Debra's thoughts on Oracle and User Groups

Oracle Academy and Women in IT

2012-01-22T17:55:00.000Z

Women in IT - I almost hate that phrase – not the organisation, in fact I carry my Oyster Card (London Transport) in a pink Women in Technology wallet, a gift from an event I attended on Social Media Branding. The event was excellent but WHY was it only for women?

I have worked in IT for ……….. a long time, and I don’t believe being a woman has held me back. I was asked when I first took the role of Chairman at UKOUG what did I think about being the first woman? To be honest the press release only mentioned it because we knew we would get more column inches.
To me the reason there are less women in IT is simply because they are not encouraged to go into IT. I would love to talk to schools about my career, IT covers so much and there is something for everyone. I myself only got into IT by accident.
So I want to applaud Oracle on their Oracle Academy, a way of reaching out to schools and higher education to ensure that what is being taught is relevant, interesting and a stepping stone to a career.

The Oracle Academy program helps 1.5 million students in 95 countries gain industry-relevant skills prior to entering the workplace. The Academy offers students in all educational institutions a complete, fully-supported curriculum of learning in software, hosted technology and faculty training, with industry-recognised certification. Introduction to Computer Science Designed for high schools, technical schools, and vocational schools, this program, provided at no cost to participants, includes a highly structured curriculum to help students master entry-level Database Programming (SQL/PLSQL) and related technical and business skills.

This program is well established giving free training to educators and a program of studies for their classes, which can form part of the IT Diploma (level 3) and now for the first time it is coming to the UK.

Oracle do care about the workforce of tomorrow, I had the privilege of speaking in Latin America this year and in Chile at the University San Sebastian, Oracle funded their top IT student to take full Oracle Certified Professional exams.
So if you read my blog and are involved in IT education or know someone who is please encourage them to look into the Oracle Academy. This ‘Introduction to Computer Science' prepares teachers and lecturers to teach the Academy's database design and programming curriculum. It includes ten weeks of online training and five days of in-class training at their Edinburgh HQ, led by experienced Oracle Academy instructors at the Institute. Registration is by March 1st.

And there is actually a benefit to being a woman at IT, the queues for the toilets at events are better than for the mens'.

Let us change that.

Database Decision Dilemma

2012-01-09T13:50:00.004Z

Not normally my area, but I have been made aware of a Database Decision Dilemma and would welcome comments:

Oracle has a well defined Support Policy (MoS note IDs 1351163.1) and shown below is the extract for the database.

When a product moves into Extended Support you need to be on the terminal release, so for 11.1 the terminal release is 11.1.0.7

My Oracle Support Note ID 742060.1 towards the end of 2011 appeared to introduce a new policy of a 12 month grace period on databases to move to a point release. However it is referred to in the Software Error Correction Support documnet v 2.6 Oct 2009, but this may be an amendment or not enforced.

The dilemma is this Oracle policy on Patch Set Updates (PSUs). Previously these were available for any release on Premier support.

So for 11.2.0.3 which was released in Sep 2011 , Oracle state that 11.2.0.2 will get the “full” error correction PSUs (quarterly Patch Set Updates) only till Sep 2012. To add to this, the clock ticks from the date of the first release, in the case I am looking at, it is an AIX platform and that release of 11.2.0.2 was 5 weeks after, reducing this grace period to 47 weeks. This is a very large customer with development projects with long time scales. By the time a release is stable enough to start a project on, the grace period is even less. No one wants to have a database upgrade during the development cycle.

This customer does not need the added functionality offered in 11.2 over 11.1, so feature benefits are not relevant in this debate, they simply want a stable and supported product to develop their critical systems on, and to move those applications that are in a technical refresh cycle.

So their dilemma is, if they use 11.2.02 which is the most up to date and stable platform, they must do at least one upgrade during the project which is not acceptable. The alternative is to use 11.1.0.7 which is also stable and as the terminal release of 11.1 will be supported until August 2015. However, the upgrade needed then from 11.1 to 11.2 is a much more complex upgrade because in reality it is a new install to enable the new functionality (which remember they don’t need).

In this case using an old version of software gives them better mid term support. But this is only today’s issue, this grace period means that with new point releases almost every year, customers will need to upgrade every 12 months to keep within this grace period.

Why has it taken over 2 years for this to come to light or become an issue? This may be because of document management of Software Error Correction Support 2.6 (see note above)or I suspect that because people have stayed still. Many customers have only moved to 11g in the last 12 months and therefore were already in Extended Support.

I intend to take this up with Oracle Support at the IOUC meeting at the end of January but would appreciate comments or corrections from anyone.

Looking Back on 2011, Forward to 2012

2011-12-31T18:02:00.000Z

Professionally 2011 has been a great year for me.

January the Fusion UX Advocates Program kicked off after another successful IOUC meeting.

I then stayed in the US, working from home in Chicago until the RMOUG conference in Denver.

March we had the UKOUG elections and I was appointed Chairman and Lisa Dobson Vice Chairman. We had our Irish Conference .

In April it was Collaborate in Orlando, but I left early to speak at Miracle Open World in Denmark, which was followed by UKOUGs first Exadata event.

May, I spoke at the DOAG Apps Conference in Berlin and UKOUG was very busy working on its reorganisation.

June we had our Scottish Conference in the Oracle Linthithgow offices, Hyperion conference and Fusion Applications finally went on controlled release.

July is always busy at UKOUG, but first of all I was at Kaleidescope running the SOA Symposium, rushing back for the a UKOUG board meeting, volunteers day with AGM and then paper selection day. This year even more important than ever because we proposed our re-organisation which was unanimously accepted and the first thing that happened was I stood down as Chairman, but then immediately appointed as President.

Then it was back across the pond in July to take part in the first of the two OTN Tours of 2011. This was South America and I loved it, despite it being a little colder than I expected.

August I was asked by Oracle to talk to their Marketing and Sales about what customers are saying about Fusion Applications. This is really important to me as my role within Fujitsu means I need to understand Oracle Strategy and help customers see the value to theirs, so being recognised by Oracle to have those skills is very reassuring. I was also very busy helping Fujitsu to reach Diamond Status in teh Oracle Partner Network.

September was all about preparation for Oracle Open World. UKOUG held a Security event in Bletchley Park, and I spoke at the Slovenian Oracle User group.

Oracle Open World was as ever really busy with Fusion Nation kicking off the General Release. Beforehand, like at Kaleidoscope there was also more UX training, and two days of ACE briefings.

October saw the 2nd of the OTN tours, this time to Asia, NZ and Australia, starting in Tokyo the home of Fujitsu.

In November I was a keynote speaker for the 2nd time at the UK Oracle Application Days. Then it was all ready for UKOUG conference at the start of December.

Obviously a lot more goes on at UKOUG then I listed here, but it is a community effort and I can't attend all of them. I also spoke in the Netherlands for the Belgium User Group and met in Prague for the EOUC meetings. 2011 was a very busy year.

2012 will see more change in UKOUG as the reorganisation reaches its first annual cycle. I am up for re-election in March, and hope that I get everyone's backing and am re-elected by the user group to the council and then as President. I am not sure what speaking I will do, but as long as Fujitsu still give me the time, and OT continue to support I hope to uphold the ACE Director program and share my knowledge with others.

I hope everyone has a great 2012.

UKOUG 2011

2011-12-31T16:52:00.000Z

Many people think of December as the run up to Christmas, I think of it as the UKOUG Conference.

This year was even more special for me as it was my first time at the helm, although it is my 9th conference all the rest were with Ronan Miles in charge. This reality didn't really hit me till just a few days before the conference, followed quickly by a lot of nerves.

The other thing that was very different was that previously I would have been very involved with the office right up till the event itself but with the new executive my involvement was quite limited, that also was quite stressful in its own way. Finally to add to the pressure, I had had to take over the arrangements for the Fujitsu stand in the exhibition in the run up to conference although I had passed over ownership during the actual event.

So I stupidly took on all that stress on myself, which was silly, UKOUG is about a professional staff, a great executive and almost 200 dedicated volunteers, and they did me and you proud. By the time Lisa and I left the stage after the kick off for the event I knew everything would be OK. I have always said I am proud of what UKOUG achieves but this years conference was excellent. As in every year we have a lot to learn, feedback to process, and I am expecting a lot more this year with the availability of the mobile app. We will always strive to get better and never be complacent but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and the conversations I had were full of praise.

You can see people enjoying themselves in the photos that Liesbeth took, and read plenty of blog entries and the press coverage we got during the event.

I loved Mark Sunday's main keynote it was great to hear a customer case study, especially when the customer is Oracle themselves. Our other two plenary keynotes were Cary Millsap who I wrote about before and his amazing and personal look at life, and Ray Wang who gave us an excellent analyst insight into Oracle and IT.

Our community keynotes were very well received and gave their communities the insight they needed. We are very popular with Oracle executives, product management and speakers both local and overseas, so the standard of presentations was as ever very high. The Oracle UX team were out in force as is now their custom, adding to to the Fusion Apps content. Also many of the community keynote speakers also hosted round tables were delegates got the chance to ask all their questions directly.

We had our IPA winners that I was not able to attend but Lisa did a great job handing out the prizes and thank you OTN for sponsoring these again along with the ACE dinner on the Sunday night. I wanted the community spirit to be lifted at conference and it was, the Focus Pubs were an opportunity to mix with your peers, the OakTable Sunday was a great success and their OakTalks were an unexpected bonus.

The exhibition had a great presence from Oracle and a lot of exhibitors who help Oracle customers get the most from their investment.

The masquerade ball was a great chance to let our hair down after 2 very long days and before the final but still packed Wednesday. Yes the days were long and those who did not stay in Broad Street, either commuting or just able to make a single day it was too long, but what do we do? This is were we really need you feedback, do we cut back on content or networking? Do we lengthen the conference, do we start main sessions Sunday? Tell us.

So yes, I was silly to worry, it was a great conference, I was proud of what UKOUG delivered and to be the President our your community.

"Unfortunately, your presentation was not accepted "

2011-12-22T15:30:00.001Z

The words a regular presenter dreads to hear. Well it happened to me earlier this month when my papers submitted to OAUG for Collaborate were rejected.

It isn’t the first time I have had a rejection, I often submit 3 or 4 and expect to have perhaps 2 selected. It helps if the organisers can choose. On the OTN tours, we are asked to submit about 4 and then the individual user groups select the ones they want. Sometimes I am surprised at what they select, but they normally know their audience.

So having all my papers rejected was a big blow. I am motivated by peer recognition, that may make me shallow but it’s the truth. I want to be able to share what I know with others and I think I have a gift for it. I’m not the best presenter in the world, but I like to take a complex story and distil it down to the simplest analogy and build it up. I love enabling business people to understand technology and the reverse.

It was even more of a disappointment as Collaborate is the biggest Apps User Group gathering in the World, and I think I have something to give. If my papers were not good enough then is my message stale or no longer relevant? So I asked OAUG for feedback on why?

At UKOUG we have so many submissions for conference and our judging process is quite rigorous and the number of slots available means we also turn down lots of really good papers. Sometimes a fantastic paper is rejected simply because there are lots on the same subject, or we decide not to have that topic for some reason. I often get asked by people who have not been successful and during paper selection we do make notes on each rejected paper so that people who have taken the time to submit can have an answer if they ask.

OAUG arranged a call with me and we talked about it. I wasn't asking them to change their mind, that would be a misuse of my position, I just wanted to understand why. I had submitted three papers, the 'Your Path to Understanding Fusion Apps' , ' Should I upgrade or go straight to Fusion Apps?' and 'Consolidation to the Cloud' I gave all at OOW with good reviews, and subsequently on the Asia Pacific OTN tour and at UKOUG. OAUG explained to me that they did have a lot of Fusion papers with a limited stream and had decided that people would be more interested in ‘how to’ than ‘what is it’ or ‘why’ papers. I disagree, not because my papers were unsuccessful, but because people don’t all understand what Fusion is, and actually it is two different audiences. I have another presentation ‘What do Fusion Apps tell you about your own Enterprise?’ and when I gave that at UKOUG I discovered 90% of the audience hadn’t even seen Fusion Apps, we must remember that many conference attendees are at their first one. I also know people are only looking and asking when it is relevant to them. Should I upgrade was the #1 question I was asked at Collaborate last year.

OAUG run a great conference and there are fantastic sessions available to everyone and no-one will die without me. Next year I will submit more and talk with their team beforehand about what they are actually looking for. I will be speaking for OAUG in Dubai in March, we haven’t fallen out.

This incident made me think more about conference planning, for big conferences with many streams, they only way is through paper submission and selection, but for smaller events where sessions are limited you need to tell more of a story or stick to just one or two topics. For example in Ireland, we have a call for papers but decide on the streams, what we want to get across, she what has been submitted and then source the rest. What do you think about paper selection processes?

I will be at Collaborate, Quest International took the ‘Your Path to Understanding Fusion Apps’ remember this is based on work done by all the user groups, and they have also asked me to take part in Upgrade and Fusion Panel Sessions.

The Courage And Value of Sharing

2011-12-08T22:18:00.000Z

I have lots to write about UKOUG2011 but I need to comment on Cary Millsap's keynote on Monday Evening.

Many know Cary as a fantastic technical speaker but we invited him to UKOUG as also a motivational speaker. Cary mentioned to a group of friends in April he would like to do a talk 'beyond' IT, and I thought we and more importantly our members would like that too. What I really like about Cary is he is so really good at what he does and shares it. I know lots of people who do that, in fact the ACE Director Program has that as a requisite, so why is Cary so special? Cary makes every point simple common sense. I once blogged about presentation styles, and talked about how even I could understand his technical talks.

So after months of planning, the agenda was launched and Cary was to be our keynote speaker with the topic of "Learning about Life through Business and Software".

Often I have ideas and get carried away with them and then worry that it won't work out, but then I am a worrier so not really a surprise there, but I NEVER worried about this talk from Cary. (I did however worry about Mogens Nørgaard doing the introduction).

Cary was excellent, he shared life stories and how they help in Business, and business and science scenarios that help in Life. The presentation was videoed and I hope it will be available soon, because it was classic Cary. Witty, heartfelt and valuable.

When I thanked Cary, I said I would blog about the time Cary helped me personally through one of his technical talks. In the presentation that I mentioned in the referenced blog above, Cary gives many different reasons for performance issues. Whilst listening it reminded me of an incident that had happened to me. Once an applications customer was running a report every day, and each day the output grew. The problem was simple, the job always started from day one, it simply needed the start date parameter to change. I sent the example to Cary, and he blogged about it, not simply giving it as an example but taking the problem to a scientific or rather mathematical equation to explain the size of the problem.

When I read the blog, and saw the visualisation of the amount of wasted paper over time, I realised that when I worry (did I tell you I am a worrier?), that worrying about the past is of no value. That simple visualisation (the equation is wasted on me), makes a big difference to me.

The tweets I have seen since his presentation, and having spoken to him personally, I know how much everyone who attended love the talk. Thank you Cary, not just for presenting, but for sharing.

EBS Extended Support

2011-11-28T10:00:00.002Z

If you subscribe to UKOUG e Bulletin you would have read that Oracle have extended the payment waiver for Extended Support on EBS.

"The Extended Support fees for EBS 11i10 will be waived for the entire 3 year period of Extended Support, December 2010 – November 2013. This is a two-year extension to the initial waiver that was set to expire the end of this month, December 2010-November 2011."

I asked for this in a post back in May and I am not arrogant enough to think I am responsible but they have listened to all those who have commented.

