I love to teach, I love to share knowledge but if I am
not learning myself, I don't grow. When a presentation is good and you engage
with the audience you learn from them, how they achieved the same result, or
issues they encountered, or sometimes someone gives you a clue, a different
outlook or even the answer to a problem. Some of the best presentations I have
seen have been when someone has shared openly a problem.
But, I want to learn more, I no longer actually deliver
projects but advise peers and customers at all stages, so I need a much wider
understanding of all things Oracle. I am honoured to present a lot so whenever
possible try and attend sessions in areas that interest me, e.g. the Exa Debate at Collab.
Recently I have had a few more opportunities to stretch
me. Fujitsu have some excellent thought leaders and when Oracle put on their
Big Data Symposium I wanted to showcase one of them at it. In my role as
Alliance Director I worked with Oracle on the event and to do that had to
understand what we were saying. Shouldn't have been too difficult, Mark Wilson our expert had written an excellent White paper but it was 23 pages long, still
I know a lot more now. At the Manchester event we also sponsored a drinks
reception and had some good conversations, although I think Big Data is where
Cloud was a few years ago, too many presentations are about what it is rather
than solutions.
A few years back I was tricked into talking about the
database under Fusion Apps at Miracle Open World to some of the best DBAs there
are. Once I got over the panic I really enjoyed having to research and learn.
This year Mark Rittman asked me if I would give a end of day keynote at the RittmanMead BISymposium on how the BI is used in Fusion Apps, I knew a little bit more here
but did still need to understand more and again enjoyed the challenge. On the
day the audience participation was fantastic, not only did I get to discus
Fusion Apps BI with BI experts but I was also able to show them why what they
are doing for their customers is Oracle's future and therefore strategic and
safe.
Then just a few weeks ago I talked with Donal Forde from
Oracle Ireland at the Belfast British Computer Society. I talked about how
Oracle had introduced the next generation of Apps and how they did it, and
Donal talked about ADF as the development platform. Not a new talk for either
of us but this was a very technical audience that were not necessarily Oracle
users, so it was a different approach.
Each year for OOW I submit at least one presentation on a
topic I know very little about, last year it was 'Consolidation to the Cloud'
and it was one of my most popular ever, although to be truthful I did have a
joint speaker in mind when I submitted but in the end it was just me. This year
and as a big surprise to my really technical friends I have submitted a
presentation about Fujitsu's Cloud offering, not as a sales pitch but the use
of OEM12c with OVM3 providing of course the challenges are overcome by then.
Knowing you have committed to presenting on something really focuses the mind.
Actually that is my favourite quote"Commitment is
doing the thing you said you would do, long after the mood in which you said it
has gone" - Facing Up by Bear Grylls
Push yourself to learn everyday, it is rewarding and even
more so when you pass that learning on to someone else.
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