July is always a busy month for UKOUG, as well as a board meeting we also have our volunteers meeting, the main way we capture and share ideas. Luckily in NI we have 2 public holidays (12 & 13) which I can swap to take these 2 days off from Fujitsu.
This year the calendar was packed, I arrived back from Washington and the ODTUG conference on the Saturday, met up with Lisa Dobson my fellow director and went off to a 40th birthday party for James Morle, a fellow ACE Diretor and member of the OakTable and a great speaker for UKOUG. It is a measure of the friends you make in this circle that Graham Wood flew over from the US for the party and whilst he was over spoke at the UNIX SIG for UKOUG. Then Lisa and I went to Birmingham Sunday evening to ready ourselves for the strategy meeting that started early the next day.
To start, we revisited our Mission & Vision Statements and Values and what changed from the last time full review, about 4 years ago. The emphasis is on the Oracle Community and who is a member of that, what we decided was:
- Those who use Oracle Products
- Those who provide Products and Services around Oracle
- Oracle themselves
Our Mission remains - Serving the Oracle Community and our vision is changing slightly to reflect the emphasis on this community member to:
To be the association in which everyone in the Oracle community engages.
We did not finish the next stage which is a full evaluation of our own customers and products so this may not be the final draft.
We had a facilitator to keep us on track and although we did get sidetracked occasionally we did make progress. As a board we need to decide what we can do with what we have. There is lots more to do and we took a lot more information from the volunteers the next day which will be an important part of our analysis.
There was a board dinner that evening which was a good time to get to know the new director Graham Spicer a bit better and then I went off for a relatively early night.
The next day we had a standard board meeting at 8.15. We are our own company in UKOUG and not outsourced to an operating company so there are statutory things we must cover. This and setting our next actions on the strategy process took us till 9.30 when the volunteers started to arrive.......
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Thinking About The Internet and Branding
I wrote before about my thoughts on the Internet and especially around marketing. It is a great way to build a brand and what better brand to sell than yourself.
I don’t easily articulate my brand but do embrace the Internet as part of it. I was slow to get into blog posts, face book and twitter and when I did there was trepidation, how should I segment them?
As well as the ‘who would I invite to my house’ decision for face book (and there are one or two who need to be removed), I have the same 'work or leisure' issue around the blog. In fact I have 3 blogs and may well start a forth soon. This blog it about my professional life, about the work I do in the Oracle Eco-system, it started as just what does a UKOUG director get up to and it is that, I am still a director, but I also talk about the ACE program of which I am so proud to be a member, presenting at Oracle user group events, User Groups themselves, my work with Fujitsu and other things I think my be interesting to the people I meet through work.
A have a 2nd blog which is more personal, more about my thoughts, although if you look at the frequency of posts I don’t have many of them. Time is the killer, I need more time. My third blog is about Stanley, my (but don’t tell him - or my boss) imaginary friend.
Twitter I love, 140 characters to get your point across, although I can be a bit of a 'twitterbox' ('DebraLilley). In the UK it is not used anywhere near as much as in the US, except by celebrities and organisations who have recognised its power. For me it came into its own during the Volcano crisis when you could follow your airline and get fast, immediate information. I think of twitter as a flat portal. Each ‘Tweeple’ I follow is a portlet giving me the picture of the world I want, from news, to travel to friends and organisations. UKOUG has several accounts, Ronan has UKOUG_Chair and he is great at this, we have UKOUG run by the office, myself and many others who then use the tag #UKOUG. Using a twitter service such as TweetDeck means you can easily organise the information in the best way for you. The best use of twitter in my world is for the conference, give it a simple tag and encourage people to tweet. It brings a real buzz to the event and includes people who can't be there and is a great way of buying them in for next year. How much better is live feedback than a post event review. A tweet feed display is a must so that people can follow. I have been unable to attend a few UKOUG conference series events recently but have been able to follow and send wishes via twitter, it make me feel part of it.
My employer Fujitsu encourages me to use twitter which I suppose means I self police it, and have at times found myself encouraging Stanley (yes he has his own Stanley_ACED) to tweet instead of me. The Oracle Practice page of Fujitsu gives a link to my account so I need to be a bit careful, although I do apologise to anyone who followed me during the World Cup Final, and I really did want Holland to win.