In my original post I was worried about the number of people who said they had been waiting to see Fusion Apps before they made their decision, and I didn't think they should be penalised because it wasn't available for them to compare. So now we have Fusion Applications on General Availability and the Extended Support waived. Everyone must now decide what they are going to do.

There is a third issue, after support cost, and availability, there is the big issue around the upgrade path. Oracle have always said that there would be an upgrade path from the latest two releases which at the time was 11.5.10 and 12.0, but now we also have 12.1 so there is only a path from 12.0 onwards. Is this fair, well I am not sure, in most cases I see the move to Fusion Apps as a replacement is not the best thing for an organisation, especially one who has not already moved to R12, so not having the option is not a problem. As a user group leader I don't want to fight for something that isn't really an issue. However we do not know how many people would like to do it so the Product Development Committee I run at the IOUC will be asking people to tell us if they do need an upgrade path.

I think a lot of people will take Fusion but in small steps, taking the co-existence route, after perhaps adopting some technology first, over time.

It is a really exciting time for me, talking specifics with users and my customers. In another post I talked about speaking at another Oracle Applications Day http://debrasoracle.blogspot.com/2011/09/listening-to-user-groups.html which was this week just gone. And I have recently returned from the OTN Asia Trip.
It is also very exciting to talk to customers who are on their journey to Fusion Apps.

And as Oracle said at the event last week, "If you need to know more then go to UKOUG", if you cant join us next week in Birmingham then make sure you engage with your user group and keep up with the news. http://2011.ukoug.org/

Note: at this time the waiver is for EBS only.

OTN Asia Pacific

2011-11-07T22:24:00.000Z

I was really honoured to be asked to take part in a second OTN Tour this year, this time Asia Pacific. Officially the tour started in Thailand but I actually started in Japan.

Japan - InSightOut : 19-21 Oct

Beijing : 21-22 Oct

Hong Kong Quest : 24 Oct

Manila : 28 Oct

Auckland : 31 Oct - 1 Nov

Perth : 3-4 Nov

Last Stop Perth

2011-11-06T22:23:00.000Z

The last stop on the OTN tour was Perth in Australia. Last year I took part in this conference remotely, but I don't really like webcasts in a conference, people have paid to attend in person and the speakers should do so as well.

What struck me about Perth was the country side, it was beautiful and I had many walks to appreciate it, thanks to my local guides, Chris Muir and Connor McDonald.

I also spent a day in Fujitsu with the Oracle team, just discussing where I think Oracle are and the business opportunities locally. Whenever I am near a local office I like to pop in, and put faces to the email addresses.

We also went to the beach and I had a conference call with the UK, they had wind and rain in Manchester and I had warmth and sunshine in Perth on the beach. Think I was the winner, and also saw the most colourful crabs on the rocks.

The conference itself was great except for the cost of Internet access, which I think is criminal. The venue charged $40 a day. I had three sessions and they seemed to go OK. I was tired it had been a long three weeks but well worth it.

This was our last stop but the first time I stayed in an apartment rather than a hotel. It was actually very good and peaceful. Might try it again.

OTN Tour - Auckland

2011-11-05T16:54:00.001Z

The flight from Manila to Melbourne was simple enough and I even slept, which is good as it was an overnight flight and then onwards to Auckland was heaven, Air New Zealand gave me an upgrade to one of their spaceseats, I slept the whole way, the most comfortable seat short of a business class bed.

Francisco the tour organiser who lives in Auckland, collected me from the airport and I was soon checked into my room, which should have been great, as it with time changes and two flights meant it was early evening and I was tired; however it was not to be, it took almost 2 hours to sort out my room! It maybe because I have been travelling too long or because I had stayed in great hotels in the last two locations but this room was a dump. My first problem was finding a socket, there appeared to be just 3, two in use by the tv and broadband and the third, the otherside of the room by the bathroom, which even my super long cable did not reach. I rang reception to ask if there was one I couldn't find and they said they would come up and look. 30 minutes later using the socket for the TV still not help but now I couldn't get the Internet to connect. At this point I made the decision to move the

next morning, it may have been saying Oracle money, but at the expense of my sanity. I went downstairs and through gritted teeth, politely told them my woes, and asked if the person despatched half an hour ago had been found? The receptionist rang their IT to see if there was a problem their end, and informed me there wasn't but she would come and connect for me, she also bought along a power strip, which suggests they know there is an issue. She then managed to connect to the Internet immediately she tried and suggested I had done something wrong. I politely told her that I was an IT professional who stays in hotels 200+ nights a year and would she like to start the conversation again, based on the co-incidence that immediately after her call to IT everything worked. She then left me, 10 minutes later now that I could have the TV and PC plugged in at the same time, I tried the TV but that too was electronically challenged. To save the staff the opportunity to fob me off again, I returned to reception and suggested enough was enough. Again they offered to operate their equipment on my behalf and up she came to my room again, obviously I received this personal service as by now I was their favourite customer. After confirming I was actually right and not simply the normal idiotic class of customer stupid enough to stay in their hotel (name available on application), she accepted it was not working, and offered me another room. I suggested that now, 2 hours after my arrival that was not going to be enough and to her credit she did upgrade me. Once in the new room I decided the hotel would do, and apart from the questionable sanity of the cleaner assigned to my floor, there were no more problems until the obligatory 'discussion' around charges at checkout.

Oh dear the rants of a seasoned traveller.

Next day was Saturday and a dear friend who lives in NZ came unto to Auckland with her family including grand children and we had a great day at Auckland Zoo. I have to say it is a fantastic zoo, not the biggest in terms of numbers of animals but so much space for them, beautifully laid out. The family then went home but my friend stayed the night and we had a girly night out catching up.

Early Sunday morning we caught a boat over to Rangitoto island, which we were in great danger of missing as the plenty of time we gave ourselves to get to the ferry terminal did not factor crossing the road as the Auckland Marathon arriving there. Rangitoto is a volcanic island and although only 25 minutes by ferry, very isolated and no permanent inhabitants. We walked around for a couple of hours exploring some of the more hidden areas and then did a tour being pulled by tractor around the main track and unto the base of the volcanic crater from where we climbed to the summit and walked around before returning back to Auckland. My friend left to go home after our lunch and I had a quick rest before meeting up with very one else arriving for the conference for a cocktail party.

Although the conference was all day Monday and Tuesday I was not on until after lunch Monday so I took the opportunity to play truant in the morning and alongside Fred and Dave from Park Lane IT who I persuaded to join me, we did the Auckland Bridge Climb. I have to admit having a wobble on the transfer between the lower deck and the actual arch, but really enjoyed the experience and am proud of myself. It is linger than the Sydney Bridge but not as high. Perhaps I will do that on my next trip to Sydney.

Back to the conference I attended a session from Lynne O'Donoghue who I know from when she was NZOUG President. She lives in Christchurch and gave a presentation 'Shaken but not deterred' about how the health board she works for coped with the series of earthquakes. It was a fantastic presentation, full of statistics and photos that put everything in context and how she and her team coped, kept running and assisted in the crisis and all whilst her own home had been destroyed. It was quite a humbling story.

My presentation was immediately after hers and I felt 'how do I follow that?' Monday I presented 'Fusion Apps, what do they mean to you' and I got a great response. NZOUG hd two streams for apps plus a business stream and plus another 6 technical streams so people really wanted to be in the sessions, and I was really pleased with the feedback.

At the end of the day it was time for an NZOUG tradition I and been warned about, their audience participation dinner. Where you sat was dictated by them and I was sat near the front of the stage, dangerous. The MC was a local actor, who albeit not the most famous was known and recognised by New Zealanders. The idea was ( and remember this was 31 October, Halloween ) it was 10 years since he had been an MC at a wedding at this very hotel and the bride had been murdered. He was then joined by another actor, the ghost of the bride. Then they selected 6 audience members to be the suspects for the murder and spent the evening whittling down the suspects based on their audience popularity. So first to be selected from the audience was .......ME. I was Chantelle the hard drinking, loose morals, over the top, maid of honour. Not sure why they thought I would be a good fit, but ever the polite guest I gave it my best. The other participants were TIm Hall as the groom, Bambi Price ( who is APOUC spokesperson for IOUC), Chris Muir as Father o'grady the priest, and two Local Oracle members as the wedding singer and the Chilean Chef. After being introduced and plateful to the audience we went back to our tables for dinner. I was loving this, but small issue, it was 8pm and I had a conference call with the UK at 9pm. So having had a word with the MC it was arranged that I would we voted off at the first cut. I tell you this because people kept coming unto me and saying I thought the clapping for you was really loud, why did you get voted off so quickly? Still I had to do the day job and I was back in time for the final part were the groom and the chef admitted it was all over their new found live for each other and in fact the chef was the murderer. Well done NZOUG it was hysterical and a great crowd pleaser. It was also brilliant how they included the speakers in it, sometimes on these tours it is easy to just turn up, present and not really be an active part in the rest of the event.

Tuesday started early, but the turnout was good and I had my 2nd presentation, the old favourite '42 Real Life Examples of FMW with Apps', again a great turnout and feedback. Then just before lunch I had my final presentation, a packed room for 'Should I Upgrade or go to Fusion Applications?'. I loved NZOUG and the feedback I got was fantastic. I would go back anytime.

The most beautiful things I saw in Auckland were the trees just outside the conference, these are Pōhutukawa commonly known as New Zealand Christmas Trees as they have a beautful red flower at that ti,e. These trees were over 300 years old and were proped up in places but just amazing.

Then time to say goodbye, and off to the airport for my flight to Perth, grateful I am Star Alliance and therefore booked on Air New Zealand and not Qantas.

OTN Tour - Manila

2011-10-28T22:25:00.004+01:00

My first thoughts about the Philippines was that it was going to be expensive, Beijing was cheap despite the scams but our hotel in Manila where the conference was being held was very expensive. Anyway I supose it is swings and roundabouts through the tour and still less than what San Francisco was charging during OOW.

I had a hotel car pick me up from the airport and I must admit one thing I never tire of is being meet off a flight by someone holding up a sign with my name on it. During the journey there was in car wifi so time to catch up on my mail. Good thing because this event still had a 'fluid' agenda and a few gaps we needed to fill between us because someone had let the organisers down late in the process.

The first evening just had a cheese plate in the hotel which was wonderful albeit expensive and then retired to my fantastic room. My room rate included dry cleaning and as this was halfway through my trip I simply handed over most of my suitcase to the very attentive staff. It is the first time in a hotel I have been checked in, in my room. Breakfast was also fantastic, and I would compare it to the brunch at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, perhaps not quite as much choice but far too much and even in this hotel, less cost and yes Nadia they had Fois Gras.

I had only 1 free day here and Ronald, Edward, Melissa and I took a tour around old and new Manila. The most impressive dight was the American War Memorial. So moving and so well cared for, they only employ direct descendants of those buried there. We also visited Razal Park and Intramuros or the Walled City of Manila.

The whole of the Philippines was security mad, with dogs and guards on most buildings, a bit like Belfast in the good old days.

Manila has a lot of traffic, and the most unusal form of transport the Jeepney based on old US jeeps. However they look quite precarious and we saw a vehicle fire on the way back in the dark which we think was one of these.

I had three presentations at the conference, and at the start I also got the chance to say a little bit about OTN and the ACE program. Dinah who ran the show was the Philippines User Group president but they had had to close down because of legal restrctions in the Philippines. Her company was one of the sponsors for this event. There was a good turn out and I always love it when you need extra chairs at an event!

The morning was plenary sessions and mine was the Fusion Overview, then in the afternoon we had 3 streams. It was a big room and the divisions were little more than cubicles and at first I found it very off puttng but you soon got used to it. I had a good crowd and lots of interaction for my 42 real Life Examples of Fusion Middleware and then Consolidation to the Cloud.

Thank you Dinah and friends for another great conference.

I then had the chance to meet with Rhine from Fujitsu Philippines and see what they are upto with Oracle.

All too soon it was time to leave and I raced off to the airport with Ronald

Bradford for our overnight flight to Melbourne and onward to Auckland. Mistake, you DO NOT need 3 hours at the airport in Manila, and in fact there is nothing to do for 3 minutes, let alone 3 hours and no WIFI. In fact the only thing to do is enjoy the 5 different security checkpoints, which you must enjoy because you paid an airport users tax as proof, which includes anti hijack tax, so at least you know you are safe.

OTN Tour - Hong Kong

2011-10-28T20:51:00.002+01:00

In 1987 I completed a project in Hong Kong when it was under British rule, so visiting Hong Kong was high on my list of places to go back to. Also this event Quest Asia was not strictly part of the OTN tour but had been added whilst just at OOW when I discovered it would fit into my itinerary. Quest is the user group for JDEdwards and PeopleSoft and I did once before take part in 2006 in Singapore. I like Quest, they understand how important it is for their users to see what is coming, what is on the oracle horizon and have played an active part in the Product Development Committee from the outset. They also seem to like me and at Collaborate this year they awarded me a 'friend of Quest'.

I arrived in Hong Kong about 6pm after a trouble free flight from Beijing on Air Philippines. Just about 3 hours so not bad. I decided to treat myself and get a taxi to the hotel as I was tired and I wanted to maximise the time I had to spend with the Quest crew, all friends that I had had no time to spend with at OOW. The Langham hotel was beautiful, very colonial and luxurious, I loved it.

The event was single stream and I presented twice. All conferences rely on vendor sponsorship and as this was a free to attend event this sponsorship is even more important, but there is a line between a good vendor presentation and a straight sales pitch, not all vendors stay the right side if that line.

My first presentation was Fusion Apps architecture including the UX demo, which seemed to go down well and I got good feedback. One gentleman from china had travelled over just to see this presentation. I was followed by Sue Shaw a fellow ACE program member who presented on her company's upgrade plans and the features of the version of JDE they were moving to. Then at the end of the day I gave my new 'Consolidation to the Cloud' presentation, still no words on the slides and again it went down really well. This departure from the normal kind of slide deck is proving to be very popular especially at the end of a long conference.

That evening I went to dinner with the Quest crew and we found a lovely restaurant where the food was great except for the garnish on the plate of chicken! Then we walked down to the harbour for the Symphony of light laser show.

The next day they were visiting Macau but I had to fly onto Manila so could not join them, despite the constant but well placed badgering from Daniel Strassberg the Quest Asia President. I travelled with them by metro to Central, walked up to the Victoria Peak tram although the view from the peak was pretty poor due to the early morning fog. Then I travelled back down to Central in a little green minibus. I then took a bus to Stanley where I stayed all those years ago, walked around Stanley Market and then back to the harbour where I caught the Star Ferry (1st class) back to Kowloon and the hotel. I went back to the airport by shuttle bus only this was more luxurious than many business class seats I have been on inflight.

It was great being back in Hong Kong even if it was just a flying visit

OTN Tour - Beijing, China

2011-10-24T04:37:00.000+01:00

Great start to the trip to china, discovering that Air China is part of Star Alliance, so Ronald Bradford and I got a chance to use the lounge for breakfast before our flight and more importantly got a row to ourselves, as we both needed to work. The flight was about 4 hours. Luckily we were not the first to arrive in China so had been forewarned about taxi scams.

Taxi scams -I feel I could write a whole book on this, and yet as I type this on my flight out, I have newspaper telling me why taxi drivers have it so hard in china.

Having arrived at the hotel we encountered another scam, the mandatory upgrade -yes about 25% of the quoted price. Our host Shi or Marshall was at the front desk and said it was normal and OK. My 'upgraded' room was ok, but some speakers had filthy rooms and no air conditioning that worked, and several room changes later gave up and moved hotels. I however loved the pool.

