book. The eBook is FREE and is available immediately.

If you prefer your books in a printed format, you can order it on-demand from Lulu.com. You only pay for the printing and shipping – there is no margin. You will, however, need to wait for the book to be printed and shipped.

As any good project manager knows, you need to a plan and you need activity to ensure that you really do achieve your goals. The same applies to personal learning. So no matter whether you are an experienced SAP professional or just starting out on your SAP career, creating a personal learning environment is one of the best ways to ensure that you are up-to-date with the latest information, connected with your community, and working towards achieving your career goals.

There are many things to consider when it comes to personal learning, but the best thing to do is to just get started. I have written two posts that provide tips and instructions for building your personal learning environment – but you won’t get the benefit of a personal learning environment until you start putting it to work.

So, how do you get the juicy goodness out of personal learning? This is where your daily learning process kicks in!

Daily learning

It is easy to feel overwhelmed with RSS feeds, new SAP courses, upgrades and so on. Leave it a few days and it your unread feed list can go crazy. Take a couple of weeks leave and you may as well delete everything and start over!

By having your information and knowledge feeds aggregated through a feed reading service such as Google Reader, you can save a great deal of time and effort. This is not just a function of simplicity – but also of ease of use. One of the most easy-to-use feed readers I have come across is Feedly. This Firefox extension takes your catalogued feed list from Google Reader and turns it into a daily/weekly digest of categorised information. Let’s just take a quick look at how this might work for you.

All of the feeds that I have created in Google Reader now flow through to the categories shown down the left hand side of my Feedly reader. And for each of the category areas, Feedly automatically checks for the most widely read articles and pushes them into a “Featured” category at the top of the page. This way you can see the information that your peers and colleagues already rate highly. You can also highlight sections of articles and make notes (which are then routed as comments to Google Reader) – you are effectively now engaged in “networked learning”.

Networked learning

The thing to remember about a PLE is that it is not JUST for you. It is also for your mentor (if you have one) and colleagues in your network who are interested in the same professional topics that you are. This two-way dynamic allows you to:

• Share your information, lists, aspirations by publishing them
• Receive feedback, suggestions and recommendations
• Filter information through this feedback mechanism
• Distribute all this across your network via RSS feeds etc

When you start using tools and platforms such as Posterous and Feedly, you are not just creating value for yourself, you are creating value for others – and your personal recommendations (ie voting/sharing etc) automatically begin appearing across the web. So now, as you learn, you are also contributing to your community and slowly, but surely, building a reputation.

As you grow more confident, you can bring other technologies (such as Twitter) into your personal learning environment. Just remember, you need to consider yourself a publisher (even if it is for an audience of one) – and by creating tagging, information and context around your personal learning, you will be able to grow your knowledge and your skills in a way that benefits your own career. And it may just benefit the careers of others too – and that’s not a bad thing!

We have received numerous requests for courses right across the SAP curriculum, but one of the most sought after areas has been in the SAP NetWeaver and Enterprise SOA space. Today we are releasing eleven additional courses, a number of which are focused on SAP NetWeaver. There are also three delta courses for SAP Supply Chain Management.

All of these courses are available for immediate purchase.

For those of you who have already purchased an SAP Premium eLearning Annual Subscription or an SAP Premium eLearning + Virtual SAP TechEd Annual Subscription, these courses are ALREADY INCLUDED in your subscription.

SAP Business Suite eLearning:

• SAP Customer Relationship Management:
  • CRM Interaction Center WebClient
• SAP ERP:
  • SAP Overview
  • Delta SAP R/3 4.6C > SAP ERP 6.0
• SAP NetWeaver:
  • Introduction to XML
  • Web Dynpro Java on SAP NetWeaver 7.1
  • Enterprise SOA Foundation
  • Service Provisioning and Consuming
• SAP Supply Chain Management:
  • Delta Training Supply Chain Planning (SAP APO DP, SNP and PP/DS) for SAP SCM 7.0
  • Delta Materials Management SAP R/3 4.6 – SAP ERP 6.0 (Enhancement Package 4)SAP Supplier Relationship Management:
  • Delta SRM 7.0
• SAP Human Capital Management:
  • SAP ERP HCM E-Recruiting Enhancement Package 4

When we launched Learning on Demand by SAP just over three months ago, we did so with the promise of more content. During this time we have added a number of new courses to the catalog, including additions to our SAP Business Objects library as well as a variety of free content: whitepapers, useful product briefs and so on.

The “Super Subscription”

We have also introduced what I lovingly call the “super subscription” – an Annual Subscription to all the SAP eLearning content on the Learning on Demand by SAP Catalog plus the Virtual SAP TechEd Annual Subscription.