So has the Internet helped my brand? I hope so. I am sure I don’t always get it right and I don’t get a lot of posted comments. I recently got divorced and thought about changing my name, however Debra Lilley is my brand and anything else would almost be like starting again. Although I quite like ‘Miss Debra’.
I don’t easily articulate my brand but do embrace the Internet as part of it. I was slow to get into blog posts, face book and twitter and when I did there was trepidation, how should I segment them?
As well as the ‘who would I invite to my house’ decision for face book (and there are one or two who need to be removed), I have the same 'work or leisure' issue around the blog. In fact I have 3 blogs and may well start a forth soon. This blog it about my professional life, about the work I do in the Oracle Eco-system, it started as just what does a UKOUG director get up to and it is that, I am still a director, but I also talk about the ACE program of which I am so proud to be a member, presenting at Oracle user group events, User Groups themselves, my work with Fujitsu and other things I think my be interesting to the people I meet through work.
A have a 2nd blog which is more personal, more about my thoughts, although if you look at the frequency of posts I don’t have many of them. Time is the killer, I need more time. My third blog is about Stanley, my (but don’t tell him - or my boss) imaginary friend.
Twitter I love, 140 characters to get your point across, although I can be a bit of a 'twitterbox' ('DebraLilley). In the UK it is not used anywhere near as much as in the US, except by celebrities and organisations who have recognised its power. For me it came into its own during the Volcano crisis when you could follow your airline and get fast, immediate information. I think of twitter as a flat portal. Each ‘Tweeple’ I follow is a portlet giving me the picture of the world I want, from news, to travel to friends and organisations. UKOUG has several accounts, Ronan has UKOUG_Chair and he is great at this, we have UKOUG run by the office, myself and many others who then use the tag #UKOUG. Using a twitter service such as TweetDeck means you can easily organise the information in the best way for you. The best use of twitter in my world is for the conference, give it a simple tag and encourage people to tweet. It brings a real buzz to the event and includes people who can't be there and is a great way of buying them in for next year. How much better is live feedback than a post event review. A tweet feed display is a must so that people can follow. I have been unable to attend a few UKOUG conference series events recently but have been able to follow and send wishes via twitter, it make me feel part of it.
My employer Fujitsu encourages me to use twitter which I suppose means I self police it, and have at times found myself encouraging Stanley (yes he has his own Stanley_ACED) to tweet instead of me. The Oracle Practice page of Fujitsu gives a link to my account so I need to be a bit careful, although I do apologise to anyone who followed me during the World Cup Final, and I really did want Holland to win.
So has the Internet helped my brand? I hope so. I am sure I don’t always get it right and I don’t get a lot of posted comments. I recently got divorced and thought about changing my name, however Debra Lilley is my brand and anything else would almost be like starting again. Although I quite like ‘Miss Debra’.
Fusion Applications; a window on technology.
I have made no secret of the fact that I love Fusion Applications and can't wait for them to be released later this year. They will be released this year, Larry said so last Open World and he wouldn’t let us down would he?
If you look at the OOW Agenda for 2010 there are lots of sessions showcasing Oracle Fusion and I am expecting to hear from early adopters who should be a fair way through their implementation projects by the time the conference gets underway.
I talked about Fusion Apps to my ACE Director peers and it was great to be able to talk about the technology and how it hangs together. These people are using the components today and each are the experts in their area. No way can I teach them anything about the components but I can talk about how they will come together.
I have said before that Fusion Apps are about the vision and the user experience and during the presentation I thought, release 1 is not just a showcase for the application it is also a window on the technology. All of the technology (except the BI and that is imminent ) is available today.
So my presentations about the Fusion vision will actually come to life, the product will showcase the bringing together of all the Fusion Middleware and Database products, and show how well they are integrated (I will resist the temptation to say Complete and Open).
