Author: jim.czuprynski

Tim Hall’s recent blog post on his decade of experience as an Oracle ACE Director (and now as a Developer Champion) prompted me to think over my own experiences as an ACE Director since 2014. My perspectives are a bit different because of my different roles since I was awarded that status to my surprise in March of that year, but I’ve got a lot of similar experiences to share.

The Grind

For example, I recently took part in the far southern leg of the 2018 Latin America Oracle Developer Champion (LAODC) tour:

• I flew from Chicago to Sao Paolo, Brazil and then to Asuncion, Paraguay – an 11-hour journey – in standard coach seats, with a lengthy, unexpected delay that delayed my arrival until late that evening.
• I presented the next day, met with the user groups there, and then jumped on a plane with my colleagues to Santiago, Chile the next morning … except that meant flying east to Buenos Aires at 3 AM to fly back west to Santiago.
• The rest of the trip – 11 days, five cities, nine presentations – left very little time to really get more than a taste of these marvelous countries and cities. I’m not complaining – I’m just explaining these aren’t vacations, they’re deeply serious exchanges with our colleagues to help explain some of the finer points of Oracle application and database technology, and a chance to mentor our younger colleagues as they traverse their careers as IT professionals.
• Yes, we do celebrate a bit at our speakers’ dinners, and there’s a lot of camaraderie and shared stories, but after 11 days I was glad to take an afternoon off, take a break from talking about anything related to technology, and just catch up on a bit more sleep.

And that’s just one extended conference I attended this year. I just added up my scheduled events for 2018 and by mid-December, I will have presented at four major regional conferences in the USA (COLLABORATE, KSCOPE, GLOC, and ECO), two in Europe (DOAG and UKOUG), and close to a dozen smaller regional Oracle user groups and conferences.

• As Tim mentioned, ACE Directors do receive some limited compensation for these events, but trust me, we’re not traveling in business class unless we pay for it ourselves or use accumulated miles. I’ve only done that when I need to arrive in fighting shape and ready to present the next day. Think more RyanAir and Southwest than Emirates or British Airways, and you’ll get the picture.
• Before I was an ACE Director, I funded almost all of my conference attendance and travel on my own dime; a major conference can cost as much as $2000 once airfare, hotel, and other travel expenses are accounted for – but that doesn’t include the lost billing time if you are working as an independent contractor, or have to take vacation time to attend.
• Full disclosure: As the Oracle SME for ViON Corporation, based out of Herndon, VA, my employer has sponsored my participation at many of these conferences, so I don’t have to pay for most of my travel to those events. However, that also means I often have to do double-duty at the company’s vendor table to help salespeople decode Oracle DBA tech-speak, and so I often miss out on conference content and chances to learn alongside the event’s attendees.

TANSTAAFL

As the saying goes, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Presenting at these events demands a commitment to experimenting with the technology that underlies the presentations, mastering how it works well enough to present it effectively, and spending time with other professionals – ACEs and Oracle Master Product Managers and technology experts like Bryn Llewelyn, Maria Colgan, Anil Nair, Dominic Giles, Gerald Venzl, Marc Sewtz, and Steven Feuerstein, just to name a few! – to understand precisely why something is working the way it does.

As Tim has already mentioned, this simply takes a lot of time, especially in the run-up to major conferences like COLLABORATE, KSCOPE and OpenWorld. And since my employer doesn’t pay me to experiment on their time, that means I’ve got to either dedicate some of my non-billable time to design tests that demonstrate what I’m presenting about. So that means it’s not unusual in January and February to kiss my wife goodnight at 9:30 PM and toddle down to my chilly basement home office for several hours of exploration, testing, frustration, success, and hopefully some sleep usually in the wee hours of the morning.

It doesn’t end there, of course; with Oracle’s new release schedule, there are significant new features coming out every few months, and that means I’ve got to tweak, re-tweak, and rebuild at least a few slides between conferences and user group events. As I like to remind people, at most events you can usually find an ACE Director at the end of the hotel bar typing madly on his keyboard until the presentation is as close to perfect as possible.

So Why Do I Do It?

