ACE DIrector Duties / Fun

I am very proud of being an ACE Director but sometimes I wonder if we look to others like an elitist group of speakers just having fun. So I thought I would share my last few weeks as an ACE Director during a couple of user group conferences, ASCEND and KSCOPE. 

The ACE program, in my words, is an advocate program run by Oracle recognising those with Oracle knowledge that share it.

The official description - "It recognizes, rewards, and promotes technical experts and community leaders for their amazing contributions to the Oracle community".

There are currently three levels which recognise the varying contributions to the community, which can be blogging (technical), Articles, webinars and presentations, books etc. ACEs are also recognised for their contributions creating the community, user group leaders etc. Your contribution is reviewed each year. 

I am an ACE Director, the top level which requires a constant flow of sharing, it cannot be crammed in to get over the requirements line. The number of ACE Directors is just under 100 but varies as people come and go, often by going to work for Oracle itself. You can see who is in the program here.

One benefit at ACE Director is some funding towards attending events. There are strict rules and it doesn't cover all the costs but much appreciated. My attendance at ASCEND was partially funded by the program. They also sponsored some at KSCOPE but as I am on the board and they rightly exclude sponsorship for board members.

At most conferences there is an ACE dinner, for all ACES, and at ASCEND we left the resort and a big thanks to Jen Nicholson who runs the program for Oracle and Connor McDonald who is responsible for the group photos on this post.

AT KSCOPE we stayed on site, and had a great evening.

Sometimes we also have ACE Adventures, a fun outing where there are a number of ACEs attending. At ASCEND conference our ACE Adventure was to the Kennedy Space Centre. I was hoping it would be more than a theme park and didn't really know what to expect, and I was surprised at how interesting I found it. The area I enjoyed most was the area remembering astronauts who have died. For each one there was a display of things important to them, not just their space program credentials. Very human.

Then we did the Shuttle Launch Simulator, and I didn't want to do it. I hate rides, but with gritted teeth I got into it. It was pointed out to me that there were children under 10 on it so it couldn't be too bad, and that made me realise i was being daft. Actually it wasn't too bad, a bit like a flight in economy with a child kicking the back of your seat the entire time!

These social events are fun, but they are also a chance to discus what we are up to and innovation in Oracle technology dinners. There is no fluff, these are experts, I can ask people questions in other areas without feeling stupid and they ask me application questions.

When the event also has Oracle Product Managers, the ACE Program try to arrange an ACE only briefing, no marketing, deep technical and open questions. KSCOPE which attracts more Product Managers than any other conference is an obvious place to have these.

Where possible there is an ACE session at events, the opportunity to encourage new people to join the program. I wasn't officially on the panel at ASCEND but attended to support and found myself upfront sharing my thoughts. Jen Nicholson who runs the program, attended both events so was able to talk to so many people who are interested.

At KSCOPE there was an Oracle area in the exhibition hall and included an ACE lounge where people could come and chat to ACES on duty about the program and see how they can get involved. I had several conversations with people who want to support the community this way. One gentleman took his photograph at an ACE poster which he says he will share when he reaches his ambition and gets into the program, it is seen as valuable. ACEs are expected to recruit others, look out for those they think are contributing and encourage them to look at applying. ODTUG has recently launched our ACE Alliance to support those wanting to join, but also help those who want to move through the levels. 

Two ACE members who have benefiting from ODTUG are Sarah Dow and Lydia Maksoud and here they are celebrating their recent promotion to ACE Pro at the KSCOPE special event.

Obviously I need to keep up the contributions, the speaking which I love, so in between the fun, I had many presentations to deliver and at KSCOPE with my other board members busy behind the scenes. No rest for the wicked!

If you have any questions on the program, look at the information available and feel free to reach out.

22 OCW Inoapps Oracle ME Award

My highlight of OCW22 was presenting our award winning My Contractor, a showcase of Oracle ME (My Experience).

Earlier this year Oracle launched Oracle ME, part of Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM, helps employers create supportive, tailored employee experiences that meet workers where they are and take them where they want to be.