As in other presentations there was a discussion about pricing. As yet there is no news except that for processes it will be like for like, I.e. if you have the same processes in Fusion Apps as you have today in Applications Unlimited there will be no extra cost providing the matrix has not changed (no of users etc). Technology pricing I don’t know about and hope Oracle get it right, a lot of customers have started to invest in the technology but if you have to buy all of it, few people will be able to afford the step up.
Mohan Dutt gives a daily countdown to OOW, I think of this as my countdown to Fusion. I doubt it will actually be Generally Available at Open World but everyone will get to see it.
If you look at the OOW Agenda for 2010 there are lots of sessions showcasing Oracle Fusion and I am expecting to hear from early adopters who should be a fair way through their implementation projects by the time the conference gets underway.
I talked about Fusion Apps to my ACE Director peers and it was great to be able to talk about the technology and how it hangs together. These people are using the components today and each are the experts in their area. No way can I teach them anything about the components but I can talk about how they will come together.
I have said before that Fusion Apps are about the vision and the user experience and during the presentation I thought, release 1 is not just a showcase for the application it is also a window on the technology. All of the technology (except the BI and that is imminent ) is available today.
So my presentations about the Fusion vision will actually come to life, the product will showcase the bringing together of all the Fusion Middleware and Database products, and show how well they are integrated (I will resist the temptation to say Complete and Open).
As in other presentations there was a discussion about pricing. As yet there is no news except that for processes it will be like for like, I.e. if you have the same processes in Fusion Apps as you have today in Applications Unlimited there will be no extra cost providing the matrix has not changed (no of users etc). Technology pricing I don’t know about and hope Oracle get it right, a lot of customers have started to invest in the technology but if you have to buy all of it, few people will be able to afford the step up.
Mohan Dutt gives a daily countdown to OOW, I think of this as my countdown to Fusion. I doubt it will actually be Generally Available at Open World but everyone will get to see it.
ACE Director Day in Washington
As part of the ACE Director Program there are two briefings available each year, one directly before Oracle Open World at HQ and the other before ODTUG Kaleidescope. Each ACE Director is encouraged to attend at least one of these briefings.
Normally one of the comments from a briefing is that there is not enough time for the ACE Directors to discuss ‘all things Oracle’ between themselves, but at the recent ODTUG Kaleidoscope conference in Washington DC, we had plenty of time with several presenting to their peers. It was actually a little disappointing that there was so little Oracle presence. One of the things Oracle does well in the briefings before OOW is give a heads up on some of the products about to be launched, we are all under Non Disclosure. A week after ODTUG, OBIEE11g was launched and I was hoping for a peek at that.
It was a very long day especially for those of us who had a long journey, but there was lots covered. There were roadmap sessions for JDev and a great look at APEX from David Peak. If you are involved in APEX release 4.0 had been available just a few days and it was good for me an interested outsider to see what it now delivers.
What the extra ACE time meant was we could have a lot of discussion. Actual practitioners giving Oracle and each other feedback about the products in the field. How is user adoption, what are the concerns and needs of the customer.One area that came up a lot was licensing. There are always going to be concerns that prices are too high but sometimes it is just how a product is licensed that puts the customers off. ACE Directors have the ear of Oracle and I hope the information taken back into HQ makes someone think. Oracle are often slated in the press for being arrogant and this is a good opportunity for them to reconsider. Virtualisation and SOA licensing models were the main discussion areas.
I spoke about Fusion Apps, a bit daunting as the ACE Director program is almost exclusively technology but more about that in a later post.
My favourite session of the day was the last one. Frans Thamura who talked about his program in Indonesia to teach Java to the majority of university students, ensuring that in the future it wont be restricted to the few who then leave the country for high paid jobs, and that it will also bring work to the country. Unfortunately Frans is very difficult to understand, which is a pity as his English is phenomenally better than my Indonesian, but his slides and enthusiasm made up for it.
Thanks again Vikki and Duncan for a great day.
Normally one of the comments from a briefing is that there is not enough time for the ACE Directors to discuss ‘all things Oracle’ between themselves, but at the recent ODTUG Kaleidoscope conference in Washington DC, we had plenty of time with several presenting to their peers. It was actually a little disappointing that there was so little Oracle presence. One of the things Oracle does well in the briefings before OOW is give a heads up on some of the products about to be launched, we are all under Non Disclosure. A week after ODTUG, OBIEE11g was launched and I was hoping for a peek at that.