If this sounds a lot less glorious than you imagine, you’re right. So why do I keep doing it? For several reasons:

• I absolutely love presenting. I am in the fortunate position of doing something I love: standing in front of a crowd (the bigger the better), talking about technology I understand pretty well, telling stories about what I’ve been through – especially the mistakes and disasters! – and even pontificating about what I believe the future holds for our industry. It’s unbelievably edifying to see a light go on above someone’s head when they learn something new, see something in a completely different light, or even disagree and debate a bit.
• I stand on the shoulders of giants. My mentors – Arup Nanda, Kerry Osborne, Tom Kyte, Daniel Morgan, Maria Colgan, Penny Avril, Tim and Kellyn Pot’vin Gorman, Jeff Smith, Charles Kim, Connor McDonald, and dozens of other presenters and Oracle ACEs too numerous to mention – gave me a boost up, helped nurture me as a presenter and writer, encouraged me to try for ACE – and it would be shameful not to pay that support forward.
• It’s time to give back. Most of all, I’ve spent almost four decades in IT, and I’ve seen a lot of stuff happen. If I’ve learned anything, it’s figuring out that sometimes it’s more important to know what not to do in a sticky situation that can save a database, a project, and even a whole team. There’s a whole new generation of DBAs and developers coming into our industry that could really benefit from my experiences, and the only way our industry – indeed, our civilization! – gets better is by transferring that knowledge and uplifting our colleagues. That’s my passion and my purpose.

Note: These observations are entirely my own, and are not endorsed by Oracle Corporation, the Oracle ACE program, or my current employer.

I know, I know … it’s been weeks since I finished participating in the 2018 Latin America Oracle Developer Champion (LAODC) tour, but I have an excuse: I’ve also been on vacation in the Galapagos and Ecuador for ten days, and then I took a brief break for some remedial surgery. This tour was one of the most intense ACE Director travel experiences of my life – nine presentations in five different cities over 11 days! – but I appreciated every moment of the opportunity.

My part of the tour got off to a rousing start in Asuncion, Paraguay at the PYOUG event with a visit from their internationally-famous Recycled Orchestra. The 30+ students constructed their instruments completely from recycled materials and presented several numbers to get our attendees revved up to learn all about Oracle technology, especially Cloud – which is ironic because Paraguay has just recently upgraded its national internet infrastructure sufficiently to allow their DBAs and developers to take advantage of Cloud offerings.

Next, it was time to scale the mighty Andes and head to Santiago, Chile, by way of Buenos Aires. (Just like in the USA, sometimes the shortest distance between two points … isn’t.) My newfound friend Marc Sewtz from Oracle – a wizard of all things APEX! – was my able traveling companion for an early-morning flight to Santiago.

We teamed up there with CLOUG, Anil Nair (master product manager for RAC), Connor MacDonald (of AskTom fame), and plenty of the local ACEs – nice meeting you, Alexis and Otavio! – for several excellent Oracle presentations, excellent company,  and some great Chilean wines and local beers. (Speaking is tougher work than it looks. We stayed thirsty, my friends.)

Next stop: Sao Paolo, Brazil, one of the true megacities of the world. We had a little extra down time upon arrival, so we joined up with ACE program commander Jennifer Nicholson at the magnificent Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) to view their collection of medieval and modern art.  A brief evening rainstorm didn’t cloud our spirits as we presented the next day on behalf of the GUOB and and their team to several hundred attendees.

Then it was time to head for the airport again and make the journey to Montevideo, Uruguay. I’ve dreamed of visiting Montevideo since I was in high school, and I was not disappointed – marvelous beaches and skylines, great company (nice to see you “at home,” Edelweiss Kammermann and Nelson Calero!), and a fantastic speakers’ dinner at the old Ferry Building that’s been converted to an open-air restaurant locus. Jennifer, Anil, and Marc even tried their hand at being cocineros for a few minutes. Montevideo had numerous squares scattered across the city on our way to our UYOUG hosts as well – a pleasant reminder of what I like about my native Chicago too.

Finally, I ended my part of the tour with a visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Buquebus ferry across the Rio de la Plata speedily delivered us to our hotel just down the street from the famous and magnificent Obelisco in the Plaza de Republica, a tribute to Buenos Aires’ founding in 1812. We spent a long day with ACEs and speakers at AROUG, and after another marvellous dinner at an Argentinian steakhouse, I set my sights towards my trip to Quito, Ecuador to join my wife to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary aboard ship bound for the Galapagos.

This trip was the culmination of a dream I’ve had since my teenage years – to actually see the cities and countries of America del Sur Australes that I’d only read about. I encountered vibrant Oracle User Groups and ACEs in every country I visited, as well as DBAs and developers that were hungry for the knowledge that I and my fellow ACEs and Oracle team members delivered. Thanks so much for the opportunity to present within your marvelous side of the world, my friends and colleagues!

Oh, and one more thing: I discovered that the Spanish word for developer in South America is desarrollador. How sexy is that?

The first-ever OTN Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Tour is finished at last, and it was one of the most invigorating conferences I’ve ever attended and participated in. Many of my fellow Oracle ACEs and ACE Directors crossed 12 time zones to spend seven days in five cities on two continents to share our knowledge of all things Oracle with young and enthusiastic attendees at every stop.

