Saturday, September 18 was basically an off-day (or a travel day) for most Open World attendees, but it was one of the best days of my life.
My wife and I stayed out in the East Bay with my best friend from college, Mark, who is the chief pilot for North Face. Mark and I are both die-hard Michigan football fans, so we got to watch the Michigan game together. We did not, however, expect the game to be such a thriller, so my adrenaline was running high during and after the game, but the best adrenaline rush was yet to come.
After the game we drove down to Livermore airport to meet with one of my customers, Tony Banta. Tony is quite an interesting guy in that he was an air force test pilot, was in the astronaut corps, and later went on to be the director of worldwide manufacturing for Cisco Systems. His current company, Calix, recently implemented Dodeca for production forecasting and Tony raves about the cost savings it has generated. In fact, he gave us this quote:
"Dodeca can answer simply the questions that can't be answered simply"
He was literally talking about their implementation and said that line; I stopped him so I could write it down word-for-word.
Tony and I also get along because he is also a pilot. I have a pretty cool plane, a Cessna 210, but Tony has some really cool planes. Saturday afternoon I got to fly in one of them. Here is a video my wife, Darlene, took when we flew over them after takeoff. The best part of the video, frankly, is her scream and laugh..
In case you don't recognize the plane, it is a P-51 Mustang which is the airplane that saved Europe in WWII. A picture of one of these airplanes has hung over my desk for many years now as a reminder to work hard so I can earn one, but this is the first time I have actually been in one. My laptop machine name is Mustang. This flight confirms it.. I want one! I told my wife I will now have to double the hours I work (from 12/day) in order to earn one..
I will post more video from the ride after Open World.
Showing posts with label OpenWorld Oracle ACE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OpenWorld Oracle ACE. Show all posts
Oracle OpenWorld 2007 Part 7
The next topics I will cover are the special events at OpenWorld. OpenWorld featured several events that were similar to previous Hyperion conferences and some events that didn’t have an equivalent. First, both OpenWorld and Hyperion Solutions had a welcome party. The OpenWorld event, unlike Hyperion welcome parties that I remember, actually had a theme. The party was entitled “A Night of Nostalgia” and was held in the Howard Street tent. Unfortunately, I can’t give you any details on the party because I did go.
Instead of going to the opening party, I attended the Oracle ACE dinner that was held at the historic FlyTrap Restaurant just down the street from the Moscone Center. Hyperion never had anything like this where they actually recognized people from the community that help other users (which is something I happen to like to do). I immediately met Emily Yip. She runs the Oracle ACE program and basically a very nice person (and no, I am not just saying that so she will send me more OTN t-shirts). One of the things I discussed with Emily was working together to create a team of Hyperion-related Oracle ACE’s. If you think you fit the profile of an ACE, please email me and I can guide you on the nomination process. Of course, they have a committee at Oracle that reviews the nominations and makes the awards so I can’t help you on that end. Oh, and the swag was unique. We all got red Oracle ACE vests that say ‘Oracle ACE’ (or Oracle ACE Director) on the front and have a huge black ace symbol on the back. It is kind of a cool vest and I felt a bit obligated to wear it but I did feel a little like I was wearing a bowling shirt.
During the dinner (which was delicious), I managed to find and sit with the Oracle Java Gurus. Some of the ACE’s at my table, in fact, were noted Oracle authors so, as an absolute geek, I feel as though I was at home. Next year, however, maybe we can have a table that discusses Hyperion stuff.
On Monday there was a Hyperion Customer Appreciation event at the Westin St Francis hotel on Union Square. There you could hobnob with some of the former Hyperion executives including John Kopcke (Hyperion Chief Technology Officer) and Robert Gersten (Hyperion Chief Development Officer) but the food vanished very quickly. There were many familiar faces from the Hyperion world between Hyperion employees, partners and customers.
After that event, the same hotel hosted the Oracle Technical Network (OTN) “Meet You There” night. They had games (Oracle Jeopardy), music and a Linux “install-fest”. Hyperion never had anything like that at the Solutions conferences and, frankly, the technical content of the Hyperion conferences seemed to decline over the years.