It was a very long day especially for those of us who had a long journey, but there was lots covered. There were roadmap sessions for JDev and a great look at APEX from David Peak. If you are involved in APEX release 4.0 had been available just a few days and it was good for me an interested outsider to see what it now delivers.
What the extra ACE time meant was we could have a lot of discussion. Actual practitioners giving Oracle and each other feedback about the products in the field. How is user adoption, what are the concerns and needs of the customer.One area that came up a lot was licensing. There are always going to be concerns that prices are too high but sometimes it is just how a product is licensed that puts the customers off. ACE Directors have the ear of Oracle and I hope the information taken back into HQ makes someone think. Oracle are often slated in the press for being arrogant and this is a good opportunity for them to reconsider. Virtualisation and SOA licensing models were the main discussion areas.
I spoke about Fusion Apps, a bit daunting as the ACE Director program is almost exclusively technology but more about that in a later post.
My favourite session of the day was the last one. Frans Thamura who talked about his program in Indonesia to teach Java to the majority of university students, ensuring that in the future it wont be restricted to the few who then leave the country for high paid jobs, and that it will also bring work to the country. Unfortunately Frans is very difficult to understand, which is a pity as his English is phenomenally better than my Indonesian, but his slides and enthusiasm made up for it.
Thanks again Vikki and Duncan for a great day.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
EMEA Harmony - Local Boy Does Good - And other Great Speakers
I was very honoured to be included in the line up for EMEA Harmony. This event was the first bringing together the user groups from Finland, Estonia, Russia and Latvia.
The entire event was held in English as that was the common language, something that humbled me, every attendee was fluent in English and was happy to interact in English, and I am normally proud of myself if I can order a beer abroad.
Estonia hosted this inaugural conference and had a lot of support from Oracle to promote the event. A favourite of UKOUG Tanel Poder is a native of Estonia although he currently lives in Singapore. He was given headline viewing along side Tom Kyte. I can only imagine how proud Tanel was to drive through his home town and see banners advertising his involvement in the event.
The line up of speakers was really good, Fellow presenters from the ACE Program were Piet de Visser , Francisco Munoz Alvarez , Joze Senegacnik, Dan Morgan and Tuomas Pystynen. ANother great friend of UKOUG Sue Harper had two sessions on SQL Developer.
In these photos you can see Tanel presenting and the great Chris Date who needs very little introduction was also a headline act and gave a number of presentations around database theory.
To wrap up the first day another ACE Director Mogens Nørgaard gave his normal informal view of all things Oracle. From the possible introduction of RAC into other vendors databases to an amusing but serious look at the Oracle Licensing Police.
I hope I haven't left anybody out and I want to say a special thank you to the four user group leaders especially Heli Helskyaho and her family who were such wonderful hosts to me. Tallinn was a beautiful city and I really will go back one day.
The entire event was held in English as that was the common language, something that humbled me, every attendee was fluent in English and was happy to interact in English, and I am normally proud of myself if I can order a beer abroad.Estonia hosted this inaugural conference and had a lot of support from Oracle to promote the event. A favourite of UKOUG Tanel Poder is a native of Estonia although he currently lives in Singapore. He was given headline viewing along side Tom Kyte. I can only imagine how proud Tanel was to drive through his home town and see banners advertising his involvement in the event.
The line up of speakers was really good, Fellow presenters from the ACE Program were Piet de Visser , Francisco Munoz Alvarez , Joze Senegacnik, Dan Morgan and Tuomas Pystynen. ANother great friend of UKOUG Sue Harper had two sessions on SQL Developer.
In these photos you can see Tanel presenting and the great Chris Date who needs very little introduction was also a headline act and gave a number of presentations around database theory.
To wrap up the first day another ACE Director Mogens Nørgaard gave his normal informal view of all things Oracle. From the possible introduction of RAC into other vendors databases to an amusing but serious look at the Oracle Licensing Police.
