Switched On with Paul Modderman and James Wood

Quick Flip: We're In The Age Of Copilots

We're in the age of Copilots. Discussion focuses a lot around Microsoft - but the implication is clear: they're everywhere, and they're just getting started.

Quick Flip: Business-led IT

James and Paul pontificate on their experiences working in, with, and under business-led IT, shadow IT, and corporate IT. What's the best way forward, for IT orgs to have real impact on business outcomes?

Quick Flip: Copilot Plus SAP Plus Everything

We talk about the Copilot Studio demo and other possibilities. "Everything you categorized in your head as 'I can't do that,' pull it out and rethink it. It might be possible now."

The Future of Work: Winning Users with Alan Chai

Alan Chai, Microsoft Power Apps MVP and Head of Digital Transformation & Innovation at Schlumberger, wows James Wood and Paul Modderman with his tales of enterprise creation, curation, and learning new things.

The Future of Work: Space Janitors with Holger Mueller

Highlights Check out Constellation’s October event: Connected Enterprise 2023 What a great sense that things are ALWAYS exciting — but in early days of his career that exciting-ness was slower. “Smith” — highly common last name these days — tied to the old profession of blacksmithing. What’s the new “smith” these days? Probably producting software. Holger: why can’t email be done better? (Yeah. I agree here for sure. It seems like a useful holdover ripe for some kind of sea change.) The...

Quick Flip: The MPPC TechEd Wish List That Wasn't

James and Paul discuss the upcoming events in the fall conference season - especially Microsoft Power Platform Conference and SAP TechEd, and come up with their unique spin on a wish list for them.

Season 5 Premiere: The Future of Work

Podcast Episode! Season 5 Intro: The Future of Work James and I sat down to ruminate and prepare for our upcoming next season: The Future of Work. It’s obvious that GPT (and especially ChatGPT) has completely saturated everyone’s brains. It seems like we’re finally seeing the veil between front-office and back-office start to tear. But most of all, we are PUMPED about this season — as both a way to learn from great guests, and as a time capsule of a unique moment in tech history. Money Quo...

Season 4 Finale: Digitally Transformed

James and I closed out our season of exploring digital transformation and its various meanings with a wrap-up conversation.  Awesome Episodes This Season Season 4 Premiere: Digital Transformation Continuous Everything with Jon Reed Digital Transformation as Improving Processes with Alex Jones De-Mystifying the Digital with Paru Sankar Innovation with Purpose with Diego Dora An Agile SAP Development Platform with Nestor Lara Compassion in Software with Dustin Bruzenak Season 4 Finale...

Compassion in Software with Dustin Bruzenak of Modern Logic

James and Paul sit down with Dustin Bruzenak, co-founder of Modern Logic - a Twin Cities-based software development shop specializing in projects that emphasize compassion and human-centered thought. Dustin offers great thoughts on the software industry: building the products, building teams, and finding your cultural center.

Improving Cloud Developer Experience with Christian Lechner

Make sure to get more from Christian at myNewsWrap and Twitter.

An Agile SAP Development Platform with Nestor Lara

James and Paul discuss the Nuve platform with founder Nestor Lara - among other geektastic subjects. We discuss ins and outs of SAP DevOps, ABAP containers, and generally speaking platform-y things that will make your nerd heart sing.

Microsoft Copilot Roundtable with Dawn Clark and Lori Beck

Dawn Clark and Lori Beck from Bowdark's Microsoft team guest to help us create a roundtable to geek out over the latest Microsoft Copilot offerings. See https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/03/16/introducing-microsoft-365-copilot-your-copilot-for-work/ for more details.

Innovation with Purpose with Diego Dora

Paul and James talk to Diego Dora, longtime SAP buff and founder of DIFF Consulting. Diego is knowledgeable about cloud, development, and system integration topics that should be helpful to ANY enterprise, and has a special flavor of SAP + GCP knowledge mixture.

Quick Flip 10: Next Directions

Paul and James discuss possibilities for future seasons of Switched On. Data/AI? Cloud maturity? Other...things?

De-Mystifying the Digital with Paru Sankar

Paul and James talk to Paru Sankar, Managing Director for Mindset Consulting in Asia/Pacific, who transforms their understanding of digital transformation. Paru is a world-ranging technologist, and gives great perspective on a wide range of topics.

Quick Flip: Switched On Year End Wish List

Paul and James outline their wishes for the upcoming year in tech.