The big event for the week was the Oracle OpenWorld Appreciation Event which is similar in concept to what the Solutions Tuesday night events used to be. The event is essentially a three stage concert festival staged at the historical Cow Palace which has also hosted, among others, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors. This is the only event, that I am aware of, that is not walking distance from the Moscone and nearby hotels. Unfortunately, I missed the bus as I was at a dinner with some Hyperion friend and had to cab it to the venue and it cost about $25 to get there. The headliners, who played simultaneously, were Billy Joel, Lenny Kravitz and Stevie Nicks with Mick Fleetwood. Some of my friends wandered between the stages but I stayed at Billy Joel. I saw the others within the last few years but had never been to a Billy Joel concert; I thought it was really good.
Finally, Oracle has a Thursday night ‘It’s a Wrap’ party at the Howard Street tent. This year, it featured two different bands and was highlighted by the grand prize drawing sponsored by Hitachi. During the Expo hours, there was a game you could play by visiting as many of the 30 or so kiosks scattered throughout the 2 separate Expo halls; this game got you entered into the drawing for the grand prize which was a new car. Hyperion never had anything like that. If fact, the ‘closing’ for the Hyperion conference essentially was that you went to one of the central meeting areas and picked up a sack lunch. No fanfare at all.
I still need to write about the Expo halls and will try to do that within the next few days.
Instead of going to the opening party, I attended the Oracle ACE dinner that was held at the historic FlyTrap Restaurant just down the street from the Moscone Center. Hyperion never had anything like this where they actually recognized people from the community that help other users (which is something I happen to like to do). I immediately met Emily Yip. She runs the Oracle ACE program and basically a very nice person (and no, I am not just saying that so she will send me more OTN t-shirts
During the dinner (which was delicious), I managed to find and sit with the Oracle Java Gurus. Some of the ACE’s at my table, in fact, were noted Oracle authors so, as an absolute geek, I feel as though I was at home. Next year, however, maybe we can have a table that discusses Hyperion stuff.
On Monday there was a Hyperion Customer Appreciation event at the Westin St Francis hotel on Union Square. There you could hobnob with some of the former Hyperion executives including John Kopcke (Hyperion Chief Technology Officer) and Robert Gersten (Hyperion Chief Development Officer) but the food vanished very quickly. There were many familiar faces from the Hyperion world between Hyperion employees, partners and customers.
After that event, the same hotel hosted the Oracle Technical Network (OTN) “Meet You There” night. They had games (Oracle Jeopardy), music and a Linux “install-fest”. Hyperion never had anything like that at the Solutions conferences and, frankly, the technical content of the Hyperion conferences seemed to decline over the years.
The big event for the week was the Oracle OpenWorld Appreciation Event which is similar in concept to what the Solutions Tuesday night events used to be. The event is essentially a three stage concert festival staged at the historical Cow Palace which has also hosted, among others, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors. This is the only event, that I am aware of, that is not walking distance from the Moscone and nearby hotels. Unfortunately, I missed the bus as I was at a dinner with some Hyperion friend and had to cab it to the venue and it cost about $25 to get there. The headliners, who played simultaneously, were Billy Joel, Lenny Kravitz and Stevie Nicks with Mick Fleetwood. Some of my friends wandered between the stages but I stayed at Billy Joel. I saw the others within the last few years but had never been to a Billy Joel concert; I thought it was really good.
Finally, Oracle has a Thursday night ‘It’s a Wrap’ party at the Howard Street tent. This year, it featured two different bands and was highlighted by the grand prize drawing sponsored by Hitachi. During the Expo hours, there was a game you could play by visiting as many of the 30 or so kiosks scattered throughout the 2 separate Expo halls; this game got you entered into the drawing for the grand prize which was a new car. Hyperion never had anything like that. If fact, the ‘closing’ for the Hyperion conference essentially was that you went to one of the central meeting areas and picked up a sack lunch. No fanfare at all.
I still need to write about the Expo halls and will try to do that within the next few days.
Oracle Open World Trip - Days 1 and 2
I have blogger credentials for Oracle Open World 2010 and thus hope to do at least daily posts.