This is an introductory offer only and will only be available for another week – at which time it will be replaced.

But it has always been our intention to bring to you a broad range of content and course materials that support your growth as an SAP professional.

Project Management and Business Analyst Courses from ESI International

From today, you can begin accessing ESI’s project management and business analysis training and course materials via Learning on Demand by SAP. Accredited by the PMI and the IIBA, and with the support of an academic partner, The George Washington University, you can choose from a variety of eLearning, online assessments or virtual classroom courses.

In the coming weeks and months we will be bringing you additional course content and learning materials from a range of partners; but we will also be releasing new functionality designed to make your learning experience far more social.

In my previous blog post, I explained one of the ways that you can get started building your personal learning environment (PLE). If you haven’t already, also take a look at the things you should consider when it comes to PLEs.

I see PLEs as operating in three distinct ways:

• Gathering information and knowledge (this is part 1)
• Filtering and process this data
• Acting on the knowledge that we have acquired

Once you have registered with the various websites and begun collating your information, it’s time to filter and process the data. But don’t worry, this is not about doing it on your own! Once you set this up the right way, your social network and online tools will not only help you filter content, but also lead you to quality, recommended sources of learning material.

Now we need to do a few things:

• Create your own PLE repository
• Make your bookmarks tasty (ok, Delicious)
• Begin consuming knowledge

Creating Your Own PLE Repository

One of the first things you want to do to begin processing and filtering data is to create a space where you can store your personal learning resources. One of the easiest ways of doing this is to use a site such as Posterous. Here is one I created earlier. To get started, all you need to do is send an email to post [at] posterous [dot] com. Easy!

You will receive an email from Posterous recommending that you set a password for your Posterous site. You most definitely SHOULD do this – not just for security – but to unleash a whole range of other benefits.

The bookmarklet

After you have set your password, you will be given the chance to install the Posterous bookmarklet. Using the bookmarklet you can easily select text, video, music or photos from any web page and post it to your new PLE. Simply drag it to your browser’s toolbar and you are set.

The importance of tagging

Once you have started collecting data, the first step in processing and filtering the material is to tag it. Once you have published an item to your PLE, login and check your post. You will notice that you when you scroll over the title of your published item that the Tag option appears. Click this and type a relevant tag into the space provided. Press Enter to create the tag.

It is important to establish this as a discipline for each post that you create. After all, you want to get the maximum value from your PLE – and tagging helps you identify all the different sources for your emerging learning themes and topics.

Making your bookmarks tasty

By now, you should have started using Delicious (or some other social bookmarking service). If you have not, simply head over to Delicious and sign up for an account. Make sure that you install the Delicious bookmarklet as well – for ease of use you may want to create a PLE folder in your toolbar so that you can keep your PLE tools together.

Once you have your Delicious account setup:

• Import your existing bookmarks
• Put a public domain or creative commons license on your bookmark collection to make it easier for others to share in your knowledge (you are going to be receiving help from others, be sure to reciprocate!)
• Review your bookmarks
• Create a new category called SAPLearningWishlist – using this tag will allow others to share their wishlist with you

Now, as you begin to review your bookmarks, quickly run your eye over the categories. Make sure that they make sense to you from a LEARNING point of view. Step through your bookmarks one tag at a time (I know this is time consuming but it will be worthwhile).

For each tag:

• Check that bookmarked items are correctly placed
• Make sure there are additional tags that provide context for the particular item (for example my SAPLearningWishlist shows not just those courses or webinars I would like to attend, but also the main domain in which that knowledge sits – such as CRM)
• Check how many other people have bookmarked the same page as you – you will notice a small square with a number inside it: this is the number of other people who have also bookmarked this piece of information. This is useful because:
  • People who are interested in the same topic as you may have a different and useful perspective
  • They may have other links that will be useful to your personal learning
  • You can subscribe to their Bookmark RSS feed so that you can learn more without having to SOURCE that learning

Putting some discipline into your knowledge surfing

Now that you have a way to remember and highlight good sources of content (bookmarks) as well as a way of providing context (through Posterous), now you need to start to be disciplined with the way that you source interesting and useful learning content. As you identify new pieces of useful knowledge:

1. Bookmark and tag the information using Delicious
2. Write a short note on why it is useful to you and post it to your PLE (ie Posterous)
3. Tag your Posterous article so that it is easy to return to

Next Step: Consuming knowledge

The next step is where you begin channelling all your learning sources into a framework that is focused towards your career ambitions. This will be covered in my next blog post – on consuming knowledge.