The Tour

Our first stop on the tour was Bizerte, the oldest city in Tunisia not far from Tunis, the capital of Tunisia and the site of ancient Carthage. Tunisia is the country that ignited the “Arab Spring” in 2010, and the country is still healing its wounds from that conflict.

But the enthusiasm of the young IT professionals in Bizrete and the rural city of Beja, “City of Wheat” and the second stop on our tour, was infectious. The magnificent coastlines and spectacular seaside views took everyone’s breath away, and the hospitality of our new Tunisian comrades showed us was humbling and endearing. We even had a chance to walk the best-preserved set of ancient Roman ruins in all of North Africa in Dougga.

The IT workers, students, and teachers we met in Tunisia inspired us because even in what most of us in the West might call a developing country, the reach of IT technology is impressive, as every attendee at both conferences had at least one mobile device. Tunisia’s future certainly seems bright, and we hope our passion for IT left our attendees with the confidence to pursue their dreams for themselves as well as their nascent country and economy.

Riyadh, the capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and our third stop, gave us a deep look into Saudi culture and its people. The young IT professionals there were hungry for our team’s knowledge. They showed us unbounded hospitality, displayed a proud passion for their Muslim culture, and picked our Oracle ACE brains on everything until almost 0200 the next morning.

Jeddah, our fourth stop on the tour, is a bustling commercial seaport that is also closest to Mecca and thus closest to the hearts of my newfound Muslim brothers and sisters. A young crowd of IT professionals braved a humid weekend morning to hear us speak all too briefly before leaving the KSA.

In a single word: Dubai is magnificent. It was a fitting final venue for our tour because its sudden emergence from a desert in less than 20 years mirrors the growing importance of an IT industry that truly dominates all people and cultures in every corner of the world. Its futuristic skyline was second only to all the young professionals from the ARABOUG user group that took the time to join us for the outstanding final day of the tour; it gave us our best look at the future of IT in the far Middle East.

Our Cast of Characters

Mike Ault, our most senior ACE, was discomfited by illness for most of the tour and did most of the speaking anyway. Mike’s deep experience with performance tuning gave attendees a deep look under the covers of Oracle databases. But it was his perseverance that inspired all of us to “keep calm and carry on” even when presentations ran over, travel plans went awry, or taxis were too small.

Bjoern Rost, a veteran of several ACE tours, brought his unique perspective to every venue and gathering. And contrary to world opinion, Germans do have a wicked sense of humor… even when his only response to our best jokes was, “That’s not funny.” Bjorn’s deep dives into Oracle 12c features were simply outstanding, and his emergency emcee-ing in Dubai made our final day of the tour a success.

Edward Roske crystallized exactly what Big Data is, how it’s still evolving, and why our attendees should care about it. His presentations were simply outstanding and I know I speak for our whole team that his verve and focus taught us all how to relate better with our audiences. Edward’s deep business knowledge and customer centricity also blew me away; I learned more in 20 minutes listening to him explain how to see business issues from our customer’s position than I’d learned from any formal class I’ve taken in the last 25 years.

Syed Jaffar Hussein presented on Oracle database security features – extremely important in a world where as much as 80% of data theft happens inside the firewall! – and gave us great hospitality in Riyadh. His enthusiasm for his town and culture added a lot to our enjoyment of Riyadh, especially our visit to the Kingdom Tower.

Imran Ullah Bukhari’s presentation on application and database performance tuning from the design phase forward made a great impression on our audience in Riyadh. His deep understanding of KSA’s culture helped us navigate what could’ve been potential disasters, and he truly embodied the tradition of hospitality in the Arab world.

Joel Perez, the lone South American ACE on the tour, presented on zero-downtime Oracle database migration strategies and captured our audience in Dubai with his energy and knowledge. His enthusiasm was infectious, and his passion for the perfect photo of our team after our final presentations that day tightened the bond between we happy few Oracle ACEs on our tour.

Osama Mustafa brought his ready smile and enthusiasm to Dubai as we wrapped up our tour there. His expertise on high availability principles for Oracle Middleware shone through his presentation, and I hope to learn even more from him during our next tours together.

Finally, I’ve got to acknowledge Tariq Farooq, our fearless leader, without whom this tour would’ve been impossible. Tariq’s knowledge of the region and its people, his ability to speak Arabic and negotiate our path to success even when the odds seemed against us, his deep reverence of Islam and the ways of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), and his undaunting sense of humor knitted us into a true “band of brothers.” When we look back at the 2015 MENA tour, its success will have been built upon the seeds that Tariq planted in the deserts, cities, towns, and OUG communities in Tunisia, KSA and Dubai in 2014. Until then, as my new Arab brothers and sisters say in almost every sentence: Insh’Allah.