My trip started earlier in the week with the Oracle ACE Directors meeting at Oracle corporate headquarters. The ACE Directors meeting gives Oracle an opportunity to gather all of the ACE Directors together for a couple of reasons:
Second, the Hyperion applications look to me like they will be integrated into WebCenter; Hyperion Financial Close Manager already requires it if I am not mistaken. WebCenter is essentially the Oracle equivalent of Microsoft Sharepoint and will add good value to the stack.
My trip started earlier in the week with the Oracle ACE Directors meeting at Oracle corporate headquarters. The ACE Directors meeting gives Oracle an opportunity to gather all of the ACE Directors together for a couple of reasons:
- To communicate upcoming announcements at Open World.
- Give this group of experts in the Oracle community an opportunity to talk directly with the appropriate Oracle executives to better understand Oracle's direction and to give feedback from the community directly to Oracle management.
Second, the Hyperion applications look to me like they will be integrated into WebCenter; Hyperion Financial Close Manager already requires it if I am not mistaken. WebCenter is essentially the Oracle equivalent of Microsoft Sharepoint and will add good value to the stack.
Oracle OpenWorld 2007 Part 6
In addition to the Hyperion sessions I attended, I also went to a few Oracle sessions. Two of the sessions were technical sessions about the Oracle .NET providers and Oracle deployment best practices on Windows. Much of the information in those sessions is also available on the Oracle Technical Network (OTN) but the question and answer section at the end was very good. I also went to a session on project planning for OBIEE implementations. The information looked basically the same as what you would see on a large Hyperion implementation. Frankly, the reason I went to the session was that a friend from Oracle Consulting in Birmingham, AL was giving the talk. I had not seen Rob Reynolds since I left Intergraph in Huntsville, AL around 13 years ago. At that time, Rob was an intern working for my boss, Kipp Woodard. In a strange twist of fate, Kipp now works for me (although I pay him a lot more than he paid me. Hmmm...)
The Oracle session rooms seemed much larger than the Hyperion session rooms. The Oracle sessions I attended all had seating for perhaps 1,000 people but there were plenty of seats available in those sessions. There were 2 reasons for all of the space. First, the sessions didn't have core Oracle database or Oracle application topics; I would think those sessions would be harder to get into. Second, they were all late in the conference and much like the Hyperion conferences of the past, having a session late on the last day pretty much guaranteed you an empty room.
Between sessions at the Hyperion conferences there were almost always snacks and drinks. That is not so at the Oracle conference. Besides the events and the lounges (like the OTN lounge), the only food served at the conference was the lunch. Lunch was served in the huge tent located on Howard Street. The tent, which also served as the location for the welcome and closing parties, covered the complete street surface area of Howard Street between 3rd and 4th Street.
The drill for lunch was that you were guided into the tent, you presented your color coded lunch ticket for the specific day, and you walked through and picked up a box lunch. The boxes had things like turkey or roast beef sandwiches, a caprese sandwich, Thai chicken wrap or other 'special needs' (diabetic / vegetarian / religious) meals. You also picked up water. They had plenty of tables in the tent so it wasn't hard to find a seat. Lunch also seemed to open much longer than at the Hyperion conferences. In fact, I actually got to eat lunch 3 days in a row; that never happened at Solutions.
I wish the session scheduling had been a bit different. For me, there we a whole bunch of interesting Oracle sessions that were only offered on Monday and Tuesday which, of course, conflicted with the Hyperion sessions. Most sessions were not repeated so I was out of luck.
Keynotes at OpenWorld occur throughout the day. Despite my best intentions, I made to only one keynote during the week. The Michael Dell/Larry Ellison keynote was very interesting with some great content. While the old Solutions keynotes were heavily focused on marketing using customer success stories, this CEO keynote was much more product oriented. Michael Dell showed off some new Dell blade server technology that packs more power into a less power hungry frame (i.e. read ‘Green’ as seems to be the message for nearly every business now). He also showed off a new laptop that will be introduced soon the doubles as a tablet computer. The screen of this new laptop opens, then pivots and closes face open and uses touch input. It looks pretty cool but the screen is only 12” which is simply not enough for us developer types who run huge resolutions (and thus need bifocals very early in life).