Chris Leone launching Oracle ME

The platform has won several industry awards and Oracle are rightly proud of it and the difference it can make. If you missed the original launch you can see it here.

I'm not going to go into all the components, simply follow the Oracle link above, but I will comment on what I think it means for organisations using Oracle HCM.

Cloud Applications cannot be customised, and originally we felt that meant beyond configuration and personalisation you had to leave it alone.

#PaaS4Saas introduced the ability to extend the applications, build alongside the application and co-exist. More about this in the next post.

Oracle ME allows extensions for the application IN the application. It doesn't change the  security, but the way in which the end user interacts. A part of Oracle ME is Journeys that had been introduced a year before. Oracle asked me if I wanted to do a session for partners and I jumped at the idea. This was followed by a session for Customer Connect and several usergroup sessions.

So when the full platform was announced back in April and our own HRD said she wanted now! (Inoapps use Oracle SaaS) I issued a note of caution and gave a presentation internally about the maturity of the components and my excitement to use it. I love what I call 'mind the  Gap' , identifying where innovation is behind the marketing and how quickly are customers adopting. In on-premise days this could be years but with Cloud things happen much more quickly. Digital Assistants (another component of Oracle ME) being one of the  fastest I have seen.

So I started a proof of concept on Oracle ME and worked with our HCM practice especially Jen Mitchell who leads in the US on what we could do. We looked a few use cases and I presented at Breakthrough 4D and using the access to Product Development I have through the Oracle ACE program sat down and dug deep into the platform.

Then Oracle launched a partner competition, where the best partner showcases of Oracle ME would be promoted and presented at Oracle Cloud World. I have worked with oracle for 27 years and never seen a competition like this and I was in.

Inoapps saw the value, we wanted to use the capability and no doubt our customers would too. Digital Assistant, Journeys and HR Helpdesk are often included in projects so bringing them together with new functionality to give us this platform for extending the experience is a great opportunity. We brain stormed for our submission and decided on the Contractor Experience. Could the platform enable us to address some of the challenges we see with many customers who have a high reliance on Contractors?

The competition was based on the Dragons Den or Shark Tank model. We had to pitch initial idea to HCM Development and then to HCM Strategy. I knew we were on the right track when my 45 minute appointment during Breakthrough 4D with Nancy and Yvonne in Oracle Strategy latest almost 3 hours, discussing the use case and approach. The connection with product development continued as we worked on some of the  newer capabilities and slowly our solution came to life.

Now there was more to show we pitched to Oracle Field Sales group and then just six weeks before Cloud World we had a final pitch to a room full (or zoom screen full) of Oracle Execs across many disciplines. 

Then a few weeks later we were told we were a winner but to keep it quiet. I was so excited, whilst I led the project, Jen and her team of experts did the work and our marketing team worked on the assets. this was a real team effort. Now all we had to do was get ready for the big event.

I needed a short video for our booth, plus a walked through demo, and a 15 minute presentation. That doesn't sound a long time but it is actually more difficult to condense your message into a short presentation and even shorter video. But who doesn't like a deadline? I was in my element.

Oracle decided on 3 winners and we were acknowledged in Chris Leone's HCM keynote and received a lovely glass award. I got to present with Nancy in her session with almost 200 in the  room and streamed to an overflow room.

Our use case was to showcase our solution MyContractor but also the possibilities of the Oracle ME platform.

Then after presenting I worked with the Oracle UX team giving feedback on my use of the platform and my thoughts on adoption. This was followed up with a longer session with them when I got home.

Next we will give a full presentation for Customer Connect and produce content for the  Resource Centre.

Congratulations to the other winners.

'C 'to the power of many - a quick look back at KSCOPE22

My June conference season is over. 3 weeks back to back, and it finished with KSCOPE22. The conference of ODTUG for whom I am a board member. My UKOUG board experience meant I knew what I was letting myself in for, and as expected is was non stop.

ODTUG Board 2021-22

As I made a list of things to include in this blog I realised most began or could begin with 'C', so as KSCOPE is all about empowering those attending, 'C' to the power of many seemed a good title.

