As the year winds down, I’m playing catchup on a couple of my favorite JonERP videos I posted on the SAP Community Network that I haven’t had a chance to post on my web site yet. The first two feature Sue Martin of SAP on the changes afoot with SAP certification, and how the dialogue between SAP Education and the SAP Mentors (an initiative I am a part of) is impacting the direction of SAP certification.

From the Mentors side, I can tell you that as I see it, one major goal is to ensure that the SAP certification of the future has more direct relevance to hiring managers and is more closely tied to the bona fides of real world project experience. That’s a strong message we’ve gotten from the SAP community, and we’re trying to translate that into specific practical suggestions that can be implemented. We’ll see more about what kind of success we are having with that in 2010, but for now, these two videos I taped with Sue Martin at SAP TechEd 2009 Phoenix will give you an inside view.

Sue (or as the Mentors sometimes call her, the "Certification Queen,") was graciously willing to shoot an adhoc video with me on the convention floor, right outside the Community Clubhouse, where we talked informally about the changes underway within SAP Education. We discussed the perception of SAP certification as largely unchanged through the years and why that is no longer true.

So here’s the first video, which focused primarily on the changes in SAP Certification the last few years and the new three tiered Certification levels:

In the second video, we move more into the adventurous (and sometimes contentious, but ultimately productive) dialogue the SAP Mentors have been having with Sue Martin about SAP Education. I give Sue a lot of credit for her willingness to throw herself into the fray with the Mentors. Here is the second video, which gets into this in more detail.

As you will see from these videos, this "Mentors-to-SAP" conversation we are having is a fascinating chance to incorporate collaborative community projects into SAP’s own formalized certification plans. There is also some information in the second video on the Master level certification and how input from stakeholders is being incorporated from the get go. Finally, you can hear about how SAP certification will be integrated more closely into SCN, including with the Career Center.

I should note that prior to this low tech video shoot, Sue Martin and I were on SAP TechEd Live on the big video stage, hosted by SAP Mentor "Chief Herder" Mark Finnern. You can see that video on the SAP TechEd live replays (choose the Wednesday the 14th option). As for my videos, there is some background noise, but I hope that the quality of the conversation is worth the viewing.