Larry Ellison showed the first product from the Fusion strategy. It is a sales force automation tool that helps salespeople manage presentations. One of his demos was a sales presentation manager that used a jukebox paradigm with what appeared to be a preview of the first slide of the presentation. Each presentation also carried comments input by other users that have used the presentation. Visually, the web-based application looks very cool and reminded me of some of the UIs I have seen on the iPhone commercials.
It seems to be clear from that keynote that the company is a technology driven organization. I had heard recently that ‘Developers are King’ at Oracle and that seems to be true. In fact, I learned this week that Larry himself wrote some of the early database software. In those days, he was scrambling to fund the new company and was once weeks from facing foreclosure on his house. He has come a long way since then with the fighter jet toys, big houses and beautiful wife, but at heart he sounds like pretty much like the rest of us geeks (except he is living *really* big).
I have a couple of areas still to write about: Events and Expo.. I will try to start posting on these topics in a couple of days.
The Oracle session rooms seemed much larger than the Hyperion session rooms. The Oracle sessions I attended all had seating for perhaps 1,000 people but there were plenty of seats available in those sessions. There were 2 reasons for all of the space. First, the sessions didn't have core Oracle database or Oracle application topics; I would think those sessions would be harder to get into. Second, they were all late in the conference and much like the Hyperion conferences of the past, having a session late on the last day pretty much guaranteed you an empty room.
Between sessions at the Hyperion conferences there were almost always snacks and drinks. That is not so at the Oracle conference. Besides the events and the lounges (like the OTN lounge), the only food served at the conference was the lunch. Lunch was served in the huge tent located on Howard Street. The tent, which also served as the location for the welcome and closing parties, covered the complete street surface area of Howard Street between 3rd and 4th Street.
The drill for lunch was that you were guided into the tent, you presented your color coded lunch ticket for the specific day, and you walked through and picked up a box lunch. The boxes had things like turkey or roast beef sandwiches, a caprese sandwich, Thai chicken wrap or other 'special needs' (diabetic / vegetarian / religious) meals. You also picked up water. They had plenty of tables in the tent so it wasn't hard to find a seat. Lunch also seemed to open much longer than at the Hyperion conferences. In fact, I actually got to eat lunch 3 days in a row; that never happened at Solutions.
I wish the session scheduling had been a bit different. For me, there we a whole bunch of interesting Oracle sessions that were only offered on Monday and Tuesday which, of course, conflicted with the Hyperion sessions. Most sessions were not repeated so I was out of luck.
Keynotes at OpenWorld occur throughout the day. Despite my best intentions, I made to only one keynote during the week. The Michael Dell/Larry Ellison keynote was very interesting with some great content. While the old Solutions keynotes were heavily focused on marketing using customer success stories, this CEO keynote was much more product oriented. Michael Dell showed off some new Dell blade server technology that packs more power into a less power hungry frame (i.e. read ‘Green’ as seems to be the message for nearly every business now). He also showed off a new laptop that will be introduced soon the doubles as a tablet computer. The screen of this new laptop opens, then pivots and closes face open and uses touch input. It looks pretty cool but the screen is only 12” which is simply not enough for us developer types who run huge resolutions (and thus need bifocals very early in life).
Larry Ellison showed the first product from the Fusion strategy. It is a sales force automation tool that helps salespeople manage presentations. One of his demos was a sales presentation manager that used a jukebox paradigm with what appeared to be a preview of the first slide of the presentation. Each presentation also carried comments input by other users that have used the presentation. Visually, the web-based application looks very cool and reminded me of some of the UIs I have seen on the iPhone commercials.
It seems to be clear from that keynote that the company is a technology driven organization. I had heard recently that ‘Developers are King’ at Oracle and that seems to be true. In fact, I learned this week that Larry himself wrote some of the early database software. In those days, he was scrambling to fund the new company and was once weeks from facing foreclosure on his house. He has come a long way since then with the fighter jet toys, big houses and beautiful wife, but at heart he sounds like pretty much like the rest of us geeks (except he is living *really* big).
I have a couple of areas still to write about: Events and Expo.. I will try to start posting on these topics in a couple of days.
