Mobilize All The Things with Paul Aschmann

Switched On with Paul Modderman and James Wood

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.)
• Paul’s take on the native vs web debate: it’s tricky. Go back to: what is your skillset? If you’ve got a bunch of web — take on web apps and responsively mobilize them. If you’ve got a skilled native app developer — take it on! SAP internally has taken the native route.
• There are still, of course, features that web apps just can’t deliver that native can. Anything cutting-edge won’t be web-flavored mobile first.
• Paul encourages native when you have a blank slate choice.

The other side of Paul’s face is the evil side, a la Two-Face.

• Paul is a huge proponent of user champions. How do you find them? Trick question! They find you. Listen to them! (They’re Paul’s favorite users.)
• People who aren’t happy with your solutions should become your best friends.
• Companies see mobility as a cost center, not as a place for innovation. We should shift gears!
• Push notifications haven’t yet gotten the love they deserve. They could really be key in driving adoption, if the story is told right.
• Paul is excited about things that happen at events like WWDC. The companies that announce their newest things really drive technologist excitement.

Money Quotes

Paul Aschmann

I’m a firm believer that native app experiences are superior. I’ll probably get chewed on for saying that out loud.

You need to just step back and listen, and encourage honest feedback.

The challenge is: mobility is still a bit immature in the enterprise.

James Wood

A lot of times the reason that we’re still, in 2021, with not a lot of mobile apps — we still don’t have a silver bullet. Absent that, we do nothing. [On why mobile still lags in the enterprise.]

Mobile is not a one-size-fits all.

Paul Modderman

Somewhere in the universe of the mobile equation, the person writing the check hasn’t had the mobile value communicated. You need to have the proof that it has value.

The most effective demo I’ve ever done: create a PO in SAP, click “Save”, and my Apple Watch dings with a notification. It blew people’s minds that that was a thing.