Digital Transformation as Improving Processes with Alex Jones

James and Paul talk to Alex Jones (not THAT one) from NetSPI about the heretofore unseen connections between penetration testing and security. Alex brings a fresh perspective from his sales and marketing leadership positions, and it really stretched our imaginations.

Quick Flip 08: THE FUTURE

James and Paul point the hard questions at themselves - asking each other the questions that they usually reserve for guests. What do people not understand about what you do? What excites you most about the future?

Continuous Everything with Jon Reed

James and Paul talked to Jon Reed from diginomica about our seasonal "digital transformation" topic. He's been on the hunt for this very same idea for years - and his wisdom shines through. 

Season 4 Premiere: Digital Transformation

We kick off a new season of Switched On with the topic: Digital Transformation. The sub-question should probably be: what the heck is it? James and Paul explore their own thoughts before the rest of the season kicks off into a bunch of great guests!

Season 3 Finale

Podcast Episode! Season 3 FINALE This is it! The end of season 3! Lots of solid leads on the question “Why can’t IT keep up with the business?” — and probably most importantly, a concession that the question probably started off a bit loaded. I think we came to several points of agreement, led by our awesome guests. Highlights Yeah. It’s a loaded question. It really comes down to how much the IT job has changed. There are a lot of conflicting requirements. IT kind of winds up supporting...

MPPC 2022 with Charles Lamanna

James and I went down to sunny (sweaty) Orlando for Microsoft Power Platform Conference (MPPC) 2022. Apart from getting to see a great set of announcements, learn a ton, and meet up with past pod-friends we also got the chance to sit down and have a conversation with Charles Lamanna — hot on the heels of his keynote address.  Join us for this Very Special Episode of Switched On, our chance to share Charles’ deeper thoughts on MPPC 2022 announcements.  First, our own quick thoughts on MPPC ...

Driving Data with Luke Komiskey of DataDrive

This is the last guest episode for our season question: “Why Can’t IT Keep Up With The Business?” Luke Komiskey is the founder of DataDrive, a managed analytics provider, with a cool approach to things. Seriously, go check out the website and scroll down to the On Your Own vs Growth Plan comparison. You’ll see what I think is true out there in the world — companies going it alone in [any!] tech space in which they’re not bona fide experts is probably a money pit situation.  Go for a DataDri...

Quick Flip 07: Is Vanilla Enterprise Software Realistic?

We ask ourselves a question that underpins a lot of what we do: is it realistic to expect enterprise software to move to a vanilla, SaaS-ish place that minimizes or even completely eliminates customization?

MAUI Hotness with James Montemagno

Podcast Episode! MAUI Hotness with James Montemagno James and I talked to James Montemagno to take a deep look at tech that will absolutely have an impact on our business app customers. Montemagno leads the developer community team, part of the developer tools division that builds all manner of the tools that many of us nerds use on the daily. I’m deeply appreciative to get this kind of tech insight, and Montemagno is a great communicator of his interests.  Leaders of enterprise developmen...

Quick Flip 06: ERP Is Still A Thing, Right?

Paul and James scratch their heads and ponder the ontology of ERP. James stays brilliant, Paul tortures a Ship of Theseus metaphor.

A Game Of Prioritization with Wade Krzmarzick

Podcast Episode! A Game Of Prioritization with Wade Krzmarzick James and I talked to Wade Krzmarzick, Director of IT at TSI, Incorporated. TSI builds scientific measurement equipment (among other things). He gave us insight into budget and time questions, strategic direction he thinks about, and what makes him most proud of his team. It was a great conversation. Highlights Director of IT at TSI, Incorporated — they build scientific measurement equipment, a lot of focus on health Started ...

Quick Flip 05: SAPinsider 2022 - Clean Core

Paul and James extract their own theme from presenting and viewing sessions at SAPinsider 2022 in Las Vegas last week. Their chosen theme? Clean core.

Quick Flip 04: Wherefore Digital Transformation?

Paul and James bang their heads against the idea of "digital transformation" and what it means - BS, reality, everything else.

Cloud Warehouse Management with Michael Pytel of Fulfilld

James and I talked to Michael Pytel, co-founder and CTO of Fulfilld, a cloud SaaS warehouse management startup. As a fellow SAP nerd, we have shared background for commiseration. Michael has done some amazing things with the technology powering Fulfilld, and he and the rest of his team have given a lot of thought to matching that technology up to business needs for several warehouse worker personas. It was a blast geeking out. Highlights Techie with CNC machining in his blood — grandfather...