Open World 2009 / More
One of the coolest things happened after the conference was over. We were walking back to the Intercontinental Hotel, where my team stayed, and there was a bunch of police around the hotel including a number of canine units in the lobby. I literally thought it was a police dog convention until I found out President Obama was staying at the Intercontinental that night! I got to see him twice when his motorcade was leaving the hotel, first for a fundraiser and later to depart. They had everyone off the street, but I was standing just inside the glass doors of the hotel. When his car drove by when he left for the fundraiser, he glanced out the window and I gave him a thumbs up, wave and smile. He looked at me, broke out in a big smile and waved back! Half of my friends will think it was very cool that I slept under the same roof as the President (and apparently passed the background check I hear they did on all hotel guests). The other half will think I am nuts.
After leaving the hotel, my trip home from Open World was much smoother than my trip to San Francisco. My original seat assignment out of SF was a middle seat and I was fretting the trip. I tried to change my departure time in an effort to get a better seat but was told all flights were sold out until Sunday! Thank goodness for my (overpriced) American Express Platinum card! One of the primary benefits of this card is admission to many of the airline clubs including the American Airlines Admiral Club. There, the agents found me an exit row aisle seat. Perfect!
The plane was loaded with people returning from Open World. Interestingly enough, the person next to me was an Open World attendee who is an EPM consultant who concentrates on HFM. We spent nearly the entire flight to Dallas talking about EPM things and spent a bunch of time looking at, and discussing, Dodeca. There were some very interesting ideas that came out of the impromptu meeting. We even did the tourist thing of showing off pictures of our family before we got to Dallas. As it turns out, we both have beautiful wives. I wonder if that is yet another benefit of Oracle EPM?
Finally, due to innovations such as GotoMeeting, I don't travel much anymore. In fact, this is the first flight I have ever been on that has wireless. My wireless was free due to a try-it-free coupon I got at the Admirals Club (thanks again AMEX). I couldn't resist but to write my first blog entry at 35,000 feet!
After leaving the hotel, my trip home from Open World was much smoother than my trip to San Francisco. My original seat assignment out of SF was a middle seat and I was fretting the trip. I tried to change my departure time in an effort to get a better seat but was told all flights were sold out until Sunday! Thank goodness for my (overpriced) American Express Platinum card! One of the primary benefits of this card is admission to many of the airline clubs including the American Airlines Admiral Club. There, the agents found me an exit row aisle seat. Perfect!
The plane was loaded with people returning from Open World. Interestingly enough, the person next to me was an Open World attendee who is an EPM consultant who concentrates on HFM. We spent nearly the entire flight to Dallas talking about EPM things and spent a bunch of time looking at, and discussing, Dodeca. There were some very interesting ideas that came out of the impromptu meeting. We even did the tourist thing of showing off pictures of our family before we got to Dallas. As it turns out, we both have beautiful wives. I wonder if that is yet another benefit of Oracle EPM?
Finally, due to innovations such as GotoMeeting, I don't travel much anymore. In fact, this is the first flight I have ever been on that has wireless. My wireless was free due to a try-it-free coupon I got at the Admirals Club (thanks again AMEX). I couldn't resist but to write my first blog entry at 35,000 feet!
Open World Wrapup
Oracle Open World 2009 is now in the history books and I think it was a success both for our business and for Oracle customers in general. Some of the things I liked about Open World this year:
- The Hyperion Pavilion put many of the Hyperion EPM sessions in the same area. It also provided a place for Hyperion oriented vendors to display their wares via kiosks located in the Pavilion itself. As a vendor, we thought our participation was very successful as we were in and around our friends in our business and not lost in the crowd like the Hyperion vendors that chose to display in the larger Expo halls.
- The message from Oracle continues to be that both EPM and Essbase have very important strategic positions within the Oracle application stack. This is great news for everyone in the Hyperion/Essbase ecosystem.
- There seemed to be more Hyperion and Essbase sessions though none of them are technically oriented; Kaleidoscope is the place for technical Hyperion sessions.
- As part of my ODTUG Board of Directors responsibilities, I continued working with the Board of Directors and with the other user groups to provide great educational opportunities for our community.
- The Appreciation Party on Wednesday night rocked with Aerosmith, Roger Daltrey and others.
- It was great seeing the other ACEs and ACE Directors and discussing how we could collaborate in the future. The ACE Dinner was at a restaurant near this really cool Dodecahedron sculpture that was inspirational to me when we designed (and named) our Dodeca product.
