Saturday 12 May 2012

The Danger of Assumption

It is important that as a speaker I have my own ideas and thoughts, but that is about my style and predictions, it is not right to make things up or mis-represent, we have obligations to be honest.

The most important measure of a speaker in our world is that if they don't know the answer they say so, and hopefully then go off and find out.

This seams really obvious but I have observed two things that question this.

Firstly I have heard from several people including recently, who don't understand the ACE Program that perhaps in exchange for the recognition you give up on your individualism, you follow the Oracle script. ABSOLUTLEY NOT, at ACE Director level a product manager confirms you 'know your stuff' but they certainly dont cramp your style.

I have written before about Cary and Mogens have completely different styles, and in the comments I suggested, well admitted, that I can be cynical, I certainly don't have a script.

Secondly and more importantly is the need to share only what is correct.

At Collaborate I had the honour of holding a Fusion Review session with Daniel Strassberg from Quest. We asked all the audience one by one what they had learnt about Fusion Applications during the week and if they had any outstanding questions. One person who is actually part of an implementation in his organisation, said he had heard too much mis-information especially from partners. I had personally heard a few assumptions I didn't agree with, but this man articulated the problem really well. it wasn't just a wrong assumption, taken at face value it is a lie, or at best deliberatly misleading. (thank you to Yury for asking me to elaborate here).

If what you are sharing is an assumption, research it and find out, or say so. Back to Cary he gives fantastic examples of this, especially one about a light bulb (at 8:00) in his phenomenal personal presentation, he talked about his son teaching him that an assumption can teach you and more importantly others, the wrong thing.

So some mis-information is a wrong assumption, and the same member of the audience then fell into the trap himself. Someone asked me if there was an upgrade from 11.5.10 to Fusion Apps. I explained that Oracle were only intending to provide data migration scripts from R12 to Fusion Apps. He interrupted and stated that his organisation had been given scripts from 11.5.10. I questioned him about it, and asked if they had been specially written for them and he said no, Oracle just gave it to them, standard scripts. After more questioning, it turned out they were a HCM Fusion Apps project and the tables between 11.5.10 and R12 haven't changed significantly, and they were able to use the R12 scripts. It would have been so easy to assume that Oracle had changed their mind about producing scripts for 11.5.10 and users to go home with mis-information.


4 comments:

Misha Vaughan said...

To second Debra's comments. If ACE Directors were just "voices of Oracle" then they would be employees. They are not.

An ACE Director's value is in their high degree of content excellence, paired with a passion for communicating from their OWN perspective.

Besides, all you have to do is meet an ACE Director in-person and you quickly realize they don't do "scripts". :-).

Cary Millsap said...

In fairness to Oracle Corporation and all who sail in her, I'll add, too, that even when I was an Oracle employee, I told the truth, and it worked out very well.

The important thing is to realize that, as Debra emphasized, the truth sometimes takes quite a bit of work to learn. The "truth" is not just whatever idea you happen to hold a the moment.

Truth is a responsibility, an important one, but it's hard work. As Mogens has told me, "The truth lasts longer, but the other one is easier."

Debra Lilley said...

I didn't mean Oracle naturally lie. They have their spin or marketing. The problem I had was where people had assumped or confused customers, and in the main it was partners.

everyone wants to work with Fusion Apps and at the moment few have

Joel Garry said...

"With Oracle9i you'll never see ORA-01555 again!" - New Features presenter, about a decade ago.

words: ytoesn feresurv