Composition - ODTUG serves 4 communities - APEX , Database, EPM & Analytics - 

At first glance, what is in this for me? Well I dabble in solution architecture and need to know a bit more than just the applications I work with. Also extending around the applications, the development of these extensions is my dream for the Modern Apps Development Track within the Database, The OCI tools plus the APEX, EPM and Analytics we use.

At the last KSCOPE we had good content but very few attendees in this area. This year the sessions were  better attended. Not necessarily attending just for this, but crossing streams and that is something I really encourage.

Coming Together - the week started for me with a full day board meeting. Planning for 2023 has already started, and there is more than that to plan and strategise on. Being all together gives us the chance to spend a full day in person.

Carpet - the location was the Gaylord Resort at Grapevine Texas, and there was no forgetting where you were with a bright colour carpet to remind you. in the conference centre. 

Community Service Day - it makes the week long, but many people give up their weekend and start Saturday with giving back. This year we helped at the thrift store process for GRACE, a local organisation supporting those in need. It was very hot and although we only worked for a couple of hours we got a lot done. Michelle Hardwick and I priced more Christmas decorations than I ever want to see again.

Conference Keynote - after the board said their bit , Tim Tow, a great friend but also Chief Geek of AppliedOLAP who where the Titanium sponsor spoke and then introduced the motivational speaker - Miral Kotb - ILuminate wow, she never gives up and almost uses setbacks to refuel her ambition. Simply amazing. She talked about us all 'being artists of code' a term I heard repeated many times during the week, but all those of us who are adopting it. Here is another link if you are interested.

Congratulations - during the keynote Karen Cannell, VP and Conference Chair announced that the Oracle Contributor Award from ODTUG would be renamed to Joel Kallman Oracle Contributor Award in honour of Joel, and that Jennifer Nicholson , who manages the Oracle ACE Program and some of the many user groups would be the first recipient. Jen and not yet arrived so Karen asked everyone to keep the secret. Despite a couple of almost slip ups, the secret held and Jen was presented her award at the ACE reception.

Community within a Community - The ACE program in the early days got together at KSCOPE and it has always been seen as a home for us. This was our first get together since OOW 2019, and it was just amazing to hug everyone and catch up. IT was also good to have some alumni, great ACE Directors who are now at Oracle like Connor, Doug, Scott & Michelle. 

Can't Eat it All - I also attended a Texan BBQ with some of the ACES and Jen, and learnt that whilst portions may be bigger in Texas, my capacity to eat more is not!

Can't Dance - Later in the week we would be Celebrating 25 years of ODTUG, and as this is Texas there would be dancing. They had 2 step lessons on Monday evening and a fair group (mainly us from overseas) took part. It was great fun but not sure I moved from useless along the scale very much.

Contributors - the sponsors and exhibitors are what makes the event possible, it was great to talk to them about their products and services, and for me several conversations about how that might add value in my world of the apps.

Content - Sunday is Symposium Day, each community has an in depth look at what is coming from Oracle or community speakers. 

Then 3 days of full program finishing with Hands On Labs or special Sessions on Thursday. I couldn't attend as many as I wanted as I had board duties but learnt so much from those I did,

The speakers were amazing, I can't highlight them all but I do want to call out Abi who stepped in to run a Thursday deep dive at the last minute and Ruben who agreed to do a Digital Assistant session in the MAD track.

Challenge Coin - I was presented with an APEX challenge coin, this is an amazing honour. I do not know who sponsored me but thank you. Adrian Png who runs the program said it was to do with blogs supporting the community as use of APEX.

Celebrating Diversity - The Women in IT lunch was a great opportunity to talk with other attendees and had a good sprinkling of men. I think there needs to be more but we can work on that. My group talked about how Covid may have changed the dynamics, in many different ways.

My WIT Table ladies

Celebrating our Silver Anniversary - the party, so we dressed in silver and I loved it. The dance lessons didn't help but never mind.