I love travel and the cultures that I get to experience, and so I was pleased when Kuassi who had been a few times before, took us to the Laoshe Teahouse, for a show, which I can only describe as 'Beijing's Got Talent'. But I get ahead of myself; I met the best taxi driver of my trip at this point. There were to be 6 of us to go, so we called two taxis, then as we were getting in, someone was taken really ill so we were down to 4. We could have all got into one but felt guilty as the taxis had come out for us. Kuassi and I got into one and Murali and Francisco got into the other. I have learnt that many taxi drivers abroad drive in a way I find very disconcerting and this one was no different. His seat belts were non existent. I kept thinking we were having near misses and then would tell myself I was over reacting, until we were hit by another car. I saw the car come towards us, thought it had missed, breathed a sigh of relief, then it hit us, hard. Kuassi was sat by the side that was hit, and luckily he was ok. I put my hands out in front of me to take the force and my wrists both hurt but I was just really shook up. Enter the great taxi driver, the others were a few cars behind and their taxi driver saw the accident. He pulled over and the passengers who hadn't seen it were a bit concerned till he reappeared with us. I don't know if we gave him a tip I was still very upset, but he deserved one.

The tea house was a welcome sight and some of the acts were literally so foreign to me I found them difficult to understand, but there were also some good ones. A man who juggled and spun enormous pots was fantastic; a shadow puppet man who had created people singing was excellent (I just wish he finished his act at this point). I loved the face changing dance and the finale of the young marshal arts boys was brilliant.

The conference was two days, but Ronald and I missed the first Day to take part in Japan so next day was our day. I expected translators but Tim Hall explained that our slides has been translated and the audience would listen in English but see the slides in both; however not the case for me, it was decided as it was a business presentation most people would understand. We were also told that nowadays many people understand English much better than they speak it. Disappointingly my session was against one in Chinese and my audience was small, however I got a great question afterwards which proved he at least had understood and that made me feel great. In china I gave my 42Real life examples of Fusion Middleware with Apps presentation.

I was finished by lunchtime, and in the afternoon, Murali, Kuassi, Tim and I went off to find Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, we got a taxi from the hotel and paid the metered 17 Yuan fare. The square provokes memories if what we in west remember the square for, but other than that is simply a square but the Forbidden City was very impressive. One thing I did find funny in china, was that most translation seems to be courtesy of Google translate and with no additional checking. This great afternoon was spoilt though by trying to get home, it took over an hour to find us a taxi, and even then it was for a negotiated rate of 80Yuan, the battering for this was done on the dirt of his taxi. We had the right change having earlier discovering that you get 1Yuan change regardless of what you give them.

The next day we visited the Great Wall and this is what I was looking forward to most of all. Unfortunately the Smog, which never lifted since we got off the plan, meant visibility, was very poor, but it was a great experience, and I was very proud of myself climbing as far as we could in the time allowed. We then visited the Ming Tombs and our guide was really good telling us about the site and more importantly the legends. Again however it was another lesson in a different culture. The hotel offered a day tour for 800 Yuan each, but Kai who is native Chinese told us this sounded expensive and came back with an offer that eventually cost us 300 each. We were very pleased with the driver and guide and had the money ready to give them a tip which we were told is not expected in China, but to me she spoilt the day by asking for one when we got back to the hotel.

Then we went shopping which to me was a horrible experience, I don’t feel comfortable with hard sell or with bartering and in China they are experts at both. I am not saying they are wrong, this is China and their way of doing things but for me it was too uncomfortable. we did however venture onto the underground and although incredible packed, it was clean and efficient; Should have done that before.

My # 2 highlight was the wall, #3 was the hotel pool, no facebook and twitter was difficult, the scamming and battering I didn’t like; but my #1 highlight was being asked a question that showed my presentation was of value. Sharing is what makes this all worth while. Thank you, Marshall and your team for inviting us to Beijing.

InsightOut - Tokyo Japan

2011-10-24T03:50:00.000+01:00

I have been to Japan before and I loved it, and this second visit did not disappoint.

I was travelling to Japan to take part in the InsightOut database symposium, but first I took the opportunity to visit Fujitsu HQ. I had the opportunity to talk through my ‘Upgrade or move to Fusion Applications’ presentation to our EBS team , and look at some Oracle / Fujitsu projects in Japan. Thank you to all my colleagues who as ever made me feel part of our global family.

At Oracle Open World I met Ryutaro Mori who is on the board of OAUG Japan and when I told him I was going to Tokyo he asked if I would meet with their board. Of course I would, it was an honour. OAUG Japan is always present on our IOUC PDC calls, and very keen to have applications information for their members. The board and their Oracle liaisons took me to a wonderful dinner on the 42nd floor of the Shiodome City centre Building (where Fujitsu is based) and a fantastic view of the Tokyo skyline and their radio tour at night.

The conference itself wins hands sown as the best organised conference I have ever attended It was run by Insight Technology - Hiroki-san (Mizo) and powered by the OakTable, a concept created when Mogens Nørgaard and Anjo Kolk visited Icharo Obata in Tokyo earlier this year. I had met Icharo-san when we were stranded in Denmark after the volcano last year. This conference had 3 days with 3 streams, one of which was streamed live on the internet (including mine).

Here I gave my ‘What does Fusion Applications mean to you’ presentation, which I previously gave at MOW. We each met with translators an hour before our presentation and went through what we were going to say. They were so good they spotted an error in my slides. The room was full of people interested in what I had to say, and 6 members of OAUG Japan and 2 from Oracle, paid to attend just for my session, including one from Oracle who is now to sell Oracle Applications. After the presentation we went to the office of one of the board, where we held a great Q&A session. This makes it all worthwhile; sharing my knowledge is what I love best about this role.

The hospitality of Insight was fantastic; on the first evening they took us on a walking tour of night market and Sensoji Temple, and to a great traditional meal. Apparently in Japan they continue to serve food until you tell them to stop. I don’t eat fish, which is a pity as it is the main food group here including these tiny crabs, but everyone made sure I was catered for, at this dinner, lunch during the event and the meal I went to on my last evening.

The event was for 3 days, but Ronald and I left early on the second day as we had to join the OTN tour in Beijing, having missed Thailand to take part in Tokyo. We loved the efficiency of the metro, the trains, the airport, everything ran smoothly.

Thank you InSight, Icharo-san for fitting me into your conference (I asked – rather cheeky of me), The OakTable for letting me hang out with you guys again, Mizo for the phenomenal organisation and Gerlinde for making sure I was fed. I will be back,

An Award for Being Betwixt and Between

2011-10-20T11:02:00.001+01:00

I used to get into a lot of trouble for saying I was not technical, but nowadays I am not sure I am particularly functional either. I am Betwixt and Between - neither one thing or the other. I have found my niche as being the bridge between the two. Helping technical people understand the business reasons and business people understand the technology. I love this role and work with the best experts on every side to help me learn their areas, and that is why I love the ACE Program so much, not only do I get access to the experts that are my peers but also Product Management within Oracle.

On the downside I get the occasional crisis of confidence and wonder about the value I add. These posts are all written in the wrong order, and an example of this is having my sessions turned down for Collaborate.

However at Open World I was honoured to receive an SOA Community Award award for helping them understand the business implications of SOA with Applications. The award was also for getting Fujitsu to be first SOA specialized partner and 32 specializations in total. My day job as Oracle Alliance Director for Fujitsu means that this is part of my remit.

The SOA Partner Community is run by Jürgen Kress and if every discipline had a community like this, specialization would be much easier. The Community is exactly what it says a place where people learn from each other, and from the training that Jürgen arranges.

OOW and Fusion Apps

2011-10-16T20:36:00.001+01:00

Last year at OOW'10 I was really pleased with the soft launch of Fusion Applications. I talked about my thoughts last year and how we were working with Development to have a training program and this became the UX Fusion Applications Advocates program.

This year at OOW'11 we knew there was to be a hard launch with the Fusion Nation and it was great that this really was General Availability. I gave a quick update to say we had our vests, but what happened next? Well we all wore them all week, and some of us even bought red shoes!

The advocates program had a round table, to see how we were all getting on with the demo sessions, and what we wanted to learn next. It is amazing that this time last year this was just an idea. There are now over 15 people trained and out there sharing their knowledge with everyone. Thanks to Misha seen here standing, who made this happen. As well as the ACEs who make us this program, I also had another dozen Product Development members from the IOUC in red vests.

On the Wednesday Oracle worked to have photos taken of all the Fusion Nation, and wearing the jackets was great, a feeling of being part of something big. They had us meet up for breakfast and then line up on the main stairs.

Then we had front row seats for the actual keynote, where Larry gave an actual demo. I was quite impressed. Finally Development had there day. There were plenty of early adopter presentations at OOW but next year we should have a lot more, and more complex implementations. To me the best part of Fusion Nation was when Steve Miranda put on his vest during his keynote.

I have also worn my jacket since when presenting on the OTN Tour.

My OOW Sessions

2011-10-16T20:00:00.000+01:00

I had 3 sessions at OOW'11:

'Your Path to Understanding Fusion Applications'
One of the first presentations of OOW'11 9am Sunday Morning

This was to be the launch of our roadmap project from the IOUC, but we had been pushed to the very last minute by Oracle and it wasn't ready, however we showed the concept to the audience and the feedback was great. Sten Vesterli was our cartographer and he showed the map as it was, and also created a website where people could register for information and give feedback.

Richard Bingham who wrote 'Managing Fusion Application' also spoke on how Oracle Support have geared up for the apps, and was proud to tell us how many SRs had been raised. That made me chuckle, he was pointing out that as the numbers of customers has ramped up, so too has the queries. Normally this would be the last thing Oracle would highlight.

'Should I upgrade or go to Fusion Applications'

Trying to answer the question I am asked most - and based on an earlier blog. I didn't give them the answer, and in fact I stole from my friend the great Tom Kyte and simply said "It Depends". The real content was about all the things people should consider when making their assessment. This is quite an interactive session and I like those.

'Consolidation to the Cloud'

I have a lot of respect for technical presenters, they plan their presentations for months and rehearse prolifically. People like Cary Millsap and Connor McDonald put hundreds of hours into their presentations whereas mine are more about putting my thoughts into a presentation. I spend many, many hours thinking, and coming up with the simple analogies that I love, but the actual presentation is normally left very late. I often joke that I love OOW because I have the 11 hour flight to finish my presentations. This year I really needed it, my first presentation wasn't finished but this one wasn't even started. I had written an article for an Oracle UK magazine, and used the analogy of how my handbag and even my life is consolidated into my smartphone. However the flight flew by and I still hadn't started.

As ever the week before was busier than I expected and come Sunday I still hadn't started, but the presentation was due for Thursday lunchtime, and I told myself no-one would turn up anyway, so perhaps I could just take the few people that do turn up and give them a coffee somewhere. I tried to find out how many people had registered but this year it wasn't available online so I had to ring speaker services, and they told me it was over 100, so I had to do something.

I decided that I would keep to the analogy and just have photos for the presentation and hope I didn't short change them too much. When the session came along there were about 70 people, and quite a buzz. People are tired by the end of the conference but still going on adrenaline. The actual presentation went down really well, it was light hearted and people didn't have to think too much. The feedback was that it made so much sense, at first any IT project seems expensive, but you need to look at the value, and then how to get more out of it.

So OOW'11 went well, I was happy with my presentations and although very few people give feedback at OOW, I was happy with the scores.

Fujitsu Achieves Diamond Status

2011-10-15T18:15:00.002+01:00

Time for the day job. My role as Oracle Alliance Director for UK includes ensuring that our partnership status is in place. So I was so pleased that immediately before OOW we heard our bid for Diamond Status was successful.

Fujitsu designs, builds and runs IT systems. As part of that we have an alliance with many vendors and in the UK & Ireland I look after the alliance with Oracle. When Oracle announced their Specialization Partner Program in 2009, our immediate aim was to convert our top level Certified Advantage Partner to the equivalent Platinum partner Level. Oracle granted CAP partners 12 months grace to achieve the 5 Specializations required.

Everyone in the Fujitsu UK Oracle prcatice is encouraged though the appraisal process to achieve the competency testing and where appropriate, specialist for their area. We therefore quickly adapted to the new process and achieved Platinum .

Then Oracle raised the bar further and introduced Diamond Level, for their global partners. This requires much more commitment and it is expected that there will be no more than about 10 -15 partners globally.

First we needed 20 specializations including 5 at advanced level where you need 50+ specialists. These specialists are testing externally and the level is very high, for example a DBA specialist needs to be Oracle Certified Professional. I want to use this blog to thank all of those who took exams especially those in the beta programs where the waiting was so long.

Fujitsu plays into the Oracle full stack really well, although often independent there are allainces at very level. Our strategic alliance around SPARC, through all services and our managed services offerings for applications means we worked diligently through the specializations that reflected these offerings. I have blogged before we started with the technology as we were already known for our hardware and applications portfolio.

Fujitsu did not stop once we achieved the prescribed 20 specializations, because as I said it is our culture to encourage this at individual level. In fact at a recent partner showcase I had to accept the smallest possible font on the fixed size poster as we had 26 specializations, but even better it was confirmed at OOW that we had at that time 32 specializations the highest achieved to date by any partner.

As well as specializations to achieve Diamond you need a number of approved offerings with oracle. This sounded quite simple, we provide all sorts of Oracle services, however it was a very thorough process requiring lots of sales and marketing artefacts, case studies etc, and Fujitsu has a slightly different go to market model than Oracle so there was quite a lot of work to do. I was responsible for 6 of them, and although our aim of achieving by OOW was very stressful, there were a lot of things I learnt and I look forward to working on new offerings from start to finish, rather than this retrospective exercise.

Anyway we achieved it, with the official announcement being made on the Monday of OOW although at OPN day we were listed.

Fujitsu is global and I am part of the global team, and this was a real team effort. My counterpart in the US Jere Weliever and our global administer JessikaWeis especially need lots of credit.

Just a few days before OOW, when I had already arrived in San Francisco I received the news that we had achieved it all. And on a very personal level, I had once blogged about buying flowers for my hotel room when I am away all week and when I moved into San Francisco city for OOW I had a lovely surprise, there were flowers in my room thanks to my EMEA alliance manager

Update on Fusion Nation

2011-10-02T14:50:00.000+01:00

I have my new vest, and actually well done to Oracle, they have women's versions as well so quite happy to wear it. Like the bag although disappointed you had to chose between standard OOW messenger bad which also looked great and this one.

I have my new red shoes, my nails are painted and I'm all set.

My first presentation the PDC ' Your Path to Understanding Fusion Applications' is on in just under two hours.

You can see I am excited but Fusion Advocates have waited a long time for this, especially those inside Oracle who have had to keep quiet for so long. 500 People, all wearing red,
Stop Us and Ask Us

My Time at OOW - What to Look Forward To

2011-10-02T10:42:00.001+01:00

As ever I am writing this blog on the plane, which makes it too late, but never mind. What am I up to at open world this year?

First, as an ACE director I am at HQ for two days of briefings. I often talk about these days, but this is heads down, briefings from the experts, and a way of assimilating all the OOW messages in a calm environment before the event. We will be under NDA so may not talk about them yet but at least I will understand.

I have meetings at HQ with my partner manager and the SIA Community leader, a great chance to catch up be fire the madness begins.

Saturday things are a little quieter but I still haven't finished ( to be honest even started my presentations, although I know what I want to say), so it is my emergency time. In the evening I have an OakTable party to go to. A night with the worlds best DBAs, goodness knows what I will talk about.