Things that could be improved:
- The Essbase sessions were not in the Hyperion pavilion as that product is now sold by the 'Business Intelligence' sales team and not the 'EPM' sales team. Customers typically associate Essbase with Hyperion regardless of the sales rep, so perhaps in the future conference planners can look at it with that approach.
I will be back next year!
OOW 2009 Live Video Streaming
This year, Oracle OpenWorld 2009 will feature live video streaming for the first time. You can track the streaming on the Oracle wiki page at .http://wiki.oracle.com/page/OpenWorld+Live. You can see the streaming at the following URLs:
Oracle.com: http://www.oracle.com/us/openworld/034626
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Oracle?v=app_147809868015
Livestream: http://www.livestream.com/openworldlive
The live streaming is scheduled for the following times (pacific time):
Sun 10/11: 12:30 pm - 7:00 pm
Mon 10/12: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Tue 10/13: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Wed 10/15: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
They will also replay parts of the program through the night.
If you are at OpenWorld and want the chance to be 'on-camera', stop by the video streaming studio at the OTN Lounge in Moscone West. The OTN Lounge is also the place to go to talk tech with the Oracle ACEs, pickup some cool geeky Oracle T-Shirts and get your fill of Red Bull. See you there!
Oracle.com: http://www.oracle.com/us/openworld/034626
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Oracle?v=app_147809868015
Livestream: http://www.livestream.com/openworldlive
The live streaming is scheduled for the following times (pacific time):
Sun 10/11: 12:30 pm - 7:00 pm
Mon 10/12: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Tue 10/13: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Wed 10/15: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
They will also replay parts of the program through the night.
If you are at OpenWorld and want the chance to be 'on-camera', stop by the video streaming studio at the OTN Lounge in Moscone West. The OTN Lounge is also the place to go to talk tech with the Oracle ACEs, pickup some cool geeky Oracle T-Shirts and get your fill of Red Bull. See you there!
OOW 2009 Ace Directors Briefing
One of the biggest benefits afforded Oracle ACE Directors is the opportunity to be briefed on upcoming product developments by Oracle product managers. This was the first such briefing I was able to fit into my schedule at Oracle headquarters and it was very interesting to hear about some of the upcoming features in the expansive product line.
The briefing was all day Friday and thus I flew out Thursday on American Airlines. One of the reasons I picked American is due to the ads they ran a year or so ago where they claimed to have added 5" between the rows to give passengers more legroom. In my seat, it seemed as though they took 5" *away* between the seats. To use my laptop, I literally had to put the keyboard in my chest and look down at the screen in my lap. I normally fly to the west coast on Southwest despite the fact that I have to get to Nashville to catch the flight; this seems to be the most frequent destination for my personal airplane as I fly myself to Nashville, then ride Southwest from there. I think I have learned my lesson and will be on Southwest next time.
Oracle put all of the ACE Directors up at the Sofitel on Thursday night. I checked in, dumped my stuff in my room and headed downstairs. In the lobby I ran into Tracy McMullen, another EPM ACE Director and co-author of a number of Essbase and Planning books with Edward Roske. She was in town to work on the Planning beta, so we sat and talked for a bit. If you haven't had the pleasure to meet Tracy, she is not only one of the brightest minds in EPM, but she is very proud Mom who was heading home Friday for a birthday celebration for her 5-year-old.
At the briefing on Friday, there was some content on BI and EPM, however, much of the content was an introduction for the ACE Directors from other disciplines. One thing that was apparent from the presentation is the continued integration of EPM, and particularly Essbase, into the remainder of the Oracle product stack.
When the briefing was over, the ACE Directors boarded a bus for our hotel in San Francisco. All of the ACE Directors are at the Intercontinental Hotel beside Moscone West. It just so happens the Hyperion pavilion with a concentration of Hyperion vendor kiosks, is located at the Intercontinental. If you are coming to San Francisco, be sure to stop and visit our kiosk there (and pickup a Dodeca long-sleeve T-Shirt while supplies last!)
My evening ended after dinner with Edward Roske at a restaurant owned by an old friend. Gino Assaf, who formerly owned my favorite restaurant in the world, Restaurante Gondola, has opened a new Italian place in the Mission District called Speccio. If you get to San Francisco, I highly recommend you visit Gino and tell him I said hello!