Connor McDonald and I in our best silver

Collaboration - One of the biggest values of ODTUG is how close they are to Oracle Product Managers and the board and community leads had meetings with each group to understand how that can grow even more in the future. The list of those attending from Oracle was unbelievable and all of them presented to their communities. These are the people who build the products, not salesmen or marketing.

Controversial? - The APEX v Visual Builder question was explored again. I talked more to product management and I started (will finish) an Oracle Live Lab on Visual Builder. As my colleague Dermot says, time for another look. I speak on the value of VB for extending SaaS and need to update that presentation. My talk at this conference was on what Inoapps have learnt extend at scale, creating SaaS products to extend Oracle's.

Cary Millsap - Cary gave an in-depth look at performance, based on his book FASTER. I knew there was a story from me in the book, he had my permission and I had read the pdf last year. The book contains > 100 quick stories that explain how to improve system performance. What I didn't know was that the book cover was a simple picture explaining the problem depicted in my story. 

Certifications - Michelle Malcher held exam krams and I am pleased to say I passed the Data Management Associate exam this morning.

I also worked my way through a hands on lab for Fusion Analytics Warehouse, so the training was pretty intense at times.

Catching Up with Friends - I can't list them all but it was so fantastic to meet old friends, catch up and meet new friends. 

Clap, Clap Hard - thanks to everyone who attended, the sponsors, exhibitors, presenters and attendees. Thanks for all the learning and conversation and thanks to YCC the team behind the logistics who pulled off another amazing conference. 

Continues - Next year KSCOPE is in Aurora, Colorado 25th June 2023 - see you there.

 

What Links Premier League Football to Enterprise Planning?

New technology is exciting, to start with the use cases are part of the marketing process, but as people start to understand the capability, it will become more main stream and the bit I love, useful for organisations.

This week I had the opportunity to talk to people in person about this at an event jointly hosted by my employer Inoapps and Oracle, in London.

The event was entitled 'What can Fully Connected AI-driven Finance, HR and Analytics Do For Your Business'.

Oracle technology especially in Analytics uses Machine Learning and AI to give us far more than just statistics, they allow us to plan for the future, based on patterns from the past. Real insight and foresight.

To get the message out, Oracle partner with sport. This is not simple sponsorship to get their name seen, it is about using their technology to improve the sport.

I think most people have heard about their partnership with Redbull Racing in F1, but they also partner with Premier League Football where they provide real time insights for the viewer. 

This was the hook for the day, Oracle would talk about how the technology I would give customer examples in business, they would show how it is used in Premier League, Inoapps would talk about how we used it to raise our recent funding and then how no technology transforms without change. 

Lee Bonfield works for Oracle but he is also known for his Fantasy Premier League podcast and was an obvious choice to be the Oracle advocate for their partnership with the Premier League.

The venue for the day was the London Stadium, once the heart of the 2012 Olympics but now home of West Ham Football Team, an ideal location for this event.

I'm not a football fan but I loved the location. I was part of the implementation of E Business Suite for the Olympic Development Authority, that was created to host the Olympics in London, so it almost felt full circle. Walking up to the stadium was quite magical.

My session with John Gardner from Oracle was on Planning and Budgeting Cloud used with Fusion Applications. He talked about how much data we have, and how to use it to make a real difference. I got to do what I do best, interrupt John and give customer examples, what it actually meant to organisations and the challenges they overcame.

Then I interviewed ur Chief Finance Office, Ally Rule. He told our story and our recent investment success. Key to this story is our use of Oracle. We have Fusion HR and ERP, some amazing APEX applications to support industry specific needs, Oracle Analytics to bring this data together and Planning and Budgeting to give us that foresight. Ally explained that when we were looking for investment we selected an organisation to help us build the proposal, the analysts assigned to help us were taught Oracle Analytics by our in-house team and then let loose with our data. When Investors did their due diligence ,Inoapps were able to run every scenario they asked for and drill down behind the figure, in real time. 

Inoapps is an Oracle partner that uses Oracle to improve organisations businesses and Inoapps is also our most important customer.