Then Sunday OOW kicks off and I have the very first session. In total I have 3 sessions (see my last post). Oracle have mucked me around this year, which is annoying. This first presentation did not get approved till the last minute, and my other two got changed. Including moving one from Tuesday to thursday afternoon, I must really have pissed someone off. However one was moved from Sunday as a 30 minute session to Monday for an hour in a much bigger room because of advance registrations. So I guess they all equal out.

As a user group leader I have time to serve at the UG pavilion in Moscone West come along and check it out. I haw several meetings with people about how we can improve UKOUG. I also have analyst and press meetings. My Vice President and great friend Lisa is coming to OOW for the first time and has I am pleased to say bought comfortable shoes, she will need them.

The fusion Nation program will fill up any time I think I have but I am so pleased Fusion Apps are having their day and I really want to speak to those customers who are early adopters.

As Fujitsu I will pop along to our booth, met with analysts for them, meet customers from around the world, and attend our global practice day on Thursday ( just in case I feel the week has not been long enough).

There is plenty of fun as well, I have lunches and dinners planned with friends, colleagues and oracle executives; I am looking forward to Wednesday and seeing Sting. When I was 19 I lived in a bedsit in south London and listened to him playing live on Streatham Common with the police, so it may make me feel young again. And Friday morning Lisa and I are planning the Golden Gate Bridge cycle. Only this year I will try not to lose my camera!

I will come home with 100s of business cards, a very long to do list, too much information to share but lots of happy memories of another Oracle Open World.

My sessions at OOW are 'Your Path to Understanding Fusion Applications', 'Should I upgrade or go to Fusion Applications' and 'Conolidation to the Cloud'.

Try and come along, it may be the only time you get to see me. And if the title or extract doesn't appeal to you remember I have a lovely English accent.

The Best Women in IT

2011-09-30T01:46:00.001+01:00

When I became Chairman of UKOUG the press release mentioned that I was the first woman Chairman. Several journalists asked me how I felt about that. I have never been hung up about being a woman in a man's world, but I do wish more girls were encouraged into the industry.

But in Slovenia I realised that there are only 3 women presidents in all the EMEA Usergroups. Heli from Finland OUGF, and Melina from the Bulgarian User Group BGOUG. Three of the best user groups there are, led by women. I don't really mean that, there are lots of brilliant user group leaders but they aren't as good looking as us.

Bletchley Park

2011-09-30T01:30:00.000+01:00

Carl and Mary Ann

UKOUG held a security special event recently, and the location was none other than Bletchley Park. We had a great line up of speakers including Mary Ann Davidson Chief Security Officer from Oracle. She like everyone else was very impressed with being at Bletchley Park.

The Day was organized by Carl Dudley a long time board member of UKOUG and now a member of the new Council. The numbers were not as good as we hoped but everyone who went had great day. The building was magnificent and we were given a tour over lunch.

It was a privileged to see the enigma machines, and to see the Bombe that was invented to break the codes. They have rebuilt this as part of the museum and it is a tribute. To think that Bletchley Park was to be developed and all that history gone forever. I was humbled by the work done to save what is a really important part of our history.

This week I attended an event that included on the panel Dr Susan Black who used social media to fire up the debate and campaign to save Bletchley Park.

We also saw colossus, the computer believed to be one of the first. I would like to say I was impressed with the whole Bletchley Park experience but actually it invoked a very different emotion in me. The story of Alan Touring, who broke the Enigma and his suicide really touched at me. This man played such an important part in our history and yet we as society judged him and drove him to kill himself.

Fusion Nation

2011-09-29T23:39:00.002+01:00

This year FINALLY Oracle have promised to make a big fuss about Fusion Applications. And one of the things they are trying to encourage is for people to talk about it, and to do this they are putting 500 people in red vests for you to stop and ask.

The people are made up of Oracle Development (finally allowed to talk), Oracle product management, trained SI partners, Early adopters and User Group advocates. This last group is mine, 26 people who are either part of the Product Development Committee who have worked with Development since Fusion was just a dream, or Fusion Apps UX advocates from the ACE program. Two initiatives I am very proud to have led.

I am not sure the vest will suit me, and I can't promise to have much time to talk, as ever my dance card is very full, BUT do stop me, do ask me, once I start talking you may never shut me up.

Listening to User Groups

2011-09-29T19:56:00.000+01:00

One of the values of belonging to a user group is being part of a voice that is listened to. This is not just an empty boast, Oracle do listen to UKOUG, we share our survey data with them and we agree action plans where necessary.

I am very proud of how UKOUG have been central to what user groups have done with Oracle around Fusion Applications and they have listened to us. Right back in the early days we were asked to talk to marketing about the messages we were hearing, and a few weeks ago I was asked to speak again to marketing as they start their first campaigns to sell Fusion Applications this was a great honour for me personally but it also cements the value of the user group.

As a direct result we are working together with marketing, and our Fusion Days early in September were because we worked with each other. They asked me to speak on Andrew Sutherland technology panel.

We worked with marketing to time our Fusion Day, which totally filled up in hours, so we worked again with the presenters in Oracle Development all flying into the UK, and they agreed to do another day. That was full as well. The feedback I got on the day was great, bringing demos to our members. Look out for a article from Colin Terry, who hosted the first day in his new role as UKOUG Council member.

We are working with Oracle on an applications day they will have later this year where again I will be part of the panel, and then we have UKOUG conference where you will get more Fusion content.

I talk a lot about Fusion technology and applications, but others in UKOUG are working just as hard on other areas. This is part of the value we bring to you.

My time at oracle open world

2011-09-29T18:25:00.000+01:00

As ever I am writing this blog on the plane, which makes it too late, but never mind. What am I up to at Oracle Open World this year?

First, as an ACE director I am at HQ for two days of briefings. I often talk about these days, but this is heads down, briefings from the experts, and a way of assimilating all the OOW messages in a calm environment before the event. We will be under NDA so may not talk about them yet but at least I will understand.

I have meetings at HQ with my partner manager and the SOA Community leader, a great chance to catch up be fire the madness begins.

Saturday things are a little quieter but I still haven't finished ( to be honest even started my presentations, although I know what I want to say), so it is my emergency time. In the evening I have an OakTable party to go to. A night with the worlds best DBAs, goodness knows what I will talk about.

Then Sunday OOW kicks off and I have the very first session. In total I have 3 sessions (see my last post). Oracle have mucked me around this year, which is annoying. This first presentation did not get approved till the last minute, and my other two got changed. Including moving one from Tuesday to Thursday afternoon, I must really have pissed someone off. However one was moved from Sunday as a 30 minute session to Monday for an hour in a much bigger room because of advance registrations. So I guess they all equal out.

As a user group leader I have time to serve at the UG pavilion in Moscone West come along and check it out. I have several meetings with people about how we can continuously improve UKOUG. I also have analyst and press meetings. UKOUG Vice President and great friend Lisa is coming to OOW for the first time and has I am pleased to say she has bought comfortable shoes, she will need them.

The Fusion Nation (more information coming) program will fill up any time I think I have but I am so pleased Fusion Apps are having their day and I really want to speak to those customers who are early adopters.

As Fujitsu I will pop along to our Booth#1311, meet with analysts for them, meet customers from around the world, and attend our global practice day on Thursday ( just in case I feel the week has not been long enough).

There is plenty of fun as well, I have lunches and dinners planned with friends, colleagues and Oracle executives; I am looking forward to Wednesday and seeing Sting. When I was 19 I lived in a bedsit in south London and listened to him playing live on Streatham Common with Police, so it may make me feel young again. And Friday morning Lisa and I are planning the Golden Gate Bridge cycle. Only this year I will try not to lose my camera!

I will come home with 100s of business cards, a very long to do list, too much information to share but lots of happy memories of another Oracle Open World.

My Sessions at OOW

2011-09-29T18:09:00.002+01:00

Try and come along, it may be the only time you get to see me. And if the title or extract doesn't appeal to you remember I have a lovely English accent.

Sun   0900 Moscone West 3000    #41576 Your Path to Understanding Fusion Applications

Mon 1230 Moscone West 3006     #08637 Do I Upgrade or go straight to Oracle Fusion Applications?

Thu   1330 Moscone South 300       #08633 Consolidation to the Cloud

And hoping these won't move again

Highlights and Thoughts from OTN Latin America Tour

2011-07-26T13:34:00.002+01:00

I have just come home from my OTN Latin America tour and wanted to share my highlights and thoughts

Highlights

Quito, Ecuador – my first glance of South America filled me with excitement and loved the thought of being so high and on the equator. The Angel was so majestic, very moving, and the hills so unique.

Cartagena, Columbia – didn’t want to leave, the relaxation and the sunshine were heaven, Robin was a wonderful host despite the boat incident. The walled city was wonderful.

Lima, Peru – so full of history and what I actually expected South America to be like. Not brave enough to try the guinea pig but won't live to regret it.

Sao Paulo, Brazil – amazed at the size and the strong investment. Never expected the Japanese influence. Enjoyed the football museum, and again surprised by that.

Montevideo, Uruguay – the hospitality and the gorgeous coastline. Their football game and the atmosphere, loved the new airport architecture.

Santiago, Chile – the breathtaking views of the Andes and later the ocean. Oracle supporting IT in universities.

Thoughts

The Latin America usergroups may not be very old, but they are every bit as dedicated to their members. The hospitality from each group was fantastic, they kept saying what an honour it was to have the speakers on the tour but I felt I was the honoured one.

OTN is encouraging this growth with their Spanish and Portuguese content which Pablo was marketing at each event.

The translators were fantastic; really don’t know how they do it especially with acronyms and technical content.

Another thing you notice is that in these conferences there has been a much higher number of young people and % of women. They are appealing to grass roots and that is something we in the West need to achieve. However a trend in South America is that it is difficult to retain staff, most work as contractors, but once you reach age 40 it is difficult to find work, people want the youngsters, a problem that might bite them back in a few years.

I was also had the priveldge of representing UKOUG and sharing ideas with the different user group leaders. Ronan and I had met them before at IOUC Presidents meetings and they all have that raw energy that drives success. It was wonderful in some small way to help by bringing content. I have many ideas to take back to UKOUG.

Thank you Oracle ACE Program and Fujitsu for letting me take part. To the Oracle UX team for my content on Fusion Apps and all who contributed to my 42 Real Life Examples of FMW with Applications presentation. To Francisco for organising the event and to everyone I met; I made lots of new friends on the tour and definitely want to do it all again.

Santiago, Chile

2011-07-26T12:42:00.006+01:00

I had to hold my breath as the flight approached Chile, we flew over the Andes and the view was unbelievable. The sun shone and our flight was quiet enough that Graham, Kai and I had a row each and the best views ever. This was the #1 highlight of the whole tour experience.

The shuttle Graham had arranged turned out not to be, but we soon had that sorted and speed towards the city. We stayed in the Marriott and I asked firmly but nicely for a mountain view and they came up trumps.

We arrived early afternoon and quickly went back out to take a bus tour of the city. It was very interesting, more modern than most of the cities we had been to, but still had its old world and traditional charm.

After two weeks on the road, and another time change, the 3 of us decided we didn’t want another restaurant meal, so when the bus dropped us back we went to a supermarket, bought bread, cheese, ham and of course Chilean wine and had a picnic in my room with the intent of watching the sunset; except in Chile sunset and sunrise lasts approximately 1 minute, like a switch being thrown. It was great to have a relaxed evening and an early night.

Hans arrived later that evening and we caught up with him at breakfast. The user group event was held in a nearby private university, which is important as there were protests at the public universities about the introduction of fees, we had seen riot police in the city during our tour. The university was beautiful and we saw most of it as we were led through a rabbit warren of stairs up and down by our host Filipe, we finally ended up just 50 metres from were we started; poor Graham had dragged all his luggage around.

The day was good; we were met by the Dean of Engineering from the University, who wants to make the university the home of the user group. His top student Ricardo Pérez was presented with a bursary from Oracle to enable him to complete all the OCP exams. The facilities were great and although the audience wasn’t the biggest they were very attentive.

We had lunch close by in a very traditional Chilean restaurant and a quick chance to see a local market before the afternoon sessions. Graham left to go home after his session and Hans, Kai and I went back to the hotel. We wandered around the fantastic shopping centre for a while but had a quick McDonalds before another early night.

I finally managed an early morning swim the next day before meeting with Kai and Hans at breakfast, time to say my last goodbye as they were leaving. I had one more day, Chile is were Francisco who organised the whole tour is from, and I wanted him to show me the city. Unfortunately for personal reasons he had had to pull out of the tour, but I found a tour to Valporise and Vina del Mar, which was a great day out. Valporise is a UNESCO heritage town, built literally into the hills all 41 or 42 of them (depends who you ask), and many escalators (funicular railways). We did a lot of walking, and came down to the harbour on an escalator I am sure has not had a safety inspection in years.

Then we went to Vina del Mar and had lunch by the ocean, and I had the chance to try a Chilean Pisco Sour. They believe they came up with it, just like the Peruvians do. Which was best? Not sure would need to do more research. All too soon it was time to go back to Santiago; another walk around the shopping centres which was full of outdoor restaurants and live music on a Saturday night. Then I had to pack for my long journey home the next day. 13 hours to Madrid, 5 hours wait till my flight to London and another 5 hours before my flight to Belfast; but a small price to pay for the most wonderful experience.

Well This is Embarrassing....

2011-07-22T21:18:00.001+01:00

Just a few minutes ago I posted about the disappearance of useableapps content, and then I looked at email to receive this:

After a migration effort, I'm happy to report that our external website on Applications User Experience at Oracle is now operational again!

Please feel free to visit: http://www.oracle.com/usableapps

Lots of useful information about what we are doing, by product line and much, much more!
Please feel free to pass it on to anyone you feel would benefit.

I could just of deleted my posting but I won't instead I leave it as a reminder about how the web is a powerful tool, a place to share concerns as I did, but more importantly a place to share knowledge, like the UX team do.

Global Warming at Oracle?

2011-07-22T21:12:00.000+01:00

There are worries that as the ice caps melt through global warming, we will loose a whole continent of natural history, putting many many animals in danger of extinction.

This is a disaster we can stop if we the world want to enough. Easier to fix is the threatened extinction of content at Oracle:

I have heard from friends that usableapps.oracle.com http://blogs.oracle.com/usableapps/entry/usableapps_web_site_down is down. I hope I have heard wrong because just as the interest in Fusion Apps is ramping up and people are seeing the real value of the UX program, the ability to look at the postings made during the development process is so important. In this blog I tried to explain why the questions about Fusion Apps are asked over and over again, and just like needing to answer a user’s question when it is right for them to ask, they need to have the information you have been posting.

My Product Development Committee are working on a user group guide to available information, and we certainly intend to include this blog as part of it. Simply moving the content would not be the same, it is about how the process developed in real time.

The UX Advocates training for the ACE Program is also very linked in here,and my colleagues Sten Vesterli and Ron Batra have also commented here.

My company Fujitsu are a member of the European Oracle Usability Advisory Board (OUAB) and the content for that is unavailable.

At the recent ODTUG I arranged for Madhuri Kolhatkar from UX team to present on design patterns used in Fusion Apps, it was one of the most successful presentations of the day. Design patterns are also missing.

Back to the Tour - Montevideo, Uruguay

2011-07-22T17:54:00.002+01:00

The journey to the airport seemed so long and we were late leaving as the driver had to pick up Pablo first, and so I nodded off in the taxi, but that could be more to do with falling asleep at 7pm after the football (or rather the drinking), and then waking up at 11pm and working for 3 hours before trying to go back to sleep.