I hope I haven't left anybody out and I want to say a special thank you to the four user group leaders especially Heli Helskyaho and her family who were such wonderful hosts to me. Tallinn was a beautiful city and I really will go back one day.
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Leveraging The Web
When I was at school, I remember a specific class about learning and revision; it finally sank in that we all learn in different ways. Some of us learn stuff by heart, others have to visualise information, for me I have to break it down to its most simple and then build it back up again. I hope that is how I present as well.
When I revise I make lots of notes, and then reduce them to bullet points and then repeatably write them out until I remember them. When I took my Company Direction Diploma a few years back for my IOD Chartered Director, I had a whole year's work down to 4 sides of A4 paper, albeit typed and small font, but those two laminated pages where what got me through the exams.
Today's students, and we are all students of something, have many ways to take in information. The web has opened up a whole new world. I love the podcast although I don't use it as much as I should. I once was told I was recording a podcast on AIA for Oracle, and knew very little about it, so I downloaded two podcasts on the subject and listened to them for an entire 3 hour flight to Redwood, only to find when I got there I was recording on upgrading Oracle E Business Suite, something I knew a little more about.
In UKOUG our magazine Oracle Scene is available in both printed and electronic media. There have been moves to make it electronic only but I continue to fight that. Only one thing makes me prouder than to see the magazine in an Oracle Office Customer or Training Centre, and that is to see someone flicking through the pages.
We have too much email today, but for some it is how they get information. If you are a UKOUG member make sure your profile matches what you are so you only get targeted information, and for a great summary of what we have to offer, sign up for our e Bulletin. One email every other week.
I love Facebook, possibly too much, and had to invest in an iPhone so I could have a sneak preview at lunchtime or at coffee. Perhaps Facebook has seen its peak, to be replaced by twitter. Only today a friend tweeted 'Bang bang you're dead #facebook account'. I love twitter, especially the way you create a 'buzz' at an event and have even learnt thanks to wise advice from Cary Millsap to ensure I only update Facebook with non Oracle tweets, if I want to keep non Oracle friends.
I like LinkedIn and do use their forums. It appears I do it all, I have an OracleCommunity Account and Oracle Mix. Obviously I also blog. The reason my 'elevator' incident ranked so high in the Oracle Open World review for 2008 was because it showcased all the elements of 'Web 2.0'.
As an aside, how do I decide who to accept as 'friends'? A friend on Facebook once said, 'if you would have someone home for dinner', that is my bar. Sometimes I meet someone just for an hour, and it may be in a workplace setting, but if they intrigue me and I want to know more about them, share things with them, then I want them to be friends on Facebook.
We see many, many more webcasts nowadays and I like them for adding extra content for an existing community, I don't think they replace face to face meetings like our Special Interest Groups or conferences.
One medium I love is the video, and it is a great way to get a quick message across. I like the idea of it being used to advertise events, or to tell a quick story. The Miracle Channel concept is not unique but by far the most mature use of video in the Oracle world.
You see I want to reach a wide audience and everyone has their own way of learning. So when you want to get your message across remember the people you want to reach may use a different media than you. Personally I use what ever 'google' returns first. The web is only limited by our imagination.
When I revise I make lots of notes, and then reduce them to bullet points and then repeatably write them out until I remember them. When I took my Company Direction Diploma a few years back for my IOD Chartered Director, I had a whole year's work down to 4 sides of A4 paper, albeit typed and small font, but those two laminated pages where what got me through the exams.
Today's students, and we are all students of something, have many ways to take in information. The web has opened up a whole new world. I love the podcast although I don't use it as much as I should. I once was told I was recording a podcast on AIA for Oracle, and knew very little about it, so I downloaded two podcasts on the subject and listened to them for an entire 3 hour flight to Redwood, only to find when I got there I was recording on upgrading Oracle E Business Suite, something I knew a little more about.
In UKOUG our magazine Oracle Scene is available in both printed and electronic media. There have been moves to make it electronic only but I continue to fight that. Only one thing makes me prouder than to see the magazine in an Oracle Office Customer or Training Centre, and that is to see someone flicking through the pages.