Despite my lack of interest in football I enjoyed Lee's talk and my colleagues finished the content with talking about the important of change when adopting any technology. 

After a quick lunch there was a tour of the stadium and I loved the legacy of the Olympics still found around the stadium.

Great content, great discussions and so great to be away from the screen.

OGB Appreciation Day : Oracle Digital Assistant PoC

I wasn't sure what to write here so I looked back at what I have written in the past 





2018 Oracle Chatbots, my first PoC getting the platform up

2017 VBCS PoC

2016 APEX community

They were all product related, with the 'human twist' Tim asked for, so I thought I would try that recipe again.

I am a great advocate for Oracle products (hence why I am an ACE Director) and I gain a lot through collaboration with product management, which last year's post was all about, but sometimes in my role the bigger challenge is to get two separate product management teams to work together.

In a post earlier this year I talked about how the Oracle Digital Assistant was going to transform how we use SaaS, starting with HCM, but to be able to write that I needed to prove it internally, my role of directing the marketing into the reality.

I was still using my ACE Director instance (thank you Oracle), and I needed the HCM team to help with their delivered skills and the ODA team to help with the platform. Internally within Accenture I needed two people who had not worked together before to manage the SaaS instance and the ODA instance.

Without this co-operation or virtual community we would not have the knowledge we have today and I would have had nothing to talk about at OOW.

Thankyou Oracle Community and thankyou Tim for nudging us all each year.

2019 - Kscope - Development Tools

First I want to say Kscope19 was excellent as always and a big round of applause to Opal Alapat and her team for the conference. This conference is all about the community and has unraveled support from Oracle Product Management and a good mix of expert and customer stories.

I do however want to share my fustration  When I first attended ODTUG it was all about Development Tools but over the last few years it has become so much less so that I think for me, this year it failed to deliver on those tools. I am not saying it was a bad conference, quite the opposite and I am so glad I went, I learnt a lot about analytics which are becoming more pervasive in large Cloud Application implementations, and something I need to know more about.

When I first attended KSCOPE (not sure it was called that back then), there was a thriving Fusion Middleware (FMW) community. Forms and Reports still had a large following and ADF was a new product. I often talk about the lag between marketing and adoption of products and I think ADF fell into this category, it seemed a slow burn. 

ADF was important to me, Fusion Applications were written using ADF and I expected that people would extend using ADF. Other products such as SOA suite were also covered here and the community had some great characters like John King, Lucas Jellema, Lonneke Dikmans, Sven Vesterli and Luc Bors, to name just a few experts. 

One of the great things about ODTUG is how much support they have from Product Management and I loved how much they brought to the event. Delegates did attend sessions but as part of the portfolio, many were more interested in the SQL and the rapid growth of APEX, few people came solely for the FMW content. 

When Cloud came along and FMW morphed into PaaS there was a new wave of products and ‘survival of the fittest’ meant it would take a while for the best to rise to the surface. Mobile was launched and that was very exciting, initially that used ADF and I thought it would accelerate adoption, but then they dropped ADF from mobile. PaaS was also difficult. Each component was fine but using them together was a challenge, in fact the ACE program held a hackathon at the AMIS conference to see how many we could use at one time and the PaaS ACE Directors would showcase this at the PaaS Forums for the next few years.

In the meantime the development tools track dwindled at Kscope and eventually is was consumed into the Database Track. APEX was growing and EPM became a large part of Kscope. I was concerned because I understood why something like Forms and Reports were on the decline but I felt PaaS was just starting. I missed Kscope last year as it clashed with something else (thankyou Kscope for giving us the dates for the next 2 years, it won’t happen again). My last Kscope in 2017 had very little PaaS content and from what I saw in the agenda there was even less last year, however this year with the introduction of an Emerging Technology track I thought it might be better.

When the content is down, there is nothing to excite possible delegates who would want this as their main track, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When the agenda was launched, although I had my VBCS session accepted there were only two others. Mia Urman talking about it with E Business Suite and a session by Shah Smeltzer one of the Product Managers. 3 sessions isn’t enough to make this sustainable. Both had audiences made up of people who wanted to know what the fuss was about, not people who had come to the conference for that specifically.