Quick Flip 03: Tech Reading, For Fun and Profit

James and Paul discuss some of the worst and best qualities of the techical writing they consume, and where technical writing fits in the universe today. We left with more questions than answers!

Living the Future of Logistics with Matt Ericson

James and I talked to Matt Ericson, founder of Trekka Logistics. Matt holds court with great wisdom and energy for his industry and business. He talks about growth, complexity, transparency, and evolving systems to keep things smooth. This is absolutely one of those episodes where — if we didn’t try to keep things down to a sane length — we could have talked for hours. I had a blast, so please give it a listen!  Matt gave me a bit to chew on here. He responded to one of my questions in a di...

Quick Flip 02: RISE and OTHER STUFF

Paul and James tackle thoughts on RISE with SAP and the SI-created complementary services that IBM, Accenture, Infosys, and others have created. It all kinda wraps up under the banner of "digital transformation as a service" - but this isn't always clear.

Season 3 PREMIERE: Why Can't IT Keep Up With The Business?

James and I interviewed each other to tee up our third season. Our theory: IT can’t keep up with the business. Our question: why? Lots of things floating around. Ideas. Half-formed questions. Ponderings from earlier in our respective careers.  What will we discover? Who will we talk with along the way? FIND OUT MORE this season on Switched On! The guests are: us! We interviewed ourselves! We found us very insightful. Highlights IT has capabilities on an unprecedented scale these days. Wh...

Quick Flip: Microsoft Improving Low-Code Landscape

James and Paul have a quick discussion about the low-code space with respect to some new stuff out there in the universe from Microsoft, as spurred on by https://venturebeat.com/2022/05/26/how-microsoft-plans-to-improve-the-low-code-landscape/

Sapphire 2022 Reactions From Bowdorks

Podcast Episode! Sapphire Orlando Reactions From Bowdorks     Money Quotes Tim Champagne Is this just another fragmentation of apps out there? [re: iOS app announcements] Kyle Bitson If you look at what’s happening in the world…supply chain issues…they’re more relevant than they have been in a long time.  It’s striking a balance between the technical upgrade and unlocking the new features and showing business value to your end users. [re: finding out about SOAR] James Wood It’s ama...

Season 2 Finale: Someone Dies

Podcast Episode! Season Finale! SOMEONE DIES   James and I get together to expertly wrap all the amazing guests, topics, and information we digested over the course of season two. Stay tuned! Someone dies! This season we had the extreme privilege to talk to these awesome folks. Go back and give these episodes a listen. Em D’Arcy regaled us with tales of governance Shane Young democratized our thoughts on low-code utility Matthias Steiner straightened us out on platforms and app deliver...

Power Everything with Holger Bruchelt

James and I talked to Holger Bruchelt, host of the awesome SAP on Azure podcast (also watch on YouTube) and all around swell guy. Holger put us on the right path with thoughts about platforms and infrastructure, integration and Power Platform, and being a futuristic nerd with GitHub Copilot (a perennial favorite topic of ours). He’s just as fun to talk to when the recorders have stopped, so we hope you enjoy our conversation as much as we did.  Highlights Closing out the “Multi-Vendor Mess...

Platforms and App Delivery with Matthias Steiner

James and I talked to Matthias Steiner for the fourth episode in our second season. He took to the SAP Community blogs to defend low-code/no-code (and later reiterated at diginomica), and we took notice. We’d been fans previously because of his influence on the various cloud platform gyrations at SAP, and of course because he’s a willing Twitter prognosticator. We dove in on low/no-code and other platform things, for a great time.  Highlights 17 years at SAP — 10ish as software architect f...

Shane Young on Power Platform Democratization

Podcast Episode! S2E3: Shane Young James and I talked to Shane Young for the third episode in our second season: “Power Platform Democratization”. Shane is the founder of PowerApps911, helping clients with Power Platform training and custom app builds in the Microsoft universe. He’s a fun guy to talk to, and he’s one of the most informative people you’ll ever follow on Twitter or YouTube.  Highlights Shane is a “Microsoft nerd” — in love with it since the ‘90s Prior to PowerApps911, he r...