One of my first jobs out of university was with a publisher. As part of my introduction to the business, I spent the first week visiting each of the different divisions learning a little about how each contributed to the overall business. It was a great opportunity to not just meet many of the people that I would be working with, it gave me an opportunity to hear them talk about their jobs in their own words. You could really hear and feel the passion.

But one of the things that amazed me was that some of the senior people had worked in the same job for their entire working life. There was a real sense of a “job for life”. A tidal wave of change swept through publishing a couple of years later and many of these people reskilled, retired or moved to new employers – it was the end of an era. But one of these men, an early mentor of mine, explained that no one will ever care about my career as much as me. He suggested that I should actively build my skills and manage my own career.

Since this time, the concept of “personal learning” has developed. We have also become much more aware of the different ways in which learning takes place – and with the rise of Web 2.0 tools, it has never been easier to take control of your own learning – and one of the best ways is to create a “Personal Learning Environment” (PLE).

Before you get started with your own PLE, there are a few things that you may want to consider (start by reading my previous post on this subject). How do we:

• Gather information and knowledge
• Filter and process this data
• Act on the knowledge that we have acquired

In this blog post I will look at the first step – gathering information and knowledge and suggest ways to streamline this process.

Some Web 2.0 tools

Many freely available Web 2.0 tools can be used to help you construct your PLE. To start with you will need to establish some accounts on a number of Web 2.0 platforms (if you haven’t already) – alternatively you can manually collate notes, links and ideas in a moleskin notebook or similar. Useful sites include:

• Delicious for bookmarking and categorizing useful information
• Google Reader for gathering and categorizing blog feeds
• Tumblr or Posterous to write notes and organize information
• iTunes or similar to manage your podcast subscriptions
• Netvibes or Pageflakes to create your own portal

Gathering information

Now you will want to start gathering content, links and materials to begin populating your PLE.

Blogs

When it comes to gathering information, one of the best sources of new knowledge are blogs. You can certainly start by taking a look through the blogs that are published across the SAP Community Network. Let your interests and passions lead you in the right direction and you will soon find writers who “click” for you. You can start with:

• Business blogs
• Technical blogs
• Industry blogs
• Business Objects blogs
• SCN Podcasts Directory

Be sure to then extend this list of readings. Look to technical and business publishers as well as to other bloggers who write on SAP and related enterprise topics.

One of the most convenient methods, is to use a feed reader. I use Google Reader to both subscribe to blogs and to categorize them. There are plenty of similar tools. But Google Reader also provides other benefits which I will cover when it comes to Filtering and Acting on the information that you have gathered.

Books

Consider also building a solid reading list. You can start with Amazon and begin building a wish list. Check out the titles available through SAP Press. And for those BPXers, don’t forget to delve into Process First (the collaborative book created by Marco ten Vaanholt and the BPX Community). There are a couple of online book tagging tools that can also help you manage your reading list – including Shelfari and BookTagger.

The good thing about these “social” tools is that they use recommendation engines to suggest other books that may be of interest to you. Make sure you take a few moments to check out the suggestions and, importantly, to rate and review the books that you have already read. This is a simple way to begin contributing to your community.

Formal learning

In any personal learning environment, it is also important to build formally recognized skills. This can mean attending a course, taking a virtual live class or doing some eLearning. Conferences such as TechEd are great skill accelerators (and also provide a great way to network with your like minded SAP Ecosystem colleagues). Consider also the wider skill set that will be required to make you successful – think project management, soft skills (such as negotiation and communication) and office software skills.

Ad hoc learning

As you begin researching sources of content, you will also find a variety of free or ad hoc learning opportunities. This can include whitepapers or thought leadership articles on a variety of topics, webinars, recorded seminars or even free classes via iTunesU.

Remember …

At this stage of building your PLE, it is all about identifying and gathering. Don’t stop to read through the details. Identify information that you think will be useful, categorize it using tags or Delicious bookmarks and then move on.

My next post will be about how you filter and manage this information in a way that directly focuses on your skilling needs and your career aspirations.

When you look at a successful person, what do you see? Do you simply see the string of events which have marked them out from their peers? Is there a linear progression that you can define, or is there something more?

Bring the same questions closer to your own world. Who do you admire? What piques your interest in them? Is it their technical skill? Is it their knowledge? Is it their seemingly effortless ability to bring projects in, on time and budget?

Perhaps it is a combination of all these things. But another question remains – HOW did you come to know of this person’s work? How did were you able to come to understand their position in your profession? My guess is that it comes down to one thing – contribution. It is through your contribution to your profession and to your community that you become “known” for something. You become known for doing, for creating and for participating.