Recently there have been grumblings in the community about Oracle not pursuing ADF and I don't agree. Our world is at hyper speed, we talk about agile, the ability to try things and fail fast, or things that develop so quickly they are unrecognisable. Well that is true of the technology behind them, some will fail, some will morph and some will kick others out. Remember cassette tapes? Remember CDs? The struggle between VHS and Betamax? Oracle are now using JET based development for the refresh of the Fusion UX, so the extension tool of choice is now VBCS, and that today looks nothing like its original ABCS incarnation. That however is progress.

PaaS adoption is growing, I see NO Cloud Applications deal that doesn't have a substantial PaaS component today, regional user groups are covering these but there is no global home today. It isn't just for SaaS customers, look at the rise of chatbots, digital assistants. Lots of case studies here are independent developments. And if you are a partner you MUST be part of the PaaS community run by Jurgen Kress, it is awesome.

However all is not gloom, I spoke to several ODTUG people and Kevin McGinley who will be the conference chair next year and there will be lots of thought as to what is included and how it is marketed. I would like to see something like a development solutions track, and yes I'm happy to help.

Chatting About Chatbots

Wow, chatbots are everywhere.

In my presentations I talk about this being the fastest Marketing-to-Reality I have seen in technology, and I stand by that.

Based on my presentation at UKOUG in December I was asked to be part of an interview for Oracle Scene. Actually the UKOUG magazine has been renamed Pass The Knowledge which I managed to misspell on twitter, or did I?

The #PTK interview included Grant Ronald, Product Manager in Oracle, and he has already introduced the article on Linkedin. The article can be found here

Looking after #PaaS4SaaS is my role in Accenture, and everyday I talk to more and more  colleagues, both technical and account teams to answer their questions. Then showing customers how it can help them, is what I love best.

Recently I have been working with Oracle SaaS development Centre of Excellence on how the skills being delivered in HCM will be delivered, and how as a partner we can extend that.

Having them early in our system, means we are ready to help our customers get the best from this exciting innovation and of course I will be speaking about them in conferences. Thank you to David Bowin, Ryan Patrick , Ian Wallis and of course Grant Ronald at Oracle, and my colleagues Ian Staff and Hayley Dobson.

There is also internal reviews of all chatbot platforms I have been involved in locally and am really happy at what a compelling solution Oracle is, both for their SaaS and as an enterprise platform.

Another part of the Accenture ecosystem in Accenture recently held a POC for an EMEA organisation and again Oracle proved itself. The project lead on that and I, were interviewed on a recent 'Lets chat' webcast, an internal program for their extended sales team. 

The global lead of Accenture Oracle HCM, Brandon Johnson asked me to write a white paper on our findings and thoughts about the Oracle Digital Assistant and I am very pleased with the final document. Thanks to Brandon for the commission, Chau Troung and Ian for their input. You can find this on Accenture's website. 

Love to chat more? Get in touch.

My User Group Thoughts

Collaborate has three user groups that come together to create the largest user group events of the year. This was a year of change, not only the venue but also the user groups themselves.

IOUG joined with Quest, which I believe is a great way to safeguard the legacy of IOUG and to grow the reach of Quest. However I spoke to several IOUG people who think of Quest as being the home of TOAD rather than the user group. 

OAUG changed their name to OATUG to include technology. I heard somewhere during the week 40% of the content is already technology,  it probably is, but the technology they cover is dedicated to that used with E Business Suite, so I’m not sure if I was a technology person I would know whether the content I want is covered by IOUG through Quest, OATUG or ODTUG.

UKOUG New offices 

I believe user groups do need to be refreshed and restate their objectives, and  I was very pleased when at the end of last year UKOUG tweaked their brand by adding the very important independent to the name. I was very proud to have led that part of Project Reach before I left the board and love that they have decorated the new building with the mission statement as well.

