Saturday 18 September 2010

ACE Directors' Briefing

Twice a year OTN offer briefings for ACE Directors From Oracle Product Managers. The program covers a large part of the stack so not every session is going to be your area. In fact there are only a few of us in the Applications area so we can't expect a lot of direct content. However I love these days because you get to hear the broad spectrum and where it is going.

Over time the PMs have learnt we don't want full presentations, just the main points and then discussion. This is the real value, ACE Directors are by their very membership of the program, experts in their field, and the questions are well articulated and thought out. Yes I may not understand it all but there are people in the room who do, and they are happy to share.

Product Managers and ACE Directors are passionate about the tools they use and that means the debates can stray into the contentious but this level of debate helps Oracle to 'touch base' with the best of their users. Relationships are formed and the discussions continue well beyond the event. Remember this is the last two working days before OOW and these PMs are very busy people and yet they still make the time to come and tall to us.

This week has surpassed all the previous briefings, we are under NDA so the content can't be talked about yet. The run up to Oracle Open World does mean there are announcements to be made there and the briefings kicked off with Thomas Kurian sharing these with us. This man really cares about what he does and it was great to witness. What a way to start the two days! Then we had a succession of PMs telling us the highlights and answering questions from the floor.

I also want to point out that if our particular specialism is covered we are already plugged into Product Management and these sessions are probably not a lot net new for us. The real value is learning about the other areas that touch you, or may do in the future. So we join the ACE Program as an expert in a particular area but we get the same high level access most of the Oracle. Thank you Oracle, we appreciate it.

Big thanks as ever to Justin, Vikki and Lillian

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