At the airport our airline Pluna appeared to be a no frills Easyjet equivalent, if you wanted to get on the bus first there was a charge of $4. I have to say Brazil was the most expensive country so far. My daughter has a large collection of havaianas flipflops which are made in Brazil and yet they cost $16 a pair there, scandalous.

On board the aircraft I paid $8 for the worst sandwich in history, it was advertised as salami but honest it was the pits, with more stringy, spongy, wet gherkin than any meat.

However Montevideo was a real surprise, the airport is very modern and beautiful to see. A taxi driver was waiting to collect us and when they saw our luggage decided that we didn’t need the van that was booked we could fit in a taxi so gave us money to give back to our hosts. A very welcome surprise. The hotel too was very nice, a Tryp Hotel which we had also stayed in whilst in Brazil, but a much nicer hotel.

Our hosts (L-R) Pablo, Nelson, Edelweiss, Bruno and Daniel were fantastic, nothing was too much trouble for them, and they certainly went out of their way to make us feel so welcome.

The first night we went out to dinner to a very small restaurant where we had our own room, and for one stop only we were joined by Patanjali from the UX team. We have often spoken together and our content overlaps so we had to have a quick check we were not doing so in Montevideo.

The conference was in their telecom tower and if was a very impressive auditorium. One thing that has struck me throughout the tour is the length of the days, this one started at 8.30 and went through to 8.30pm, which is good as Uruguay were playing in the semi finals of the COPA cup that night. Cindy went out to buy football shirts and we ate that night in a Pizza House and the atmosphere was what we were hoping for in Sao Paulo and even better because Uruguay won. So Sunday I will wear my shirt again even in Chile for the final.

The event was very well organised and a good crowd attended, I had a number of EBS questions and there was an interest in accelerators which I only mentioned once; but being asked questions is the real value of presenting, when people get the information they need.

We ate a local dish of Chivito which is referred to in guide books as a Heart Attack on a Plate, and yes it looks like it. One of our hosts Bruno is a national Tango dancer and has to eat a lot, and he did. This picture is from a traditional BBQ the last day, and I think he ate more than the other 11 of us put together.

Montevideo sits on the coast, although not really as it is actually a river not an ocean that separates Uruguay from Argentina. But the coast line is stunning and this is a must, must go again place. The only down side is that it was winter and with the wind, freezing, I had to go buy warm clothes.

Our hosts also showed us around the city and invited us back to their home, it was wonderful, very relaxed and a really welcome change from another restaurant, although to be fair, at lunchtime we went to a traditional BBQ house which I loved.

Then this morning it was time to say goodbye to Cindy and Ronald who are leaving the tour but travelling home via Argentina. Graham, Kai and I flew out together and Hans joins later today. Chile is our last stop on this tour.

OTN Photo Album of Montevideo

Quick Update on Fusion Applications

2011-07-19T13:59:00.004+01:00

This article from Chris Maxcer, Techtarget suggests Fusion Apps are on General Release rather than Controlled Release which I commented on last month, and actually I don't care. Whoever buys a new product and doesn't have a conversation with the vendor to ensure they have the right skills does not deserve to have a successful project.

What I do want to comment on are the thoughts on the price list, yes it is very confusing and I have seen a few other reports on that. I urge Oracle, and I am very pro the product (just in case you were in doubt), to make the price list simpler. To me one the best features of the product is the User Experience, the ability to do everything from one place with a superior User Experience, yet the experience of reading, let alone understanding the price list is anything but. I have asked on behalf of all users to have this explained to us.

I present about how intuitive the product is and how you wont need to have long training sessions to use it, however we may spend that saved time, understanding the price list, and more importantly what features you loose if you chose not to take an optional element of technology. My great friend Floyd who is quoted in the article puts it very well - “I don't think we've heard the last of the story on Fusion Apps pricing."

Sao Paulo, Brazil

2011-07-18T22:09:00.005+01:00

Next stop Sao Paulo; Graham Wood and I arrived in the evening, arrivals and immigration were simple (being non American we did not need visas), and our driver was waiting for us. The journey into the city was at dusk, and I was actually a little disappointed, so far my impressions of South America have been how different it is and yet Sao Paulo is very much like any city in the US; having said that, it was very impressive.

The next day, Saturday was the conference and we were all very impressed with the event. It was the biggest by far so far and very well organised. There was a speaker room which is so important when you are there for the whole day.

Regular readers of this blog know I work for Fujitsu, and they have an office in Sao Paulo, so I was really please that my colleague Armando Yoshicatsu Miyoshi was able to attend the conference and meet with me. It is so much easier to be part of a global team if you have physically met people. It was really good to understand the economics of Brazil which are so different from US and Europe; it is a rapidly expanding economy with a lot of investment. This is important for Fujitsu as Sao Paulo has the biggest Japanese population after Tokyo.

I had starting having issues with my laptop which kept freezing, and by Saturday (the day of the conference) I was not confident I would be able to do my presentations, so my friends Hans and then Kuassi helped out by letting me use their laptops as they were immediately after my presentations. Thank you friends.

My presentations went well and almost half the room knew what 42 meant, I thought they might as my friend Bruno Souza who runs the Brazil Java Usergroup has a blog call Life, The Universe and Everything Java. I had hoped to meet up with Bruno, but he had to be out of the city this weekend.

After the event which lasted 12 hours (very impressed that delegates give up 12 hours of their time on a Saturday), we had dinner with the board. It was a great evening and I thank Eduardo and his board for their hospitality.

On Sunday the board had arranged a tour guide for Graham, Kuassi and I who were still in town, (the others had their tour Friday). We got a tour around town and some of the history explained, and a visit to the football museum which the boys really wanted to do. I was not so keen but actually really enjoyed it, they had a history section that showed photos and events of each world cup, put the football into context. There was also a kind of virtual pitch that we all had a go on. Cameras were not really allowed. We didn’t do very well at it and the only goal was an own one from me!

One thing I noticed was that every street corner had a phone box, and photographing anything without them in the shot was a challenge. What I did like though was that they have some great community initiatives such as cycle routes and lanes on Sundays where many people participate, and the main link road through the city is closed to traffic on Sundays and used by cyclists, skate boarders etc.

The entire time we have been in Latin America has been the COPA Americas competition, and Brazil was to play Paraguay that evening. Graham and I wanted to find a bar to watch, our hotel recommended one in the local mall, and we headed over having had lunch and saying goodbye to Kuassi and Arup who were leaving the tour from Brazil. We were actually surprised that for a sport loving nation such as Brazil the bars were empty. The actual match was not exciting; Brazil played better but just never scored. When it went to extra time we rushed back to the hotel and carried on in the bar. Always keen to try the local delicacies I had another Caipirinha. The game went to penalties and Brazil lost.

OTN Photo Album Sao Paulo

Lima, Peru

2011-07-18T04:39:00.003+01:00

Having eked another day out of our stay in Columbia our flight to Lima was late evening via Bogota again and arriving in Lima at about half past midnight. The normal queues for check in, exit visa, security etc was as in every place we have been, a lesson in patience. We had time in Bogota for some pizza and it was good not to have just airplane food, although I must say I am quite impressed with the airlines here, I think I was expecting 2^nd class and I would actually say they are more like the good old days before our carriers discovered low cost, low frills.

The taxi driver was waiting for us in Lima and had a very comfortable van for the 6 of us, Hans, Kuassi, Ronald, Cindy, Murali and I. It was a good 40 minutes to our hotel but it was not too bad, we arrived at 1.45am, Ronald and Cindy then went on to their different hotel where the conference was being held. However then we met with the worst check in experience so far. The girl behind the desk tried to check in all 4 of us together and it took over half an hour! At one stage I had to ask for a glass of water I was so tired and faint. Eventually I got in my bed a little after 02.30 and my presentation was at 9am.

When I woke up, I took in my room for the first time, it was a nice big room with a lovely Jacuzzi spa bath and lots of space, then I noticed an open door at the end of the room, as if it was a connecting door. I gingerly approached it as it was ajar, worried about what or more importantly who I would find on the other side. But what I discovered was a suite. Very nice.

We walked to the conference hotel which was about 15 minutes, past the Huaca Pucllana archaeological site, belonging to pre Inca Peruvians. The event was kicked off by Miguel Palacios from PEOUG and then Pablo who is working for OTN gave a quick presentation on OTN resources in Latin America, a very slick and clever demo, it is obvious he is in marketing. I was up next as the keynote in Lima and the audience were great with one exception. In a packed room a women in the front row, took 3 calls on her cell phone during my presentation and not only did she not care, no one else seemed to either.

I think this was the best organised event of the ones I have done so far and there was a great crowd. As I had gone so early I had a few free hours and Cindy and I went exploring. The area we were in was pretty high class with a lot of shops, The Rodeo Drive of Lima. After finally locating a post office for postcards we treated ourselves to manicures. Then we found a starbucks that had a valet parking!

Back at the conference in time for lunch, I was on afterwards. Throughout the conferences as I said in the previous post it has been difficult to get people to ask questions. I am also struggling in my 42 Real Life Examples as no one seems to have heard of Douglas Adams so I have a lot of scene setting to do at the start. Still they seemed to be interested and I got one question, about the white paper. I told the person to see me after to get a card from me so I could send her more information, and when I finished I had a queue so I think that is another lesson learnt.

That evening Miguel and Wendy took us to an International Buffett for dinner, you could have anything to eat. We were joined by Graham Wood, who is a long time friend and great to catch up with.

Apparently a delicacy in Peru is Crunchy Fried Guinea Pig or Cuy, which is served whole, no thank you. But I did try stir fried llama, and although a little gamey it was actually quite nice. It was a nice relaxed dinner were we all ate too much there was just too much to choose from.

Most people left early the next day, Ronald and Cindy were skipping Brazil to stay on and visit Machu Picchu, I am so jealous but just couldn’t afford the time. I had promised to do Brazil and Fujitsu have an office there and I wanted to meet my peers. Hans and Kuassi flew to Brazil. Graham and I had another day in Peru and wanted to look around. Murali was flying home later that evening so e joined us.

We started by visiting the archaeological dig which was great to see. These pyramids are solid and unlike the Egyptian ones which are for the dead, these are for death and used for human sacrifice. The structures look a bit like bricks but are upright in adobe style or like library books, this was to survive earthquakes. They also had on display llamas (I felt guilty then for having had one for dinner), guinea pigs (felt even better for having skipped these), and a Peruvian dog which is completely hairless, these are now an endangered species but apparently very good for people who have respiratory problems as no hair means no allergies.

After the dig we took a city tour. Cindy and Ronald had done it the day before (his sessions finished early enough and they really recommended it. We did a little tour in the bus and then went to the main square where we alighted the bus and started walking. Our guide (another Cindy) took us around a museum and told us about the Peruvian history and showed us lots of artefacts. I just love the drinking vessels, even the more erotic. We then went for a bit more of a walk to the Franciscan Monastery where we visited the catacombs. These were in essence the public cemetery and when unearthed the skeletons of over 25,000 people were found. Today the bones have been sorted by bone type and size and I kept thinking my OCD cleaner had had something to do with that.

The tour finished at 6pm and then we were to be dropped off at our hotel. Murali needed to catch a 10pm flight, seemed ok but we hadn’t planned on the Lima traffic, not sure if it was to do with the civil unrest in the centre (we saw lots of riot police arriving as we were leaving – I felt at home, Belfast style). Anyway we didn’t get to our hotel to 7, but with a manic taxi driver he got there just in time.

Graham and I went to a local restaurant for dinner and again I avoided the Picante Cuy (we even saw it being sold on the street during the tour). Apparently it is served with head and legs looking up at you. But I did have my first Pisco Sour, my is that strong.

We left about 9.30 the next day, and the opposite experience of our fellow travellers, we had a simple drive out to the airport and simply flew through all the officialdom, thank you Star Alliance Gold program. We even had time for another Pisco Sour in the lounge before boarding. The flight was 4 ½ hours and I had my penance to pay. The guy in front of me was Peruvian Champion of the world in fidgeting, and despite asking him many, many times to sit still he continued his in-flight trampoline routine the entire time!

OTN photo album of Lima

Cartagena, Columbia

2011-07-16T12:06:00.005+01:00

Stop 2 of 6 Cartagena. Fell in love with this city, I love sea so it had me simply by being on the coast, the weather was hot and humid with a thunderstorm each day, but also thanks to Ronald Bradford we had maximised the time there.

We left Quito hotel at 4am, flew to Bogotá and then onto Cartagena, both flights just a little over an hour with a very rushed connection, although I think flights to Bogotá are like buses they seem to run every hour.

Leaving Ecuador was a little stressful, lots of paperwork and no one spoke English, we had no idea what we were meant to do, but luckily I was travelling with Hans, Ronald and Cindy. Kuassi started with us but had a later flight from Bogotá.

At Cartagena airport we were met by Robin, who like Paola in Quito I had met a few times in Redwood and at OOW. Robin always smiles and just makes you feel good. In the taxi I felt like I was in the Caribbean, many roads with large storm drains and actually we were, Cartagena does sit in the Caribbean sea.

We arrived at our hotel about 11 and my hhonors got me a very nice room right next to the exec lounge, were we hung out a lot of the time, enjoying the food and drinks. We had gone early to get the most from the day, which included lazing by the pool, catching up with the day job and just enjoying our first rest.

That evening Robin collected us and took us to the walled city which was just phenomenal, absolutely beautiful and worth the visit all on its own. It had its own atmosphere and although dusk still warm but not oppressive. We walked around the wall all the way to see the castle, a very long walk but just wonderful. Back in the wall city square we ate outdoors, the square was so alive, hawkers and dancers and although they tried to pester you they soon left if you waved them away.

On Sunday Robin organized a boat trip for us. Our OTN liaison Pablo was going diving and I so wanted to go with him but I had a head cold so had to miss out, but a boat trip sounded great. All the speakers were on board and the boat was quite full, but we did all have life vests. There is an archipelago off Cartagena and the boat was taking us out to see them, but the boat went too fast and when ever another boat appeared there seemed to be a race been the pilots. I really got scared and Robin asked the guy to slow down but he was simply indifferent. However when we finally stopped looking at islands and stopped on a private one for lunch it was fantastic. First we had a swim and then Kuassi and I tried to canoe, except our kayak had a fatal flaw - it had a hole, so we had capsized before we had left the beach. After a great lunch we all retired upstairs to have a siesta in hammocks. Going back we had to go fast to try and beat a thunderstorm but we did get caught by the rain but it was quite refreshing although it did feel like rapid gunfire.

That evening Cindy shared with us the Lonely Planet guide to the boat trips from Cartagena “On the small boats, you are confined to your seat, but you get around quicker and can see more. Reviews are mixed but overall, travellers prefer the big boats for their quality of service. Readers report that pilots of small boats rush around too quickly and safety may be an issue – some small boats have sunk.” – a perfect description of our day!

The next day was the conference and ASOUC were very welcoming, again it was held in a university, Universidad Tecnológica de Bolivar ,perhaps this is something we should learn for other user groups. My first presentation was in the English track and the audience was quite small but they all seemed to enjoy it, in the afternoon the tracks were combined and I had a lot more people for 42 Real Life Examples and it was much better.

Robin had T shirts to give away to the audience and he had us all up on the stage, it was intended that the audience would ask questions to get one but I thin they are intimidated by the language and kept quiet, so Ronald solved the problem, rolled up his T shirt, turned away from the audience and threw it over his shoulder, everyone loved it and so we all did it. It was really good to finish on a high.

There were a lot of storms that day and the roads were flooded but it didn’t seem to deter or even slow down the taxi drivers. That evening we had a quiet dinner relaxing in the hotel and Robin joined us. We made friends again, I forgave him for the boat trip.