We have too much email today, but for some it is how they get information. If you are a UKOUG member make sure your profile matches what you are so you only get targeted information, and for a great summary of what we have to offer, sign up for our e Bulletin. One email every other week.
I love Facebook, possibly too much, and had to invest in an iPhone so I could have a sneak preview at lunchtime or at coffee. Perhaps Facebook has seen its peak, to be replaced by twitter. Only today a friend tweeted 'Bang bang you're dead #facebook account'. I love twitter, especially the way you create a 'buzz' at an event and have even learnt thanks to wise advice from Cary Millsap to ensure I only update Facebook with non Oracle tweets, if I want to keep non Oracle friends.
I like LinkedIn and do use their forums. It appears I do it all, I have an OracleCommunity Account and Oracle Mix. Obviously I also blog. The reason my 'elevator' incident ranked so high in the Oracle Open World review for 2008 was because it showcased all the elements of 'Web 2.0'.
As an aside, how do I decide who to accept as 'friends'? A friend on Facebook once said, 'if you would have someone home for dinner', that is my bar. Sometimes I meet someone just for an hour, and it may be in a workplace setting, but if they intrigue me and I want to know more about them, share things with them, then I want them to be friends on Facebook.
We see many, many more webcasts nowadays and I like them for adding extra content for an existing community, I don't think they replace face to face meetings like our Special Interest Groups or conferences.
One medium I love is the video, and it is a great way to get a quick message across. I like the idea of it being used to advertise events, or to tell a quick story. The Miracle Channel concept is not unique but by far the most mature use of video in the Oracle world.
You see I want to reach a wide audience and everyone has their own way of learning. So when you want to get your message across remember the people you want to reach may use a different media than you. Personally I use what ever 'google' returns first. The web is only limited by our imagination.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
User experience comes to EMEA
Over the past few years you will have heard many people including myself talk about user experience and the great work oracle are doing in this area.
Almost two years ago they set up a usability advisory board in N. America which has met several times. Just before Oracle Open World 2009,I met with Anna Wichansky who runs this but was unable to actually attend their session at OOW. She told me she intended to set up an EMEA advisory board this year, well it has arrived, we met in TVP (Oracle's UK Head Office) today. I was proud, along with my colleague Lena Ward-Stewart to represent Fujitsu, both as an SI and a customer organsation.
There were 12 companies represented and I must commend Anna on the breadth of geographical coverage, range of industries and organisation types, there was both diversity and yet synergy. Each of the organisations gave a pitch about their org, their oracle use and their biggest usability issues. The advisory board is only successful if the members maintains confidentiality between them, Oracle and each other, so I can't share their stories but it was amazing to hear how similar things are, albeit with different business implications.
To demonstrate that Oracle really do listen Clive Swan, SVP Product Development responsible for HCM in Fusion, gave a keynote around Fusion Applications. He, as ever spoke passionately about where they are going but also an incredibly powerful pitch for Apps Unlimited, there was no confusion in his presentation, lesson here - talking about Fusion Apps and Apps Unlimited should and can be done together.
Clive talked about how usability is key to Fusion Apps but is also important to the Apps Unlimited development teams. This c level presentation was worthy of the big stage at OOW.
His Fusion Apps presentation today obviously had a slant on usability. In general usability will not be the biggest business driver, although the more I look at it the more I disagree with that statement that I first heard from Oracle Fusion Apps development themselves. Self service is one of the quickest ROI areas and if the user experience is powerful enough for users, their take up will be quicker. Also if your professional users can do their job faster and with less hassle it is more difficult to articulate the ROI but it is no less valuable. Oracle use KLM, Keystroke Level Modelling to compare Fusion Apps and Apps Unlimited and this industry recognised method shows improvements from a few percent to > 80, with an average of around 35%.
Clive clearly explained why usability is beyond just the screen look, he gave the example of the watch list, simple technology but really improves the user experience. Most importantly he stressed that usability was not a point in time investment by Oracle and that currently there is a push on mobile device usability.
The presentation started with the structure, the services, the processes and the role based user experience, this has been covered in public sessions by Oracle, but this was a very uncluttered, intelligent and straight forward look at the design. He talked about taking the Best of the Best processes, enhanced infused with next generation technology including web 2.0, SOA and Business Intelligence.
