As I said in my last post I was late getting to Vegas which is a pity as there were user group meetings I would like to have attended on behalf of UKOUG. It is always a good event to catch up with other user group leaders and collaboration between user groups goes way beyond just this event.
Apart for the Fusion Q&A that I took part in remotely via skype, I had two sessions on 'Thinking of upgrading or supporting Fusion Apps', on in the Quest Education Sessions and one in OAUG. Why, not because the tracks are closed to delegates outside the track, but because people do want to be amongst like minded people when they attend sessions. It can be very off putting to hear about the journey to Fusion for you as a JDE customer when the presenter is talking only about E Business Suite.
The OAUG session should have been Monday morning but I had postponed this to Thursday. The last day (as Thursday was) is always a difficult day for a session but I had 11am which is not a bad slot. I don't worry about when I have a slot, if you are a new presenter you can't expect to get a top slot, and if you are experienced and known then the slot has less of an issue. However the session was very badly attended because there was simply very poor advertising or communication or re-arranged sessions.
I did tweet, but not sure how many people were actually using twitter, a lot of presenters were but not sure how delegates. The organisers had an online agenda and an email went out each night referring to it for amendments. There were no printed changes or notice boards on site and whilst that works for a lot of people, it didn't for a lot, lot more. Never mind, the small audience enjoyed it and I had good questions.
The reason I was not disappointed was because the same session the day before had over 110 attendees. It was awesome.
I have been giving this presentation and derivatives for about 18 months and each time there is a little bit more information so getting it to fit in is always a challenge. I know I have too many slides, I don't use all of them but hopefully the attendees get more from the extra slides. I suppose it is a lazy way of not always having a white paper to go with them.
Back to the presentation, I always start by going back to basics, how did we get to the Applications' strategy that Oracle have today? If you aren't aware of all the stages of the evolution it could look as if they don't have a plan and that would undermine the confidence we need to have in our software vendor.
It is good that I can now actually show a few screenshots of Fusion Apps to whet appetites but the presentation is about understanding what is behind the apps rather than the apps themselves. I give my analogy for SOA which I am still astonished at how well it comes across but I continue to et great feedback so will continue to use it.
Having talked about the Fusion Vision I go back to Fusion Applications and how and when I think we will get there. As ever the number one question is 'Should I upgrade or should I wait for Fusion?'
At this session there was another question 'Why aren't Oracle telling us this?' The delegate said the presentation was great but that it should come from Oracle. I had not had the question direct before and was actually very proud of the reasons for my answer.
Oracle have a very strict interpretation of their Revenue Recognition rules, and whilst we might not agree with them, they are very consistent and they won't talk about a product coming up for release. I on the other hand do not work for Oracle and as long as you know it is my interpretation but based on unprecedented access to the teams and supported by the Oracle ACE Program I am able along with a few others such as Floyd Teter to give these presentations.
I have another presentation I am starting to give, where will we be in 5 - 10 years? Even though I love the Fusion Applications and can't wait to see them released, I know based on past trends, economic constraints and business needs it will be a long, long time until Fusion Applications take over. That is not a bad thing, Oracle have given us the ability to grow into Fusion Applications. I think I will come back to this topic in a later post.
But Collaborate is more than just giving presentations, I was able to meet up with other speakers, hear what they are talking about and learn from them. Here you can see me at dinner with Elke Phelps (co author of Oracle Applications DBA Field Guide) and Steven Chan of Oracle.
1 comment:
Debra is excellent again!
You've captured many of the reasons the users' groups have fundamental underlying value, not the least of which is the people involved, from both the groups and the vendor.
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