On the last day we had a really chill out, knowing that Peru was to be manic. We sat around enjoying the Hilton Executive Lounge breakfast for a long time and then lazed by the pool. This is the life.

OTN Photo Album of Columbia

First Stop Quito, Ecuador

2011-07-11T23:31:00.010+01:00

My journey was long but quite uneventful, London to Miami and then onto Quito. I fly a lot but this trip is a One World journey and I have no status with them, and did find myself queuing a lot which made me appreciate my Star Alliance Status rather a lot.

I have never been to South America before and was not sure what to expect. Many of my fellow tour stars were here last year so I think were better prepared.

Quito lies on the equator, and was neither hot nor cold, in fact a very nice temperature. The buildings surprised me, there were just so many. When looking up at the hills on all sides from my hotel there looked to be simply millions. And those hills, so so steep.

I got a hotel shuttle from the airport and the first thing I noticed was how people drove. I have heard the sayings ‘as long as the horn works you are ok’ and that was defiantly their mantra.

Kuassi, Paola and Christian

On the streets electricity supply just seemed to be wires on what appeared to be quite low poles, I guess there are not many high vehicles. In fact apart from taxis and what appeared to be excellent bus service there were few private vehicles. The streets were though very busy, with road sellers, yes in the road not on the sidewalk, sellers who sold everything. At one place I saw many vehicles turn up with furniture and a market suddenly start up in the road!!

Our hosts were Paola Pullas and Christian Pazmiño from ECUOUG and the event was held in the Universidad de las Américas where we were made to feel very welcome. This was the first time I had presented via simultaneous translation and you unconsciously slow down so I had to skip some of the content but I had questions so it seems to have gone down well. It was probably just as well as my sore throat came with me from the UK and I was quite worried I might not even have a voice, I was a bit croaky but it was fine.

Ronald Bradford showed me a picture he had taken at the equator and I so wanted to visit, although I know I had already physically crossed it travelling. We asked if I could go straight after the event, but the park where the sign is located shut at 6pm. then after a while I realised I would finish my 2nd presentation and have 3 hours before the meet the experts panel session, so Paulo and Christian arranged with Mr Gracia, a local taxi driver to take me out there, or so I thought. He charged $8 an hour which is fantastic, and he started by taking me to the city and showing me a few of the sites, the most impressive being the Quito Angel and the view of the city from San Francisco Park.

We kept seeing sign posts for ‘Mitad del Mundo’ so I was convinced we were going, he took a few side roads which I thought just meant a short cut and then 45 minutes early he dropped me back at the university. I was disappointed I didn’t see the monument although it is actually not on the official equator line, but I did see a lot of Quito which I wouldn’t have seen without Mr Garcia, and I was able to buy a T shirt in the airport the next day (or should I say night, we left our hotel at 4am).

Those hills I mentioned, in a taxi they are quite scary, but in my next posting I can tell you about something more scary!

My speaking companions on this leg are Ronald Bradford (with his wife Cindy), Kussai Mensah (Oracle), Hans Forbrich, Murali Vallath and Tom Kyte (with his daughter Megan). We also have Pablo Ciccarello from OTN Latin America travelling with us. After the conference we had a quiet night in the hotel. (because of the early start the next day).

Think I am going to like this tour :-) OTN Photo Album of Quito

OTN Latin America Tour

2011-07-11T22:18:00.001+01:00

What a fantastic opportunity, being allowed to travel through Latin America combining my joint passions of travel and education.

Yes I got that opportunity through the Oracle ACE Program and the OTN Tour of LAD. The tour just makes me feel like a rock star

5^th July San Jose, Costa Rica

8^th July Quito, Ecuador

11^th July Cartagena, Columbia

13^th July Lima, Peru

16^th July Sao Paulo, Brazil

19^th July Montevideo, Uruguay

22^nd July Santiago, Chile

My employer Fujitsu, who believes in the value of the trusted partner, supports me in this role and I am very excited that I will get to meet Fujitsu people in Brazil who are just starting their Apps practice.

Basically the local user groups, encouraged by Francesco Muñoz who runs the Chile (and NZ user groups and ACE Director of the Year 2010), arrange their events in a calendar that works for touring speakers.

OTN then approve a number of ACE Directors for travel funding to move through the conferences giving a good range of topics. Each speaker is expected to give two presentations. No one is doing all 7 venues but Hans Forbrich and I are managing 6 (I was unable to do Costa Rica but you can see the OTN Photo Album here).

The events are fairly technical and my two presentations are around the use of FMW. The first is the Fusion Apps UX story, how and what is sued in Fusion Apps that includes the demo, I so love giving, audience feedback is always so good about the look and feel. Then I give my 42 Real Life Examples of FMW with Apps to show how FMW is being used today.

FMW Symposium at Kscope

2011-07-11T21:55:00.001+01:00

Last year at KScope there was a FMW symposium but it was quiet, those who led it are FMW practitioners and know there is a need for this but the traditional audience are still using the existing tools and the move to FMW has been slower than predicted by both Oracle and Analysts, but the pace is picking up speed now.

The FMW Sunday Symposium was planned again for this year and was being put together by fellow ACE Directors Lonneke Dikmans, Lucas Jellema and Chris Muir, but about 4 months ago they approached me and asked if I could take over. I was happy to do so, as the day was intended to set the scene and not be overly technical as I defiantly am not!

Last year I wrote a paper for Oracle Open World 42 Real Life Examples of FMW with Apps and the main thing it told me was that most FMW projects are quite modest, mainly doing what was done before but with the new technology. I believe that Fusion Apps now being available will cause a shift to step up the speed of the transition; they will be a big window on that technology.

So the day started with Patanjali Venkatacharya from the Oracle UX team, showing the technology behind the applications, a great way of visualising what is happening. Duncan Mills from product development then quickly went through the stack, I was very unfair expecting him to be able to do that in just 40 minutes, but Duncan loves a challenge.

Then my fellow ACES who use this in their daily lives, paired up to present what the technology does and a case study of how they have used it.

Chris Muir and I

Chris Muir and John King talked about ADF, Sten Vesterli and Hajo Norman talked WebCenter, Lonneke Dikmans and Chris Judson talked about SOA then swapped roles to talk about BPM. The day finished with Madhuri Kolhatkar from the UX team sharing some of the design patterns used by the Fusion Apps development team.

I thought it was a great day, with a good number of delegates who stayed all day. I can't take any credit for the content or the rest of the FMW delivery through the conference but I am so pleased it got a great start. Then at the end of the conference FMW went out with Thursday Thunder, we are group of experts built an application live using FMW in just 3 hours that was just so excellent I have stolen it for UKOUG in December.

This is another example of the success of the OTN ACE program; we would never have all worked together without this. In EMEA some of us are in the SOA Partner Community but it doesn’t reach the breadth and include Oracle Apps in the way this does. Thanks to all the speakers and delegates who supported the FMW Track at Kscope, we will be shutting the crowds out next year.

Yet More Fusion Apps UX AdvocatesTraining and the ACE Program

2011-07-11T21:39:00.002+01:00

The Oracle ACE Program at Director Level provides a structure for learning both to the Director through ACE Director briefings and interactions with project managers but also for the wider Oracle Community for enabling these expert speakers to take part in a wider selection of conferences through funding.

In my area Fusion Apps, we have had a dedicated learning plan that started after Oracle Open World, with the first training delivered in January.

The next phase of this training happened in June in Long Beach just before Kscope. Another 4 ACE Directors were trained to demo Fusion Apps and 4 of us who had been through that training went on to look at Tailoring, the tools available to extend the application.

There is no point me posting again what happens in the first class, Lonneke Dikmans did an excellent post for this group. In the advanced group we had Sten Vesterli (his first posting here) who is using FMW tools and he had so many good questions. In fact Killian Evers from the UX team who gave this class started the day by saying she didn’t have enough content for the whole day, and we ended up having a follow up session remotely to finish it! So don’t think this is a one way street, the UX team thrive on user feedback and the ACE Directors give them a diverse and yet expert set of comments.

Jeremy Ashley

Mount Gay Rum

As Lonneke bloged the day finished with Jeremy Ashley head of UX hosting a dinner, and they served my absolute favourite drink, Mount Gay Rum.

And I can't wait for phase III that we are planning for immediatley before OOW.

As ever I need to thank the UX team led by Misha, and for Vikki and Justin in OTN for approving the program.

Paper Selection Day 2011

2011-07-11T02:02:00.001+01:00

Day three of the mammoth User Group Fest was Paper Selection Day for the main UKOUG conference.

First you will notice that we have dropped TEBS (Technical and E Business Suite) from the name. They are still very much part of this conference, but the conference is more than that and people who attend or speak from overseas are confused by the label. We have not dropped the conference series in anyway; those communities, who want their own conference, still do so, with its own marketing as part of the series. The December conference will have the whole Oracle Corporation marketing, next generation messages and the more generic business and strategy content. I think there is something in it for everyone, but very specific content for the PeopleSoft, JDE, Siebel and Hyperion Communities will stay in their own events. In fact Wednesday was also paper section day for JDE conference in November.

Look back at previous postings, the days are pretty much the same but everyone is trying to be fair to all those who have submitted, balance the number of well known great speakers with new local talent, ensure as many end users as possible get an opportunity, and leave spaces for areas that are under represented and we need to go source. Not an easy job!

Traditionally I have led the Business & Strategy plus Fusion Apps Streams along with Toby Price, and this year we were joined by Jeremy Duggan. The content being submitted just gets better every year. To cover as much as possible we have to be creative with some sessions, combing abstracts or looking at tings from another angle. One particle session I hope will work well is we had a paper on managing your Oracle estate using opensource and Oracle wanting to talk about their manageability suite. Two ends of a very large spectrum, and what we have come up with is a short presentation on each followed by a live debate. Should be really interesting, and so pleased both speakers are up for the ‘bake off’.

At the end of the day we hopefully have the first draft of this year’s agenda and it is great feeling. I hope when it is published you will agree we have the things you love about UKOUG and some new things to excite you even more.

Volunteers' Day - The Chance to Say Thank You

2011-07-10T12:17:00.002+01:00

Although the most important thing discussed on volunteers’ day was the need for change, it was certainly not the only thing. Jeremy Duggan and the office team put on a packed agenda for the day, which included presentations on the way we interact on a practical level with oracle both locally by our main liaison Margaret Wright and from Tom Scheirsen who looks after usergroups in EMEA.

Sue Yates showed us the new volunteer strategy which includes a charter of how volunteers and the office are expected to work, but with in a framework of resources to help and nuture volunteers, our most important UKOUG asset:

What we expect from our volunteers

· Strive for high standards of effectiveness, reliability and excellence in all aspects of your contribution

· Deliver your contribution in a timely manner

· Maintain and endorse the good name and reputation of UKOUG

· Advocate two-way communication with other volunteers, staff, members and non members fostering an informative, pleasant and friendly environment

· Co-operate, listen to and learn from members of staff, other volunteers and members

· Understand that there are protocols and policies that must be adhered to as our actions have implications for the wider community

· Understand that not delivering on a commitment has wider consequences for UKOUG

· Respect the need for discretion whenever you have access to sensitive UKOUG information

· Take reasonable care of your own health and safety and that of others whilst undertaking volunteer activities.

What our volunteers can expect from us

· Respect you as a volunteer, listen and learn from what you have to say, proactively encouraging two-way communication

· Recognise that successful volunteer involvement incorporates your motivations, aspirations and choices

· Endeavour to match the needs of UKOUG with your skills, knowledge, experience and motivation as a volunteer

· Celebrate success and recognise loyalty and dedication

· Ensure the health, safety and welfare of all UKOUG volunteers whilst undertaking volunteering activities

· Create and nurture a friendly and supportive environment – ensuring volunteering is an enjoyable experience for all involved

Graham Spicer who later confirmed as our commercial director presented our business plan for the rest of this year, explaining the measures we need to try and break even this year, and then there was the change presentation.

We use this day to collect ideas from the volunteers and what happened this time was directors sat at individual tables with different questions and the volunteers moved around the tables with their ideas. Paper tablecloths were provided so that all notes could be captured. Last year over 200 things were captured, some very small that simply became business as usual, and others like website changes that take a little longer.

Simon Haslam and Paul Bainbridge talked about how their SIG have been trying dual venues and broadcast sessions into each other. Later we had breakout sessions and I believe the tone set in the change presentation made SIG leaders understand the need for some change in their areas too and it was a very productive afternoon.

After the AGM and the relief of getting our changes passed it was time for the bit of volunteers’ day I like best; the chance to say thank you for all their hard work with a dinner and overnight stay. We had about 70 volunteers plus about another 20 oracle volunteers but one was very special, Sue Harper who has worked with the dev SIG for a very long time, is leaving not only the oracle corp. but also the community moving to a completely new area.

Thank you to all our volunteers especially those who were unable to attend and I didn’t have the opportunity to thank in person.

Stepping Down As Chairman, Long Live the President

2011-07-09T21:46:00.000+01:00

This week I had three user group days, the annual July jamboree; Board meeting, Volunteers day and paper selection for conference.

The board meeting was I hoped my last as chairman of UKOUG. Not because I didn't want to be, I do, and personally it was very hard to stand down because as a Chartered Director becoming Chairman of Board was a major achievement.

Back to the board meeting, we had already had a special board meeting a few weeks back to decide and approve on the wording of the resolution for change, so for the first time in long time, this board meeting could look forward and tidy up outstanding issues. We also spent a fair while ensuring our transition plan would hold up.

Basically, the existing board become the founding members of the Council, and represent the membership. David Rowntree will become Financials Executive Director, Graham Spicer Commercial director and Anne Power HR director; to concentrate on this they step down from the council. To put it simply we have seperated the membership from the business, with two sets of volunteers to concentrate on what they can do best, and a much smaller board sitting across the two groups as the legal entity.

We will co opt 7 volunteers to make up the council, (to replace these three, plus Ronan who has stood down and to make the number up to the 15). I am still leader of UKOUG but with the new title of President. Technically I could have stayed as chairman as well as becoming President but that would not have sent the message of change that we need to send to our membership. Lisa Dobson is now Vice President and we plus sue Yates will be the council appointed directors on the board, joined by the three executive directors. We have asked the managing consultant that we worked with to be our external chairman of the board until the next electron in March.

So with all the plans in place we needed the membership to vote at the AGM, as it is a company change it needed a 75% majority. The AGM was held at the end of our volunteers’ day on the Tuesday and we had a good show of votes and I was very relieved that we had a majority of over 94%

During the day we presented on the need for change, the proposal and the transition, there were questions and I welcomed them I wanted to ensure it didn't simply go through on a nod. I think people knew we needed change and that it was probably overdue.

So there you go, first woman Chairman, shortest lived chairman but also first president of UKOUG; and still serving the Oracle community.

Press Release

UKOUG Press Release

2011-07-05T18:56:00.002+01:00

London, 5th July 2011: UK Oracle User Group (UKOUG) is delighted to announce its members have today voted to accept changes how UKOUG is governed. The member vote, held today at the Annual General Meeting, Hilton Hotel, Reading, was the culmination of months of exploration undertaken by the UKOUG Board to secure the organisation‟s future success.