This is important in our ever-increasingly connected world. Our social and professional artefacts are now easily spotted online. We receive recommendations on LinkedIn, collaborate on open source or community projects, share our knowledge on forums and provide feedback on content all over the web. It is easy to think that this is all unconnected. But our identities (in all their forms) are more recognisable and discoverable than ever before.

This has impacts on our careers, reputations and future working and professional opportunities. After all, what happens when a potential employer “Googles you”? What happens when a new colleague searches for “your name” online? What is the story that they will find?

This interesting experiment from the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab, reaches out to the web and brings back all the information it can find on “you”. It shows uncanny insight but also “inadvertent errors” related to the inability to differentiate between people with the same name. For example, this is one of the screens that is shown when searching on my name.

It may not be 100% accurate, but gives you some idea of the story that your digital footprint tells. But clearly, the more you contribute online, the more “you” feeds into these online stories. And in the long run, that’s only going to help your career.

Douglas Adams once observed, “the best way to predict the future is to build it”.

I found this quote in a fascinating paper, 2020 and Beyond, by Hans Daanen and Keri Facer from the UK’s Future Lab. And while the focus of the paper is on the Education sector, there are many lessons that we can apply to our personal learning and the management of our career now, and well into the future.

The paper looks at five areas of technical innovation and then imagines scenarios in which these innovations become part of everyday life. Based on these scenarios, the authors pose questions for educators – what is important, what should be considered, and what should we be doing in the immediate and near term. By using scenario modelling and focusing on our careers we can begin to imagine the paths of education and learning that we need to begin NOW in order to reach our desired end goal.

The areas of innovation identified in the paper are:

• Personal devices
• Intelligent environments
• Computing infrastructure
• Security
• Interfaces

This is also a great way to think about the creation of our own “Personal Learning Environments”. When we create a personal learning environment (PLE), we are focusing on our own skilling needs and creating a space which allows us to:

• Gather information and knowledge
• Filter and process this data
• Act on the knowledge that we have acquired

In this blog post I will provide you with some things you need to consider in creating a PLE. In future posts I will discuss the practicalities of PLEs – including tools and technologies, how you can use “social learning” in your PLE and places to source free, and for fee, learning content.

Personal devices

When it comes to PLEs, we want to employ technology to streamline and enhance our experience – not make it worse. This means adequately understanding our own personal use of technology. Think about the devices you have convenient access to:

• Desktop computers (work)
• Desktop computers (home)
• Notebook computers
• IP/digital TV
• Smart phones (BlackBerry, iPhone, Android)
• iPod/portable music and data devices

PLE Aim: Wherever possible, you want to remove any barrier to your learning. If you are lacking time, consider a portable device which will allow you to consume “learning snacks” (small pieces of learning).

Intelligent environments

It is essential that you establish a personal space which is conducive to your own learning. This can be a physical space, but it can just as easily be a virtual space. Interestingly enough, your choice of personal device can have a huge impact on the approach you take to a PLE – and to its effectiveness. For example, if you spend an hour or more each day commuting to work, a mobile device can prove highly effective and convenient.

PLE Aim: Keeping in mind that ever-increasing quantities of learning content are available online, think about how both your physical and virtual spaces can help save you time in the sourcing of your learning content.

Computing infrastructure

“The network” is now making the consumption of learning-related content available at times and in places which are convenient to you. You can turn this flexibility to your advantage with a little planning.

PLE Aim: Setup RSS feeds, downloads etc and store them on your mobile device ready for your commute to work.

Security

Who do we trust when it comes to learning? Which websites provide us with value and which forums deliver quality discussion? It is a question of both security and trust. Increasingly, our internet identity reflects not just our “social” persona, but also our professional profile and reputation. This means that our PLE must also consider the impact of our personal brand – and how this can be best leveraged throughout our careers.

PLE Aim: Start tracking the opinion of those who you respect and who provide insight and value in your field of expertise. Start with the SAP Community Mentors.

Interfaces

We are becoming increasingly comfortable with different types of interfaces – from computer screens to TVs and across to our portable devices – wherever digital content can be delivered, we can be learning or interacting with our PLE.

PLE Aim: Begin to think differently about “learning” – make it part of each and every day. Use the flexibility of available interfaces to bring learning into your life at a time and place that is convenient to you.

Finally …

One of the most important aspects of PLEs, in my opinion, is the way in which they can be structured to bring a social aspect to our learning experiences. This is particularly important when it comes to DOING something with your learning – this can mean downloading a trial version of the SAP NetWeaver platform or writing a blog post about your experiments.