The Day Job..

If you are reading this blog you are probably interested in Oracle or UKOUG. But contrary to popular belief I have a day job and I thought I would tell you a little bit about that.

I work for Fujitsu Services, and have done since my daughter was 6 months old – she is now finishing her first year at university! I was based in Gloucester my home town but when Fujitsu started their Oracle Practice I moved to Belfast to join that in 1996. I still get lost in the City but now call it home.

I used to attend UKOUG meetings but was disappointed in Fujitsu’s involvement and would moan about it to colleagues, one year when UKOUG were looking for board nominations, one of my colleagues told me to put my name forward and ‘put my money were my mouth is’, the rest as they say is history.

So in December 2001 I found myself a UKOUG director. Fujitsu has a professional body membership policy and have always been supportive. They give me time to attend board meetings and the annual UKOUG, Collaborate and Oracle Open World conferences. One of the benefits of having been there for so long is I have 33 days holiday a year so I can top up my envolvement.

So back to Fujitsu, we have a very large Oracle Practice, 400 in UK on of the largest Applications SI and there are 1000s in our global family. I lead the EMEA Business Intelligence Capability, a challenge in itself with the recently expanded Oracle offerings, but we are up for it.

BI used to be my full time job, but then Oracle introduced Fusion. From the start this has been fascinating for me and the evolving strategy changes everything we do with Oracle. I believe Fusion = Choice and for partners that means understanding Fusion both for ourselves and for our customers. Each Certified Advantage SI Partner was encouraged to appoint a Fusion Champion and I was an obvious choice within Fujitsu. This role is all about education, being educated and then educating Fujitsu and customers. SO now I would say my job is about 50/50 BI & Fusion, problem is both take 100% of my time.

I don’t want this blog entry to be an advertisement for Fujitsu - I hope and believe I am respected in the user group community for my integrity but I do want to publicly thank them for their support and flexibility, and to prove that I do have a day job.