2025 AI World - A Tale of Many Hats

This blog tends to be what I did rather than what I learnt, a record of what I get up to.

As ever I attended AI world with multiple hats:

I was partially supported by the ACE program in recognition of having content in the AI World Agenda.  I had a birds-of-a-feather session with Mia Urman my fellow ACE Director on modernizing EBS, and I was also on a panel for Oracle integration cloud where I shared several examples of how we extend fusion applications with OIC for our customers including Bradford White who were in the audience.

 

The ACE program has a presence in the exhibition and like all other ACEs I took my turn to talk to delegates about the program, and new this year the ACE Apprentice initiative which I'm looking forward to encouraging people to take part.

 

Wednesday evening was our ACE dinner they try and organize these dinners at any event where there is several ACEs taking part, but this is by far the biggest. The support from Oracle is so welcome and I want to thank Jenny Tsai Smith in particular who called out the Apps ACEs at the dinner. I sat with Jenny and Kumar Rajamani who is responsible for autonomous and AI select. We had a great conversation on where it is used in Ask EBS and how you Inoapps have implemented it on our EBS archiving solution product.

 

After the dinner was the main Oracle party with death leopard but I just wanted an early night so skipped that event

 

There was also an ACE adventure on the Thursday after AI world officially finished, but Jenny invited me to the Global Leaders Meeting which is about the database, but she gave me honorary membership, and I was able to continue the discussion around how we are using AI here. I also got to meet visionaries from around the world who are using AI in Oracle's database to make a difference.

 

My employer Inoapps were at AI World in force. We were not in the exhibition but had a private space in one of the restaurants alongside it, where we held roundtables and many meetings with both Oracle and delegates. I hosted two roundtables around E Business Suite users where I was joined by Cliff Godwin, SVP EBS and Mia.

 

Inoapps had a reception on Sunday evening were Oracle friends who had arrived early in Vegas. It was a great time for us to relax, tackle the jet lag and ponder what the next few days might bring. As partners we had previews of all the big messages ahead of the main event. We also won an award as Global Managed Services Partner. 

 

Like many partners we held an appreciation reception on the Tuesday evening at are now regular Sugarcane location where many of our customers Oracle contacts and opportunities came to say hello.

 

Did this mean I wasn't fed on Monday evening? Of course not. Mia's organization Auraplayer, whom we partner with, held a dinner for her customers which I was able to attend.

 

On the Thursday morning, I managed to have two breakfasts the first with an analyst company I have the pleasure of working with and the second with an Inoapps customer who are excited about their AI journey.

 

I make no secret of the fact that Las Vegas is not really my cup of tea but if you're there you can't help but be a tourist. On Sunday morning I had a private pilgrimage to the gospel brunch at the House of Blues. Last year it was so hot I had to take an Uber to the Mandalay Bay where it is located, but this year it was pleasant enough to walk both there and back, a round trip of about 7 miles. I know this is a show, but the music is fantastic, and I enjoy the fellowship. I do like the strap line “praise the Lord and pass the biscuits” although I'm not too sure about the additional extra for an all-inclusive drinks package.

 

On the Friday morning a great friend Michelle Malcher and I went to the strip's eldest hotel, the Flamingo and listened to their wildlife ranger talk about the rescued sea birds they keep alongside their flamingos and I also took the chance to meet up with many other friends that I've had the privilege of making over the years.

 

My next outing is the South African Oracle Users Group in less than two weeks and I'm very excited that this time in recognition of their growth there will be more ACEs attending and hopefully will sign up some of those apprentices.

And what did I learn at AI World? Well I'll blog on the Inoapps page about that.

 

Story Telling, Oracle and Diving - #JoelKallmanDay

When my beloved Tim reached out for contributions to the Joel Kallman day, he suggested that personal topics were welcome. So I thought I would combine my 2025 diving odyssey and the work I do in the Oracle space as a storyteller.

I have been an Oracle partner for approaching 30 years and one of my skills is taking the facts of an implementation or project and telling it as a story that resonates with other customers. Not simply 'we implemented fusion cloud for customer X', but what is their business model, how do they interact with their customers and staff and what were the challenges they were looking to overcome with the implementation and then add a heavy dose of project highlights and low lights to make it real. I think I do it well and have had a good career on this basis. The question I asked repeatedly when building a story is "why? why? why?".

 

But this week I have learned more about storytelling from a real master Steve Backshall, who is a famous TV documentary maker for the BBC and his highlight show is Deadly 60 which is aimed at children, a real adventure program.

I had the privilege of meeting Steve earlier this year when he came to the same remote part of Indonesia where I was diving. He was actually trying to film a sugar glider that had the worst case of stage fright I've ever seen. Steve and his team had spent the previous week in Lembeh Straits where I was going the following week to learn to muck dive and his team had also filmed the whale sharks the day before that I and the group I was with did the next day.

Steve about to give up

We were asked not to talk on social media about the show until it was released and this happened just a couple of weeks ago and last night I sat down to watch the two episodes of Deadly 60 (series 6, episode s 2&3) that covered this.

 

The sugar guilder never got a look in, obviously not enough footage but part of the episode on sharks included the whale shark and a wobbegong and then there was a whole episode on oddball creatures which was the muck diving in lembeh.

I saw each and every one of those animals an ornate woebegone, the whale sharks and if you look at my photo of the whale shark right down by the tail, that speck diver is me. In Lembeh I saw the flamboyant cuttlefish, the mimic octopus, the bobbit worm, the hairy frogfish and my favourite the coconut octopus. I too went diving with Ben their guide. In fact Ben is the resort photographer and will help anybody who dives there, improve their photo skills regardless of what equipment they have.  

These are my efforts:

coconut octopus

Bobbit Worm

Woebegone Shark

Hairy Frogfish

Flamboyant Cuttlefish

Mimic Octopus

The two episodes which are on BBC iPlayer which you can easily download them in the UK and they will eventually turn up on their Youtube channel for those outside of the UK.  Having watched his episodes the way he told those stories to appeal to his audience of children and excite them by the wild world in which we live, reminded me that is not my story or the story of my customers and their projects I need to tell, but it's the story that engages those new customers and potential customers need to hear, what particularly are they looking for and where can I find something in one of my story books that will resonate with them.

 

I know this is not quite the Oracle blog that you might have been expecting but one about the soft skills I use in my job every day and a chance to share some of the photographs from my amazing trip this year. I am such a lucky person and this was all about my passion and going back to Joel community was his passion.

 

Happy Joel Kallman day