Em D'Arcy on Meeting Demand Through Governance

Podcast Episode! S2 E2: Em D’Arcy James and I talked to Em D’Arcy for the second episode in our second season: “Meeting Demand Through Governance”. This was a refreshing talk for me — I have issues to work through with the word “governance”, and Em is helping me walk the walk and do the work to get there. It’s great material along the course of our second season theme of “Simplifying the Multi-Vendor Mess”, as part of simplification can be distributing power to those who need it.  Note tha...

Intro: Simplifying the Multi-Vendor Mess

Podcast Episode! New Season: “Simplifying the Multi-Vendor Mess” We have a thesis: the enterprise tech world continues to move to best-of-breed; and while new solutions abound, organizations continue to feel the pain of improving their overall business processes while simultaneously keeping their disparate systems in harmony. The “multi-vendor mess”. This episode is an introduction and the first of a short season on this thesis. The rest of the season will feature luminary guests and intere...

Microsoft Ignite with Lori Beck

Podcast Episode! Microsoft Ignite with Lori Beck James and I spoke with our highly-esteemed colleague Lori Beck about the recent Microsoft Ignite virtual conference. Lori leads our Microsoft consulting practice, and has great depth of knowledge and insight into Microsoft Dynamics. We had a great time talking about Logic Apps, Power Apps, Teams, and OpenAI GPT-3 (find below the poem that the AI wrote for us).  Highlights I love the Ignite book-of-news feature. Super slick. Other companies ...

Builders and the Developer Spectrum with Riley Rainey

Podcast Episode! Builders and the Developer Spectrum with Riley Rainey James and I spoke with the super-interesting Riley Rainey. Before you get to any of the regular industry-specific goodness we talk about, check out his GitHub repositories focused around replicating the Apollo Guidance Computer. I was tempted not to talk about anything in the SAP or development world and just blast on about nerdy space things. But we did eventually move on to things in the here-and-now, and it was great ...

Bringing Cloud Down to Earth with Greg Robinette

James and I spoke with the amazing Greg Robinette. Greg works at Newport News Shipbuilding as a systems architect. He’s got great perspective on watching ships being built and then marrying that knowledge to the SAP systems he’s architecting. We had a blast talking about organizational culture, decision-making, and value lifespans…all through the lens of the cloud. Highlights Got into tech at University of Dayton at University of Dayton in 1980 — and then was asked to leave that same year....

Mobilize All The Things with Paul Aschmann

James and I really dove deep into the recesses of Paul Aschmann’s brain for this one. Paul is a mobility development expert at SAP, originally from South Africa and now living in North Carolina. In the past, Paul started Lithium Labs, which built Metric². Became part of the SAP Startup Focus program (now @SAP_iO), then joined the enterprise mobility team at SAP. His resume is RIDICULOUS. Highlights Got into SAP with one of the SAP University Alliances. (I’ve seen those work well, too.) Pa...

The Evolution of Ops in SAP

Highlights SAP for 20 years, started out in Basis administration Worked at SAP Labs in Palo Alto, on how to deploy SAP in AWS (so cool) Became a devops lover — but ecosystem wasn’t ready. Jumped into big data instead at Mindtree, then worked with Hadoop, Vora Operations are 3 buckets: build, run, change System administrators have been somewhat underserved by UI/UX revolutions in SAP. There are hundreds of “Manage [X] Orders” Fiori apps, but no Basis apps. Disk space and start/stop are ...

Intelligent Business Intelligence with Hau Ngo

Highlights Hau’s been doing it 20 years! Fell into analytics accidentally — got into the working world via an on-campus interview with PwC. Wound up getting business consulting training, without really expecting it. First project was in US Navy, doing purchase order stuff with pre-printed forms. Being onsite is a consulting holdover that’s really shifted in COVID times Hau is seeing more analysts with a technical background, seeing more developers with business acumen Analytics project ...

Progressive Web Apps with Carmen Bourlon

  James and I spoke with Carmen Bourlon, a virtuoso developer that just so happens to work with us at Bowdark. Carmen created margiemap.com, which visually illustrates the relationship between income levels and library access. She also wrote Let’s Take This Offline, a book introducing developers to the concepts of service workers and progressive web apps. Buy it!  Highlights Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are less of a technology and more of an idea. A web app should be fast, work offline, an...

Dynamics, ISVs, Power Apps, Industry Cloud, and more with Steve Mordue