I was hoping that I'd find time to blog regular updates during the Open World week, but this proved a lot more difficult than I anticipated. There was simply so much going on during the days and evenings plus I had to continue with my day job; building Fusion GL and Intercompany Applications (that's the day job I can't blog a lot about). So to summarize my Open World, I saw a lot of people, talked a lot about Oracle, presented an Intercompany Session, spent some time on the DEMO booth and was exhausted at the end of it all.
I was going to attempt to write a review of the week, but there's so much to say and so many people to remember to give a mention that now is not the time. I will focus on one particular area, the DEMO grounds; working here is IMO the hardest job at Open World (although I haven't actually done all the jobs so what do I know?). What you do is stand there for four or five hours at a time and wait for people to come and ask you to Demo anything they want to see or ask you any question at all vaguely related to the area you are covering. You get questions ranging from 'Can you tell me the differentiators between Oracle Apps and SAP?' or 'What's new in R12?' to 'I have logged SR number X and I'm not sure I agree with the response, can you take a look?'. The eBusiness suite area seemed pretty busy this year and we often had a decent size group of people gathered round, which can be tough but it's good that people are interested. The conversations that I most enjoyed were when somebody had a customization in 11i that they thought they could replace with standard functionality in R12 and I could confirm they were right. However the most amazing thing about the demo booth is the amount you learn about how customers actually use, or would like to use our products and the real day to day issues they have around implementing, manging and extending them to meet business needs.
What do you think about the DEMO grounds, best place to go and get questions answered? Or are they somewhere you avoid? If you worked there, let me know what your experience was - sound off in the Comments.
Monday, September 29, 2008
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4 comments:
Wish the DEMO grounds were not lumped into the Exhibition Hall. Getting to a DEMO pod requires one to run the vendor gauntlet - often an irritating and unpleasant experience
Floyd,
I have heard a few people complain that we're buried right at the back of the exhibit hall, not sure if anything can be done about that I'll ask around.
I consider it an achievement if I get through the exhit hall without collecting any branded desk toys that will get in my way for the next 12 months.
I agree with you about this being one of the hardest jobs but in a sick way I find it the most interesting as well. I think I like the challenge of the range (which you described perfectly). You just can't fake it working on the demo grounds.
Meg,
Agreed there is nowhere to hide on a demo booth - trust me I've tried ;)
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