The briefing was all day Friday and thus I flew out Thursday on American Airlines. One of the reasons I picked American is due to the ads they ran a year or so ago where they claimed to have added 5" between the rows to give passengers more legroom. In my seat, it seemed as though they took 5" *away* between the seats. To use my laptop, I literally had to put the keyboard in my chest and look down at the screen in my lap. I normally fly to the west coast on Southwest despite the fact that I have to get to Nashville to catch the flight; this seems to be the most frequent destination for my personal airplane as I fly myself to Nashville, then ride Southwest from there. I think I have learned my lesson and will be on Southwest next time.
Oracle put all of the ACE Directors up at the Sofitel on Thursday night. I checked in, dumped my stuff in my room and headed downstairs. In the lobby I ran into Tracy McMullen, another EPM ACE Director and co-author of a number of Essbase and Planning books with Edward Roske. She was in town to work on the Planning beta, so we sat and talked for a bit. If you haven't had the pleasure to meet Tracy, she is not only one of the brightest minds in EPM, but she is very proud Mom who was heading home Friday for a birthday celebration for her 5-year-old.
At the briefing on Friday, there was some content on BI and EPM, however, much of the content was an introduction for the ACE Directors from other disciplines. One thing that was apparent from the presentation is the continued integration of EPM, and particularly Essbase, into the remainder of the Oracle product stack.
When the briefing was over, the ACE Directors boarded a bus for our hotel in San Francisco. All of the ACE Directors are at the Intercontinental Hotel beside Moscone West. It just so happens the Hyperion pavilion with a concentration of Hyperion vendor kiosks, is located at the Intercontinental. If you are coming to San Francisco, be sure to stop and visit our kiosk there (and pickup a Dodeca long-sleeve T-Shirt while supplies last!)
My evening ended after dinner with Edward Roske at a restaurant owned by an old friend. Gino Assaf, who formerly owned my favorite restaurant in the world, Restaurante Gondola, has opened a new Italian place in the Mission District called Speccio. If you get to San Francisco, I highly recommend you visit Gino and tell him I said hello!
The ACE Vest
On one of my recent posts, fellow Oracle ACE Dan Norris left a comment; I had never visited his blog but took a quick look and found it was dedicated to the (much-maligned) Oracle ACE Vest.
I have the dubious honor of being the only Hyperion-oriented Oracle ACE that owns an Oracle ACE Vest. These vests were given out to attendees at the annual Oracle ACE Dinner at Oracle Open World in 2007. At that dinner, I did my best to share my Hyperion ideas with JDeveloper and Oracle Database tuning experts but the dinner seemed much like the old Stephen Wright joke.. "I like to reminisce with people I don't know.. Sure, it takes longer.."
At that dinner, we were given these nice red vests to identify us as Oracle ACEs. It certainly worked (at least for the two or three of us that had the cojones to wear them in public. Of course, I was a newly-minted ACE at that time so I wore mine all during OpenWorld 2007. By the way, the vest is bright red with a huge black ace symbol on the back. If I ever take up poker, maybe I will find an acceptable place to wear it in public again...
You can see the adventures that Dan's vest, nicknamed Stanley, on his blog at http://www.wtfistheacevest.com/.
I have the dubious honor of being the only Hyperion-oriented Oracle ACE that owns an Oracle ACE Vest. These vests were given out to attendees at the annual Oracle ACE Dinner at Oracle Open World in 2007. At that dinner, I did my best to share my Hyperion ideas with JDeveloper and Oracle Database tuning experts but the dinner seemed much like the old Stephen Wright joke.. "I like to reminisce with people I don't know.. Sure, it takes longer.."
At that dinner, we were given these nice red vests to identify us as Oracle ACEs. It certainly worked (at least for the two or three of us that had the cojones to wear them in public. Of course, I was a newly-minted ACE at that time so I wore mine all during OpenWorld 2007. By the way, the vest is bright red with a huge black ace symbol on the back. If I ever take up poker, maybe I will find an acceptable place to wear it in public again...
You can see the adventures that Dan's vest, nicknamed Stanley, on his blog at http://www.wtfistheacevest.com/.
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