The growth in the number of Oracle user communities combined with reductions in both UKOUG‟s revenue streams and membership over recent years have had an impact on the organisation. This made it essential for the Board to re-evaluate the organisational and operational structure to ensure the future success of the group.
Over the past six months, the Board has worked with an independent Management Consultant, to undertake a full Governance Review of the Board and its processes and procedures. Having identified a number of issues with the way the organisation was operating, the Board extended this engagement to include recommending an organisational structure that would enable UKOUG to overcome the problems identified and make best use of the resources at its disposal. The resulting proposal (www.oug.org/ukoug_review.pdf), was consulted on with the Institute of Directors and was approved by the UKOUG Board of Directors in June 2011 and today it was put to the membership for acceptance.
The recommendation was to replace the existing elected Board of Directors with three “pillars” of Governance, Influence and Commercial. The management of UKOUG will be vested in a Board of Directors, the Council and an Executive. The membership will elect the Council, who in turn will confirm the composition of the Executive and the Board. The Board is the ultimate authority for all UKOUG matters. The Executive reflects the wishes of the membership through the Council.

For members the changes mean better representation of a diverse membership, concentrated focus on member needs and ultimately a more influential relationship with Oracle.

For the organisation the changes mean UKOUG has the right skills in the right roles, focused on the business and clear strategic direction, creating a more flexible, proactive organisation.

Debra Lilley, who stood down today as Chairman of UKOUG, will remain on the board and take up the position of President of the council, the leader of UKOUG.

Debra commented, “This is a very important milestone for UKOUG, where we will separate what we do from how we do it. I would like to thank the membership for their trust in the board and their vote. I look forward to continuing to lead UKOUG, ensuring that we give the best possible service to the Oracle community”.

Chicken or Pasta

2011-06-26T02:15:00.000+01:00

When you fly as much as I do, that is a very common question, but one that is very difficult to answer, without a bit of investigation.

A few days ago I flew from London to Los Angeles and at the prescribed time I heard 'chicken or pasta?'.

I was about 4 rows back so to start with I couldn't see the food but in my mind was thinking, is it chicken curry or perhaps chicken in some kind of sauce? I also imagined pasta twists and pesto.

Then in the row before me someone actually asked 'what kind of pasta?' 'cannelloni' the steward said, and then the passenger committed a heinous crime and asked if he could see it, before making up his mind!

Funny story, you all recognise it, but actually to me it sounds like the ' Fusion or R12? ' question. You cannot answer it without any information, you need to know the facts, see the products and ask questions of other discerning diners.

Your user group is a great place for that we try and get the facts for you and ensure you know what kind of pasta is on offer.

And if you don't like chicken and are not even interested in Fusion, then that's OK but check out the pasta still, you need to know everything before you start, the same process is true of ' upgrade or reimplement?'

Marketing

2011-06-26T02:08:00.001+01:00

BMI Inflight Magazine

I often finish a tweet with the tag '#Ilovemyjob' or say so in a blog, I am extremely proud of what I do in Fujitsu and the company itself. I may be old fashioned but I have been with the same employer for 23years.

Heathrow Airport Ireland Jetty

Fujitsu though didn't used to have much open marketing in the high street and even in parts of the IT world, and often I felt we were missing out. It has changed over the past few years and now I see it all around me, and I like it

Copenhagen Airport

These pictures are some of the ones I have spotted in my travels, which centre around airports, clever placement.

Helsinki security tray

I am very proud of a few things, UKOUG, my committee at the IOUC and my being an ACE director, whenever I see something from them I feel good, and that is how I feel about these adverts.

Cover Girl

2011-06-26T01:16:00.005+01:00

Who would have thought, I, Debra Lilley would be a cover girl? Just like the pride I talked about in my marketing post, I love the UKOUG magazine, OracleScene. I am really proud of the content and the contributors. But the biggest pride I get is seeing it on tables in the Oracle Customer VisitorCentres in the UK.

For the past few years I have had a column, Debra’s Diary where I have tried to tell members what a director of UKOUG gets up to, but now I have steped back from that in Favour of Twitter @ukoug_chairman or @debralilley and this blog.

I haven't stopped being part of it, as Chairman I still contribute and in the latest edition just out, my introduction interview is about plans for change. I love the picture it was taken at Easter when I took my PADI open water course, and the all OK signal seemed really appropriate for the article, and also fits in with the other pictures later on in the magazine of other volunteers doing sport ( do you recognize them all?) .

We have a new agency producing the magazine, based in Belfast (which is where I live) and they thought a nice way to introduce me as the new chairman would be to out me on the front cover. The picture was taken at the Victoria shopping centre in Belfast and I loved the experience, it was done about 9.30am on a Monday morning and the centre was quiet, the few people around stared thinking I must be famous, and for a few minutes I felt I was.

I am really happy with the result, and I hope it doesn't put you off reading the magazine. If you are a member of UKOUG you can find it online or if not pop into an Oracle UK site and pick one up.

So I may not be Britain’s next top model, but this is good, I get to show on record how happy I am to lead UKOUG

No Need To Wait Any Longer

2011-06-07T22:25:00.001+01:00

Finally, and with no fanfare, Oracle Fusion Applications are available.

My great friend Floyd Teter announced you could download them last week from Oracle E-Delivery and I responded that it was 'controlled availability' and now we have the inside track on what that actually means.

I have blogged here many times that yes, we didn't expect it to take so long, but that it didn't really matter as long as what is released is a working product. But once Larry announced a time frame for availability it became important that they got on with it. I personally am fed up listening to snipes about it in the media, both social and mainstream, and it all being about the availability. I want the debate to be about the content. (In the same way, I am equally fed up of cloud talks being 90% about 'what is the cloud?' I want to hear about what it can do for organisations).

We know the Early Adopter Program was launched in the fall of last year and there have been press releases about the first to sign up, and the first company to go live will be presenting soon on their experience.

The front page of Oracle.com has had as a headline Fusion HCM for a few weeks and if you click through there is some really good content.

I run the Product Development Committee of the International Oracle Usergroups Community, and we have worked with Oracle Development throughout the entire life cycle for Fusion Apps. I spoke to them on Friday and asked if they would clarify the situation on our regular call today, and they delivered.

The EAP program is basically full, they have a great number of customers ranging from live to just starting CRP, and they are confident that the product is ready for the market. Controlled Availability means the product can be sold but before the contract is signed development need to assess that the customer has the best chance of success. They want to make sure they have the skills, or a trained Systems Integrator that gives them the best opportunity for success. If a small IT shop comes along, never implemented EBS, no FMW skills and says, 'we want Fusion Apps and we want to do it ourselves', it is unlikely they will be approved. However if a large organisation with great inhouse skills and track record comes along, or with a partner already trained then they probably will be approved.

Controlled availability is not unique to Fusion Apps, it is a standard policy used in many products.

When asked how many customers have been turned down in either EAP or Controlled Availability, the response was that no one had actually been refused point blank, but after working together several organisations had reached the same conclusion as Oracle that it was not right for them at this time.

I think this is positive news, a bit like me wanting the latest fashion, it is good when I am told it won't suit me, rather than a sales person just desperate for a sale and me ending up looking stupid.

So the wait is over, well for availability. Lets hear from these Early Adopters at OOW and beyond, and start to hear about the functionality, the value to customers and the success of the applications.

And don't forget for most Fusion is not tomorrows project, they still have a long life in their existing application choice, and perhaps some co-existence. Fusion is not a replacement you must take today.

Thank You Oracle

2011-04-14T15:24:00.000+01:00

The Fusion Applications UX Advocates program is excellent. I moan that Fusion Apps have not yet been released but people want to see it and with permission we can demo via a viewlet 13 minutes of the look and feel of Fusion. More than enough to show why this user experience is so superior.

I gave the first demo in Denver at RMOUG, and did my 2nd demo in Dublin last week. I shared the stage with Liam Nolan of Applications Dev and I loved it. Ultan O'Broin from the UX team who is based locally wrote about it in their blog, and said such nice things about it.

The demo will be given 3 times at collaborate this week, by colleagues of mine from the program and then Wednesday I will be doing it at MOW in Denmark to the most technical audience ever. A few weeks later again in Germany as part of their apps day.

We are looking to expand the group amongst the ACE Program and this is yet another example of how the Oracle philosophy of empowering their most active and inspiring community members pays off. I have spoken go colleagues who are Microsoft MVP or the SAP equivalent and those schemes are not as powerful as the ACE Program. Well done Oracle for your thinking.

Top Gear For Geeks

2011-04-14T14:43:00.002+01:00

Three great database gurus from Oracle, Tom Kyte, Andrew Holdsworth and Graham Wood have been giving a tour in the US with IOUG under the title, 'A Day of Real World Performance'. A tour where they talk about all things database, and inspire everyone to get more out of their databases.

UKOUG are really pleased to bring them to the UK on 17th May , but I want to call it something else. I recently heard another great Oracle technologist, Andy Sutherland call them 'Top Gear For Geeks'.

This event has a small cost £95 & VAT, but so easy to justify, teachers of this calibre can charge 10 times this for a days content.

Hope to see you there.

Do I upgrade or Do I wait For Fusion?

2011-04-13T18:04:00.000+01:00

Do I upgrade or Do I wait For Fusion?

This is the most common question of the moment, and one I got asked before, during and after my sessions at Collaborate.

As a reader of my blog you know my answer, but at Collaborate I got more of an understanding as to the passion behind the question.

The answer is still 'it depends' and I think people get it has to be a business decision for them specifically and not a simple yes or no. Normally you talk to them about, if they were not an early adopter of R12 why would they be or even desire to be an early adopter of Fusion? And this is still true for the majority but some articulated a very good point.

If they don't upgrade to R12 because they want to wait and see Fusion first, they will have to pay the Extended Support premium from December. If you remember you used to get 5 years of support for any release and then you had to upgrade. Not uncommon or unreasonable in software, and everyone knew that when they bought the product. Like looking at a menu and seeing the prices.

Oracle announced lifetime support back in 2006' and offered you an additional 3 years Extended Support for a premium. For an additional 10% . First point that is 10% of your support fee, not 10% of licence fee as some believe. However 2 years ago at Collaborate Oracle announced they would waive that uplift for the first year. We are well into that year now, with the 2nd year starting in December. For some people that is a substantial amount of money to pay, but upgrading isn't cheap either.

My first thoughts are, when they entered the restaurant they were given the menu with the prices on it, they shouldn't be surprised that they are being asked to pay that amount. I am not commenting on what support costs, just that it isn't or shouldn't be a surprise.

But what was being articulated by some here, was that when Charles Phillips announced Lifetime support, he said that Fusion would be available before the end of Premium support and people could decide to upgrade or go straight to Fusion.

In other words, he said, here is your menu, but before dessert I will give you new options. The waiter is now pressuring then into accepting the original menu and the new menu won't be available until after coffee.

So is that fair? Should Oracle have released Fusion as promised? I am sure Charles had the Safe Harbour slide up when he said this, and again you know my thoughts on the date, frustrated it hasn't happened but want it to be the right time.

But if, some customers, have pushed their life on 11.5.10 to the limit, waiting to assess the options side by side, they are now between a rock and a hard place. It is too late now to upgrade before the additional cost comes in December, and if they do upgrade and then find Fusion was right for them, it is a second upgrade, and they aren't free.

I am not pushing people to move to Fusion, I really do believe most should upgrade to R12, but I do always say you need to know all the information to make the right decision for your organisation.

Oracle risk customers going elsewhere for support, and I don't think that is the right answer either. Perhaps Oracle, you should waive year two of the extended support fee. Not because people haven't upgraded, but because you have not given them the product in time for them to make the choices you gave them.

Back to my analogy, send the waiter away until the promised new dessert menu is printed.

I have talked about EBS throughout this but it is similar for other products.

A Very Special Event

2011-04-11T03:22:00.001+01:00

You could be forgiven for thinking Oracle only has Fusion Apps if you read my blog; but of course they don't. Fusion is my area, and there is a lot to educate the members about, but there are other 'hot areas' and we do a lot to help bring that knowledge to our community as well.

Lisa Dobson is leading the Exadata event on 18 April, a number of people had been looking to make this happen and I suggested this date as I knew some excellent speakers were in Europe for MOW. They jumped at the chance to be part of it and then Tanel Poder who has publicly said he is cutting back on public appearances contacted Lisa begging to be part of it. Tanel is publishing two of the first books on exadata and is an excellent speaker.

Alex Gorbachev and his company Pthyian are one of the most active partners with exadata, they support many of the early adopters of this and have a great case study to give. At the time of posting, Alex has a visa delay ,and may have to have a colleague ore sent on his behalf but he will be there in spirit.

Dan Norris is an actual X Man, one of a team of experts inside Oracle who help customers make exadata the success it is. Dan joined Oracle especially for this, but before was a very active user group volunteer and ACE Director. He ran the hugely successful RAC SIG in the US.

Having these speakers come to the UK for our members is a great coup. We also have David Henderson and Stewart Bryson, two local experts on the agenda.

Come along and see what it is all about. Find out more about the event.

The Value of User Groups - A Modern Parable

2011-04-09T16:56:00.002+01:00

User groups have to constantly define their value to their membership and one factor that is always near the top, is the being part of a big voice.

Let me tell you about something that happened to me recently that describes this perfectly.

As you all know I am great friends with Mogens Nørgaard, who lives in Denmark. I quite often text him and this has been my preferred communication method for many years. We often speak at the same conferences now as ACE Directors and text is the most cost efficient way to communicate. Last year, his company Miracle changed their telecoms provider. Not long afterwards I had an argument with him, as he was ignoring a lot of my texts. He denied it, and it was almost true he did respond to some but a lot were ignored. He however was definite he hadn't ignored me.

A few weeks later he had reason to text another friend in UK several times and then was annoyed he wasn't being answered. His friend (James Morle, fellow founder member of the OakTable) had responded to each text but Mogens had not received them. He then said 'you know, Debra has been saying this for weeks'!!

I investigated and discovered that James was on 02, as was my personal iPhone. My work mobile was another provider and that worked, hence I wasn't being ignored all the time. I rang 02 and eventually they accepted there was a problem but said it was about contracts between the two providers and they couldn't do anything about it. Eventually they did agree to refund the cost of the texts sent but that was all.

Six months later, my company Fujitsu switched to 02, I emailed them before the change over and asked if I would have this issue and they promptly responded , there would be no problem. However, guess what? It didn't work. So I contacted their corporate account help desk, and after about 2 weeks they had it sorted, they got the contracts in place between the two providers. Not only do I have the ability to text Mogens, but so can James on his personal 02 account, and any other 02 friend Mogens may have.

The moral of this story, the corporate account, the big guy was listened to. And belonging to a user group makes you part of the big guy, when we talk to Oracle. Not only do they listen, but the results arethen for the benefit of all.

My First Public Outing - Well Almost

2011-04-09T16:46:00.003+01:00

Now I am Chairman of UKOUG, it all seems much more personal. Not that I ever took the role of deputy lightly, but this is a big responsibility.

My first outing or duty as Chairman was to speak at the Oracle Customer Awards and it felt great, but the first outing with the members was the OUG Ireland Conference. Very apt, because if you don't know I live in Ireland, in the North, above Belfast. We have a strategy in UKOUG to try and cater for regions that are physically far from the South where most events happen. We have worked hard to do this with our Irish and Scottish Conferences and put SIGs into other locations were practical. It doesn't always work, Ireland has had lost its way a bit the last few years.

Jonathan Lewis and Mogens Norgaard

As a User Group, we have to be in tune with our members, and we do that through many surveys but mainly through our volunteers, the community committees who tell us what they want. Ireland have some good communities but not as vibrant or as many as we needed, so this year we started planning earlier and worked with a committee made up from the communities and Ireland. Everyone wanted it to be successful and we planned an agenda grid with what we thought would be of interest to the audience, then we set about finding the right speakers, a mixture of local talent, Global Experts (via the ACE Program) and solid Oracle.

