Debra's thoughts on Oracle: Revealing a recent hand

This is my second Oracle ACE Program blog today, the first is about Community Sharing v Community Leading, and this one is about a few people who have recently been awarded ACE Director.

In May I wrote a blog about the Self Appraisal process and about how I feel when asked to nominate or endorse nominations.

When I wrote that blog, I talked about a number of scenarios that I had real experience of. I am always honoured when asked to help, mentor or nominate someone, I think it is a really important part of being an ACE Director.

I do say 'no' more often than I say 'yes', but I always make sure I give detailed reasons as to why I can't endorse someone immediately. I am always happy to help mentor someone who is not yet ready and to help with crafting a nomination, ensuring it brings out their strengths that align with what Oracle are doing.

In the past few months there have been a number of new Oracle ACE Directors and I am really proud to have played a tiny part in four of their journeys :

Deiby Gomez - His blog in spanish twitter: @hdeiby

Deiby is an impatient but lovable young man from Guatemala. He is really young if age is simply a number, but Deiby has packed so much into his short life, far more than many of us twice his age.
He sets his sights on something and goes for it. I met Deiby last year on the Latin America tour and he was so busy making sure it was a success, whilst also presenting and creating Spanish content for OTN. His original nomination for ACE Director was turned down, although he was granted ACE. Deiby saw that as failure and I and many others worked hard to ensure he didn't think of it with disappointment, but as an exciting step on his journey. This year his ACE was upgraded to ACE Director and well deserved.

Sarah Zumbrum - Saying thank you twitter: @epm_queen

Sarah is an inspiration, from the day I first met her I knew she would be an ACE of the future, Everything she takes on, from the ODTUG leadership program to running an ironman, is taken on with 100% commitment and you just know she will succeed. I was really proud to be a tiny part of this success, and wrote a whole blog post on it last month.

Martin Widlake - I've been made an oracle ace director Twitter: @mwidlake

Yipee, Martin is a great local speaker and amazing supporter of UKOUG. Martin encourages those around him to take part and as he has cut back on the amount of work he is doing (I think he told his wife it was semi retirement), he has stepped up the amount of input into the community. Martin is part of the UKOUG Tech Conference Committee and always passionate about getting the right mix of speakers, covering all the technologies, but my favourite thing about Martin is he is one of the organisers of London Oracle Drinks, the idea being a few (or more) friends who get to gather occasionally for a beer and perhaps sometimes the conversation will become technical.

Sai Ram - Sai hasn't had time to blog yet twitter: @sai_penumuru

Sai like Deiby is someone I first met when speaking at their local groups. I met Sai on the Yathra tour early in 2014. I was amazed by the amount of work Sai put in. Alongside his user group leadership role, he spoke at every event and shared his knowledge. Visiting speakers can encourage, like I hope we did, local speakers, but it is the local speakers who can encourage local people to step up and take part. Sai has been able to speak around the world thanks to his employer's support and I was very honoured to have him at UKOUG last year.

I am not an expert in the same disciplines as these people, someone else judges their ability, and at ACE Director that is someone senior in the relevant Product Management team, but I have had the pleasure in seeing them all speak and how they engage their audiences and share their obvious knowledge.