Sage News and Discussion

I'm curious how those participating feel about the Idea Xchange sessions at Summit. The facilitators of my sittings seemed either unqualified, uninterested, or both.

They were kind of like notetakers with the intent of documenting the takeaways for purpose of passing it on to the next chain in command (presumably prod mgmt). My takeaway was it was a good talking out loud for me :)

My table at the first session only had two users and was primarily a free consulting session. Jeff Franklin from Redtail was the moderator, it took Debbie Long of Blytheco all of 2 minutes to hand her card over to the users. The table at the second session was moderated by Lane Giles (Sage Learning Services) and it could not have been more plodding. We eventually got some good ideas on the table and it did lead to a good dialogue over lunch but it sure did take some time to get there.

That's interesting! The RedTail integration piece for MAS 90/200/100 is done by Blytheco. Very interesting the Blytheco types got to be moderators in the Idea Xchange sessions where Sage people themselves didn't lead it. Goes to show you what sponsorship can buy. Then there's Lane Giles who is influential but an executive disconnected from customers and the channel and to a good extent his own department. I know because my last job at Sage was in Learning Services. Without one of his direct reports / worker bee managers next to him I can't imagine him making too much forward headway in an idea conversation. The Idea Xchange concept with customers and partners is innovative and likely viable for the future but this year's execution and result was ho hum. The facilitators are key to driving a good productive discussion. But then it also takes a good Prod Mgmt team to interpret the takeaways properly E.g. to paraphrase a Sage someone and their statistical (mis)interpretation .. there are only 1400 customers on v2013 - we noticed that most of them don't know about Visual Process Flows while at same time VPF has a 80% higher Net Promoter Score - we think if you show them VPF they will upgrade. Quiet Response: Hmmm so the low numbers isn't because 2013 has been such a piece of challenge (until PU3 possibly) and people are gun shy to move forward?

Reminds me of the old end of conference feedback sessions (that you soon learned weren't worth not taking an early flight out of town for.) In the end, they too copious notes, and then dump the notebook in the garbage can in their rooms before checkout...

Those were my EXACT thoughts also @MarkChinsky . Call me a skeptic or a cynic or overly sarcastic, but aren't these idea exchange sessions oxymoronic? Sage actually LISTENS? Only when it benefits there shareholders in the short term. If they REALLY want feedback, look no further than the Idea website. There are tons or great ideas. Where are they in the product? NOT! If they want to implement the ideas, why are they trimming knowledgeable staff who can make it happen? Why did it take till PU3 to get the major bugs fixed? Maybe folks aren't moving because there isn't much incentive TO move. Have Starship, spend some more money, use a CC processor other than SPS, be ready to switch. If a customer has been on MAS for more than a couple of years, I don't see process flows as THE incentive to move up.......... To paraphrase the TV show ""Extreme Makeover"", Driver move that damn bus out of my way!!!!!

This whole concept reminds me of when MAS90 was first being readied for 4.0. At that time it would have primarily been General Ledger that Sage was releasing. I recall vividly sitting in a room at Visions/Insights/Summit (open session - NOT NDA) with Sharon Jackman who absolutely shocked me when she asked the audience for suggestions on what to put into the first MAS90 4.0 release. I mean this was maybe 5 months tops from when the brand new eagerly anticipated framework was slated to debut. And Sage is asking us now about features? Now granted there are all sorts of excuses for something like this -- Sharon wasn't in the development area and so she may not have been directly connected, etc. But she at the time was indeed the product manager driving the product. Unbelievable. And it seems not a lot has changed. In many respects what I see happening is a lot of studies done to support a foregone conclusion. Want to support high % of net promoter. We can get a study for that. Want to support that customers are happier with Sage support? We can get a study for that. I think Jeff hit on it - it's all a short term ploy to appease UK. Long term I can't see it ending much differently than that last two re-orgs.

It was Sharon Jackman! The same one who is now an Independent Arts and Crafts Professional. The right brain won out, and so did we - for awhile.

Yes for those who may not know Sharon Jackman was the product manager for MAS 90 for quite a few years.

http://www.shajaceramics.com/ I wonder if her web site is powered by E-Biz............

I remember that one too, @WayneSchulz. According to Lori, they look at adding about a dozen of the ideas features every release. They should get the first year of requests completed in about the time my grandchildren have grandchildren.