Dispatch from Oracle Openworld 2012

Man, I am eating too much on this trip. Not drinking any more than I need to, to schmooze with partners, reps, and customers. But eating way, way too much. My first full night in town, I had two dinners. The next day, I was not happy.

Lots of activity. Meeting with many customers. Introducing those many customers to many product managers and many partners. Helped run an OAM workshop. Over 50 people showed up. Unfortunately, only about half the network bandwidth showed up. Some genius erased some VM images we needed. But it went well anyway, mostly due to the genius in charge, Chris.

Sat through a couple of very good sessions. Saw some third party trot out a couple of speakers who had great content but who could bore the pants off a sleeping dog. Say it like you mean it. Raise your voice a little. Pretend you care. Or else your audience sure won’t.

If you’re going to hire security guards and put uniforms on them and station them at all the critical junctures, give them an index card or cheat sheet so they can give even the barest of directions.

“Excuse me, they’ve closed off the shortcut for a special event, how do I get to Moscone North from here?”

“No idea. Ask that guy there.”

“Okay, excuse me, that guy there, how do I get to Moscone North?”

“Dunno.”

Now repeat this two dozen times.

I love how the company put real product managers at the demo pods and booth to answer real questions from real customers. Not demo dollies, guys who can run the little movie, but people who can actually answer the questions. That’s commitment. I very much appreciated that when walking my own customers up to these dedicated folks to authoritatively say when one product is merging with another, when additional functionality is expected, and when certain standards will be supported.

On Monday, got in a cab with some friends and it turned out to be Haydar’s Disco Cab. Every straight edge was lined with flashing lights, and he even had a couple of disco balls in there. Unbelievable.

Took the BART in each morning, which was remarkably easy and clean. But if you’re a rep and you want me to hang around at night to have martinis with your prospects, you’re going to figure out how I’m going to get back to my hotel. I’m not taking the BART back after midnight. In fact, does it even run that late?

And it’s a nice thought, but when the fire-breathing preacher with the bullhorn stands in front of Moscone West screaming how we’re all going to hell (and we’re in software, so we already know that), having the events guy stand in front of him doesn’t really help. We can still hear the guy. Just thought you’d like to know.