Conference Speaking: From Meetup to TechEd
As of 2026-08-16
Conference speaking is a three-to-five-year ladder — local user group, national CFP, then SAP TechEd — and skipping rungs is the single most common reason good practitioners never build a real speaking profile. The lever that actually gets abstracts selected is framing, not topic: a sharply named problem, a differentiated angle, and three to four verifiable takeaways beat a technically accurate feature summary every time. A TechEd session (200–2,000 attendees, recorded on SAP's learning platform) changes the rate conversation from proving expertise to confirming it, but only if the 48-hour follow-up and two-week write-up system runs without fail — the talk itself returns close to zero pipeline on its own.
What you will learn
- Map the conference speaking ladder from local SAP meetup to TechEd and identify the right entry points for your current profile
- Write an abstract that conference programme committees select — the specific structure, framing, and evidence that differentiates practitioner submissions
- Build and deliver a talk that earns the audience's trust and generates visible authority in the room
- Convert a speaking slot into durable pipeline: the follow-up system that turns a 40-minute talk into months of inbound
The Speaking Ladder: Where You Are and Where You Are Going
Conference speaking for SAP analytics consultants follows a recognisable progression, and jumping rungs without having earned the ones below is the most common reason good practitioners fail to build a real speaking profile. Understanding the ladder lets you enter at the right level and move up deliberately.
Rung 1: Local SAP user groups and meetups. Every major European city with a meaningful SAP consulting community has at least one active SAP user group that holds quarterly or biannual sessions. DSAG regional chapters in the German-speaking market, VNSG in the Netherlands, UKISUG events, the various Asug chapters for the French and Benelux markets. These sessions typically attract 20–100 people, sessions run 20–30 minutes, and the bar for acceptance is a coherent topic and the willingness to prepare. This is where you get your first sessions under your belt, learn how you perform in front of peers, and discover what your audience actually responds to versus what you thought they would find interesting.
Prerequisites
- Intermediate hands-on experience on SAP analytics projects
- Review core concepts first: C087, C083, C079
Outcomes
- Understand the core concepts behind Conference Speaking: From Meetup to TechEd.
- Apply Speaking in a typical SAP analytics engagement
- Explain the core architecture and decision points for Conference Speaking: From Meetup to TechEd
- Apply a repeatable implementation pattern in a 15-minute lab format
Full module available to members. The full module adds: the decision framework · the end-to-end scenario walkthrough · the KPI scorecard · the anti-patterns · the knowledge check · the diagrams.