We opted to go to the Aviva Stadium, the old Landsdown Road. That was a great choice, and the number of delegates was really up over last year. We need more exhibitors to make it work better financially, but I am sure next year will be easier now we have had such a successful event.

As ever we have things to learn, when Aimee the project manager from UKOUG and I went to visit the stadium many months ago, we used a different entrance than on the day, we have learnt more about the importance of signage, and one break out area was via another which was bad, we need to work with the Aviva on that, but these teething issues are common for new venues.

Paul O'Riordan, head of Oracle in Ireland, gave a great keynote and made it very relevant, a good trick that as normally it is just a standard corporate presentation. He talked about one of the recent acquisition ATG and how there big development centre is in Belfast.

People loved the event, For Apps we had Oracle Strategy, Fusion Apps, Upgrade Presentations, Oracle's fantastic Nadia Bendjedou answering all the questions, Jonathan Lewis had an extended session on the database and upgrades and for BI we had a fantastic stream with people like Mark Rittman and Anthony Heljula. Local customers like Irish Life and Ingersol Rand spoke. Mark Simpson was one of the Middleware speakers, and we had local stars, like Hillary Farrell for APEX, Barry McGillan for SQL Devleoper, and we had Grant Ronald and Doug Burns over (both Celtic even if from Scotland).

We ran out of speaking slots but had our popular round tables for people to ask questions, Paul Logan from Pthyian Belfast was part of the exadata table, we also had Oracle Licencing, Support, IBM and Ultan O'Broin (another local) from User Experience.

And then by special request we had 'The mad Danish guy who talks about the database' - well we got Mogens Nørgaard but apparently he talked about Chickens!

Everyone had a great day, but we need volunteers from those of you who went to build our Irish Communities and make us successful, not only next year but all year round.

Enabling the ACEs

2011-04-09T15:19:00.000+01:00

The Fusion UX Advocates program is excellent. I moan that Fusion Apps have not yet been released but people want to see it and with permission those in the ACE Program who have been trainned can demo via a viewlet, 13 minutes of the look and feel of Fusion. More than enough to show why this user experience is so superior.

I gave the first demo in Denver at RMOUG, and did my 2nd demo in Dublin last week. I shared the stage with Liam Nolan of Apps Dev and I loved it. Ultan o'Broin from the UX team who is based locally wrote about it in their blog, and said such nice things about the demo.

The demo will be given 3 times at collaborate this week, by colleagues of mine from the program and then Wednesday I will be doing it at Miracle Open World in Denmark to the most technical audience ever. A few weeks later again in Germany as part of their apps day.

We are looking to expand the group amongst the ACE Program and this is yet another example of how the Oracle philosophy of empowering their most active and inspiring community members pays off. I have spoken to friends who are Microsoft MVP and looked at the SAP Mentors program and those schemes are not as powerful as the ACE Program. Well done Oracle for your wider thinking.

So close and yet so far!

2011-04-09T14:56:00.001+01:00

In case you haven't realized I am a great fan of Oracle Fusion Applications. I did think they would be out by now, but no still no date. I read tweets and blogs from people I admire who are criticizing Oracle over this and part of me is annoyed. I didn't really mind when it came out, as long as it is proven and works.

The delays in development have been handled well, and the one thing Larry did brilliantly at OOW was to articulate the fact that when they knew what they wanted Fusion Apps to do, the technology wouldn't support it, so they had to develop Fusion Middleware first. But what is the delay now?

Larry said at OOW first quarter of this calendar year. That has gone. Please just release it or tell us when? I want people to be looking at it, and enjoying seeing what Fusion Middleware can actually do rather than moaning about some arbitrary date in a calendar, but the only people who can stop that is you Oracle.

The apps roadshow in Europe reached London last week and I was honoured to be on the panel for Q&A. Andrew Sutherland did a great presentation on the Middleware benefits, BT talked about what it had meant for them and like at OOW last year, having people talk about application choices from one stage, takes a lot of the either / or issues out of the equation, and they really pitched the co-existence message across.

I love being able go help people understand these options and thank Oracle for giving me that knowledge. This is what user groups are about, helping you to understand.

Chairman, not Chairwoman

2011-04-09T14:05:00.002+01:00

Chairman, not Chairwoman, or even Chair, I am Chairman of UKOUG and very, very proud. I have even created a policy stating I am chairman.

Not Chairwoman, I am the first lady chairman of UKOUG as this press article tells, but that doesn't worry me, or even make me proud. I am not someone who believes being a woman has held me back and I am virulently against positive discrimination.

Definitely not Chair, my great friend and new Deputy Chairman Lisa Dobson, called me the new chair on Twitter and was spammed by IKEA for days.

So I don't want or even approve of special rights for women. In Parts of Scandinavia there is a required number of women required on a board, and that is simply wrong, you need to be there because of the value you bring an organization, not because of your gender. And for the record UKOUG has 4 out of 12 women on our board, all there through merit.

Is there an issue for women in IT, I don't normally think about it, but on Woman's Day I was in an Oracle Office and was given a rose, by their OWL program (Oracle Women Leadership), but is such a group necessary? And I have just been invited to join the WITS NI (Women in Technology and Science), need to know more about it before I join.

I am at a conference this week that has a Woman in IT event, and I will go and probably enjoy it. If the speaker talks about juggling everything to get to the top, then fine, if it is about the adversity, I find that is more discouraging to woman. What I do think there is a need for is to encourage girls to study IT, and to join the industry. I would love to talk to girls at school about my career. I think there is no barrier for women in IT, once they actually take part.

When people ask me what is is like being in the minority in IT, I point out it is great, no queues for the restrooms at any conference. But is it a problem? In Oracle itself woman hold a lot of top jobs, Safra Catz, Judy Sim, Mary Ann Davidson to name but a few. So no barrier there.

In my employer, Fujitsu, I have never had a problem and in fact, I joined my local authority (Gloucester County Council) prior to transfer via outsourcing, and they had a recruitment drive for woman returnees in 1989 when the industry had a severe skills shortage. The program 'woman hold up half the sky' was to encourage woman who had left IT to have families to come back. They offered very flexible packages which were certainly not the normal then. I didn't want part-time, term-time, whatever, just the recognition I was a working mum. I never took advantage, or had time off except when my daughter had salmonella and I was allowed to work evenings for 6 weeks ( no remote access and home working then), but I hope they would have been just as flexible to a man if they had the need.

What I do hate though is people who tell me IT is male dominated, as if we are simply tolerated. I went to two Oracle award events recently where they appeared to have a two for one offer on the comedian. He told the same jokes both nights. He had worked out that everybody had a 1 in 4 chance of winning an award but only a 1 in 10 chance of 'picking up a girl'.

So no moans from me about being a woman, and as for the men in IT, I have worked with some of the best and very proud to have done so.

A Tough Act To Follow

2011-04-09T13:53:00.002+01:00

I like a challenge, and this is a big one, stepping into the shoes of Ronan Miles as Chairman of UKOUG.

Ronan receives his Oracle UK and Ireland Award

Ronan has been Chairman for 11 years and on the board for 13, but he wants this change to be about the future and not looking back at the past, so I have promised not to talk about what he has achieved, except read this.

I am proud because the members vote me on to the board, and there my peers have elected me their Chairman. I hope I can do that faith justice. I am proud because I work for an organisation who see the value in being active in the community in which they operate, and allow me to do what I do.

I have been active in the User Group Scene for 9 years and Deputy to Ronan for 7, very active in the International Oracle User-group Community, and know most of their Presidents, so for me it is an easier transition. My new deputy, Lisa Dobson has a much bigger learning curve, but she will do brilliantly. Lisa is known for her passion initially for newbies, and I know as the newbie herself now she will reach out to the network of support we both have, our fellow board members, our staff and our volunteers.

I am amazed and humbled by all the messages of support I have received from everybody. Thank you, each and every one of you, who took the time to say congratulations, and I hope I can live up to the honour.

The Most Frequent Question About Fusion Apps

2011-02-20T00:41:00.000Z

I know I am privileged, I have had unrivalled access to Oracle during the entire Fusion Apps development, and when I have a question I have always been given the answer. I wrote recently about why I thought people weren’t all listening to the Oracle apps message, but now I am even more worried.

I am not sure of all the support timings but most of the Apps Unlimited products have their -1 version either in or about what to go into extended support, and a very frequent question is ‘Do I upgrade or do I wait for Fusion apps?’

This is such an open question, and unfortunately the answer is very dependant on your organization, there is no simple yes or no. Again I have said it before but this is where partners and user groups will add value to the debate, by helping people to understand.

I know Oracle have a campaign this year that will again explain their Applications Strategy, both for existing products and for Fusion, and how it isn’t just the either / or question. In the US there was the Oracle Applications Customer Value Summit on 3^rd February which had a lot of answers to individual product roadmaps, co-existence and Fusion apps themselves. I know this content will be presented or made available in other regions over the next few months. This approach of telling the stories together is very important.

But I want to share with you, and Oracle part of an email trail I had last week, which shows just how frustrated some customers are. I have edited a little bit just to make it remain anonymous.

I've read a few articles about Fusion Apps written by you on the web.

Wasn't sure about how Fusion Financials differ from R12.1 Financials - do you have an 'insiders' guide? Or are they effectively the same? Can you point me to some papers/presentations? There's a lot of conFUSION about FUSION!

Fusion Apps are a completely different project, however they are not launched yet a few more months to go so little information out there. I attach a white paper I wrote a while ago that might help.

Where you based and what is your current use of Oracle Apps? I can then point you to the right user group who can help

Many thanks for your prompt reply - I am based in the UK and we are on 11.5.10.2 Financials.

Reason I sent email to you is because you have been working with Oracle and know what's in Fusion. I know what's in FMW but am not sure if R12 Financials is the same as Fusion Financials - I expect they are but nobody says yes or no! Makes me wonder if it's Oracle Marketing's gimmick i.e. apps are the same but with FMW embedded in the techStack.

Someone I know in Oracle told me earlier today that even they do not know - demo's are only to invited oracle staff which I find strange!

Your comments will be appreciated.

Because the product is not yet generally available (GA) and Oracle have very strict revenue recognition rules, they cannot make too much information available yet.

In a nut shell, R12 is the original EBS product, enhanced and is starting to use newer technology. Fusion incl Fusion Financials is a completely different product built entirely in FMW.

Fusion apps are awesome but it is not a simple upgrade, there are lots of technology changes as well. Over the next year or so Oracle will roll out the product giving more information and then you will learn more.

UKOUG (.org) is the UK user group and we had lots of demos of Fusion Apps in our Birmingham conference in December.

This is hot off the press, but the main UK event will be 31st March so look out for details.

Is your organisation a member of UKOUG?

Many thanks Debra - no we are not members. Looks like Oracle have once again announced a product years before it's ready. Even people working for Oracle don't know what's in it, not sure how customers who have a decision to make on whether to upgrade to R12 or wait for a product which may be released later this year and which initially won't ( I suspect ) be very stable.

You are talking to the wrong people in Oracle. The product is ready but not GA for a few months while they work with early adopters to ensure there are no bugs.

If you are not on R12 already then it is very unlikely your organization has the appetite to be an early adopter and so there is no real choice for you, the answer is to go R12. Fusion is a completely new architecture and way of working, it is not a straight forward either or choice.

People in Oracle should not be telling you they know nothing about it, they should be referring you to someone who does.

Oracle consulting are part of the ramp up program so your contact should be able to find you someone. I represent UKOUG and to ensure I have the right answer we have invested time in being part of the process. My employer sees this as a benefit so that we have the right information too, and therefore gives me the time.

Oracle did not rewrite all the products. They announced back in 2005 that they would write a new generation of apps based on new technology which is what Fusion Applications are. It is not a replacement. They did originally intend that but feedback from users and groups like UKOUG was that this was not what customers wanted, so they announced in 2006 Applications Unlimited where they would continue to develop each of the product lines. In fact after Fusion Apps v1 is released there will be R12.3 so this stands by what they said.

Fusion is ready and the amount of testing has been unprecedented, but IT is complex and there are as many deployment options as there are customers. There is also the opportunity to co-exist, e.g run Fusion Talent Management alongside R12 EBS, so Oracle are working with early adopters to have as many as possible case studies.

I find it a bit unbelievable that Oracle would re-write the whole of R12 Financials/PeopleSoft/Siebel etc for Fusion. I would expect certain changes like BPEL for Workflow, etc but not a complete rewrite of R12 so soon after R12 was released but I guess you know more because you have the inside story.

Ok that clears things up a little bit but I'll wait and see.

I can honestly say that I have spoken to many people who work with Oracle (Oracle and non-Oracle people) and no-one understands what Fusion is about - this is fact which just shows that all Oracle have managed to do is cause confusion!

Many thanks for your time in replying to my emails - you are obviously very dedicated to the Fusion cause.

This is a typical conversation and I think that if you feel the same you need to start engaging, and start by being active with your user group and be part of the debate.

I did it - I did the Fusion UX Demo

2011-02-17T06:29:00.001Z

Yesterday I talked about doing the first Fusion UX advocates demo, today at RMOUG in Denver.

My presentation was talking about Fusion Applications being a window on the technology. I have talked many, many times about the Oracle Apps Strategy, understanding what the technology is behind it, and what people should be thinking about. Last year I submitted a paper for OOW entitled 42 Real Life Examples of Fusion Middleware with Apps (which you can download here). I asked my ACE Director colleagues for their examples, and was not entirely surprised but found that most organizations are using FMW to do old things with new technology. This is not bad, and in every case there was a win for the organization, but it made me start to think that Fusion Applications may actually be this Window on the Technology.

So I was taking parts of each of these presentations, and by being able to add the Fusion UX Advocates demo, and some of what Patanjali taught me about how FMW Built the UX, I hoped I would give people their first glance through my window of thought.

Putting together my presentation was fine, I had most of the content from previous demos, there were some Oracle slides that Steve Miranda and the UX team allowed me to share, so I also needed permission to share my pdf, but I have that so hopefully they will be available in the next few days.

The hardest part was the demo, as Fusion Applications are pre GA, I had a viewlet, around 13 minutes. Yesterday I repeatedly went through the script, noting the times the cursor would get to each part. I had the script printed out and thought I would be nervous enough without having to leaf through all this paper, and then I had a brainwave. Let my PC run the demo, and have the script as a pdf on my iPad. So much easier to handle.

I was all ready and went to bed at 10.30 but awoke about 2:30am and couldn't sleep. As it was now morning in Europe I tried talking to a friend but it only helped for a while. Then I tried working on something else, but no joy. So I practiced again, and again.

When the time came for the presentation I didn't feel as nervous as I expected, but I did have that good worry. It started badly, I got to slide two and realised I had loaded an old version. Note to self, always delete or rename old versions. But it was only the intro, so I apologised, carried on as I loaded the correct one. Then using my iPhone as a timer, I went through the first 40 minutes of my 90 minute presentation. I was 4 minutes ahead when I started the demo, but that I think went really well. The practise paid off, and the IPad worked a treat; I felt so good. I had worried about the screen resolution, but on the big screen the demo looked fine, and people were really interested.

It wasn't a massive crowd, RMOUG is traditionally more a database community but it was a good turnout and I was very pleased with it. Obviously I await the official feedback, but people I spoke to said it conveyed exactly what the title said.

Thank you oracle UX for making this possible, Fujitsu for letting me be here, The ACE Program for supporting me and UKOUG, it may not have been in the UK, but a UKOUG Director gave that first Fusion UX demo outside of Oracle; our strategy of being involved from the front, paid off.