He talked through Oracle's strategy of Next generation Productivity, Adaptability and Manageability, focusing on productivity as that is the usability area.
Examples such as the watchlists which cover 'What do I need to know?' and 'What I need to do?' , the hierarchy viewer and contextual actions such as calendars for date fields and linking of locations with maps. Activity Guides for long processes such as on-boarding the 'How to get it done?'.
I keep saying it but some of the best speakers in Oracle work outside Redwood.
The advisory board finished after a very long day, that also included a celebratory cake, a tour of the usability labs in TVP, and an agreement to meet again, both virtually and in person. New friendships were made and I expect some will be comparing notes well before the next official event.
Photos show me with Lulit Bezuayehu, Principal Usability Engineer, and Anna Wichansky, Senior Director with Alisa Hamai, Senior Usability Engineer.
Almost two years ago they set up a usability advisory board in N. America which has met several times. Just before Oracle Open World 2009,I met with Anna Wichansky who runs this but was unable to actually attend their session at OOW. She told me she intended to set up an EMEA advisory board this year, well it has arrived, we met in TVP (Oracle's UK Head Office) today. I was proud, along with my colleague Lena Ward-Stewart to represent Fujitsu, both as an SI and a customer organsation.There were 12 companies represented and I must commend Anna on the breadth of geographical coverage, range of industries and organisation types, there was both diversity and yet synergy. Each of the organisations gave a pitch about their org, their oracle use and their biggest usability issues. The advisory board is only successful if the members maintains confidentiality between them, Oracle and each other, so I can't share their stories but it was amazing to hear how similar things are, albeit with different business implications.
To demonstrate that Oracle really do listen Clive Swan, SVP Product Development responsible for HCM in Fusion, gave a keynote around Fusion Applications. He, as ever spoke passionately about where they are going but also an incredibly powerful pitch for Apps Unlimited, there was no confusion in his presentation, lesson here - talking about Fusion Apps and Apps Unlimited should and can be done together.
Clive talked about how usability is key to Fusion Apps but is also important to the Apps Unlimited development teams. This c level presentation was worthy of the big stage at OOW.
His Fusion Apps presentation today obviously had a slant on usability. In general usability will not be the biggest business driver, although the more I look at it the more I disagree with that statement that I first heard from Oracle Fusion Apps development themselves. Self service is one of the quickest ROI areas and if the user experience is powerful enough for users, their take up will be quicker. Also if your professional users can do their job faster and with less hassle it is more difficult to articulate the ROI but it is no less valuable. Oracle use KLM, Keystroke Level Modelling to compare Fusion Apps and Apps Unlimited and this industry recognised method shows improvements from a few percent to > 80, with an average of around 35%.Clive clearly explained why usability is beyond just the screen look, he gave the example of the watch list, simple technology but really improves the user experience. Most importantly he stressed that usability was not a point in time investment by Oracle and that currently there is a push on mobile device usability.
The presentation started with the structure, the services, the processes and the role based user experience, this has been covered in public sessions by Oracle, but this was a very uncluttered, intelligent and straight forward look at the design. He talked about taking the Best of the Best processes, enhanced infused with next generation technology including web 2.0, SOA and Business Intelligence.
He talked through Oracle's strategy of Next generation Productivity, Adaptability and Manageability, focusing on productivity as that is the usability area.
Examples such as the watchlists which cover 'What do I need to know?' and 'What I need to do?' , the hierarchy viewer and contextual actions such as calendars for date fields and linking of locations with maps. Activity Guides for long processes such as on-boarding the 'How to get it done?'.
I keep saying it but some of the best speakers in Oracle work outside Redwood.
The advisory board finished after a very long day, that also included a celebratory cake, a tour of the usability labs in TVP, and an agreement to meet again, both virtually and in person. New friendships were made and I expect some will be comparing notes well before the next official event.
Photos show me with Lulit Bezuayehu, Principal Usability Engineer, and Anna Wichansky, Senior Director with Alisa Hamai, Senior Usability Engineer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)