UKOUG mission statement

Emerging technology is something that all the user groups have to do with all the time and it’s a guessing game as to how much and when I’ve often talked about the gap between Oracle Marketing and full-scale uptake in the user base. At first it is easy to get presentations from Oracle as they promote the new products and then as early adopters appear they are in great demand for their story but we must quickly provide content for those who have actually moved. 

In my area of SaaS, I think many user groups including UKOUG and those at Collaborate are struggling with this last category. The number of customers who are now using cloud applications is high and yet there is very little content about the things that are important to them, the update cadence and the new functionality delivered that they have yet to switch on. There is plenty of content for those thinking about going to cloud. We also need to ensure we have content for those staying where they are, which Collaborate did well and UKOUG have an event in June.

The same problem is true of PaaS, in ODTUG, middleware lost it stream a few years ago as attendance wasn’t high but hopefully now the new emerging technology stream will address this. I have a session this year on VBCS.

I don't have a quick answer, but perhaps user groups need boards or advisory teams that represent all the communities. There are many of us in the user group communities who are traditional and old school. That may be where the passion is but is it totally representative?

2019 - Oracle Open World : London

In the middle of January, Oracle brought Open World to London. I'm not sure it is actually Open World but it was a great event and much appreciated by those in region.

For me it was my first outing as Accenture in action. We started in Accenture in October just a few days before Open World in San Francisco and although I was really welcomed felt I was still one step removed.

Wind on less than 4 months and its a completely different story. Here I was part of the Accenture team responsible for the booth content. I actually spent Christmas week watching Accenture videos I had never seen, selecting content for a video loop, but it accelerated my learning.

I got to work with Accenture Alliances, Marketing, both UK and Global teams. It was very stressful but I knew it would be fun. Just 4 weeks ago I was posting about having a less stressful UKOUG and here I was front and centre of the action at another event. Obviously no rest for the wicked!

Accenture were a major sponsor and had a large stand on the floor, as I was also speaking and having customer meetings I was only on the stand officially the first morning,, but I was back whenever I was free.

We had the WeDo team on our stand and I love how they bring the PaaS to life.

WeDo and Accenture Spain team

Accenture's Yves Bernard was part of the keynote and gave a great talk on Accenture's vision; I say talk because this was powerpoint free and he used holograms to get his point across. Watch his talk here

Accenture also have a non powerpoint way of taking about what we do as well. This MyConcerto was launched at OOW in San Francisco and I'm looking forward to using that more in my day job,.

As well as Yves, Accenture also had a place on the Security panel and sponsored both the ERP and HCM solution keynotes. My colleague Lucia spoke on ERP with her customer Dean Sweet from West Midlands Police.

Dean, Yves and Lucia

West Midlands Police have implemented both ERP & HCM to support their Shared Service. However not all their information is held there, some is still in specialist, industry or shared solutions which are somewhat static , so they use RPA to run reports from those frequently and expose all the information through a number of portals created using Oracle CX cloud. This gives them information in minutes and all has been checked by their officers. Read more about this story in an interview Dean gave to Diginomica. (although they exaggerate a bit, it talks about £30m savings and I thought Dean said only £28.5m).

Dean and Lucia speaking

The HCM keynote was led by Chris Leone who heads their development organisation. He talked about the innovation Oracle are delivering in the next updates and then my colleague Tim Warner tased about the pace of innovation and how to handle that. I then demonstrated some innovation Accenture are working on with Oracle PaaS, specifically Digital Assistants and our own MyConceierge. Finally Dean talked about how he is using the innovation implemented.

Other customers also spoke, Skanska on a HCM panel and the Home Office talked about their METIS project, where ERP is now live and HCM under way. Again Diginomica covered their story.

The stand became a real hub, I met up with old friends and colleagues, including Viswa who I posted about previously, and got to meet lots of new colleagues, but what touched me most was old and current customers, throughout my 25 years in the Oracle world, making the time to say hallo..

Tim Warner, Mark Sweeny & I

My event finished with a back stage meeting with Eddie Izzard. Did I tell you I love my job?

10,000 people attended this year and I understand the event will be back again next year. I loved it and I hope to be part of 2020 too.