I Left Oracle

I haven’t written on my blog at all in 2020 yet and I have never gone a whole year without blogging so I thought I would share my move out of Oracle that has been my home for 22 years, 7 months and 23 days.

Too many great memories to list, but I took this photo from my office window when I went to clear it out. I am immensely proud of the 8 patents that I was granted (still have a handful pending, it takes several years for them to be granted) not because it is recognition of doing new and groundbreaking things, but because every one of them has multiple names on them. The creative and collaborative work with amazingly bright people are the memories I will hold most dear. I was lucky to work with so many amazing people at Oracle and as we come to the end of 2020 I am a little sad I did not get to say goodbye properly, but I am hoping for a get together with everyone some time next year, maybe to mark one year after leaving!

Blockchain Sessions at Oracle OpenWorld

Next week is Oracle OpenWorld our annual conference that will take over San Francisco.  The past few years I have presented a session about Blockchain, but this year I will be presenting Oracle Financials Overview, Strategy and Roadmap
(Wednesday 11:15 AM | Moscone West Room 2006/2008 ) instead.

However there is no need to fear, there are plenty of other sessions to choose form if you are interested in Blockchain, I listed all of them below

• An Enterprise Digital Transformation Playbook Using IoT, Blockchain, and AI [PRO5788]

  SPEAKERS

  Jai Suri, Senior Director, Product Management, Oracle

  Bhagat Nainani, Group Vice President, Oracle

  Jeff Blattner, Director of IT, Titan International

  • SCHEDULEMonday, September 16, 12:15 PM – 01:00 PM | Moscone West – Room 2012
• Best Practices for Developing Advanced Blockchain Solutions [TIP3492]

  SPEAKERS

  Deepak Goel, Senior Director, Software Development, Oracle

  Todd Little, Architect, Oracle

  • SCHEDULEThursday, September 19, 01:15 PM – 02:00 PM | Moscone South – Room 210
• Blockchain and End-to-End Audit Trail Validation with 360kompany [BUS1653]

  SPEAKERS

  Peter Bainbridge-Clayton, CTO, 360kompany AG

  Russell Perry, CEO, kompany (360kompany AG)

  • SCHEDULEMonday, September 16, 02:45 PM – 03:30 PM | Moscone West – Room 3020B
• Bridge Physical and Digital Retailing with 3D Blockchain [BUS6083]

  SPEAKERS

  Mario Vollbracht, Global Director, Consumer Markets, ISG, Oracle

  Dinesh Dhamija, President & CTO, Smartrac

  • SCHEDULEWednesday, September 18, 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM | Moscone West – Room 3012
• Containing the Opioid Crisis with Oracle Cloud [CON3379]

  SPEAKERS

  Maharshi Desai, Cloud Solution Hub Senior Manager, Oracle

  Bob Nevins, Director of Health and Human Services Strategy, Oracle

  • SCHEDULETuesday, September 17, 12:30 PM – 01:15 PM | Moscone South – Room 156B
• Creating Trusted Supply Chain Networks with Oracle Blockchain Platform [HOL5995]

  SPEAKERS

  Deepak Goel, Senior Director, Software Development, Oracle

  Todd Little, Architect, Oracle

  Jared Li, Sr Director Software Development, Oracle

  Brijesh Deo, Principal Member of Technical Staff, Oracle

  Bala Vellanki, Product Management, Oracle

  • SCHEDULEMonday, September 16, 02:30 PM – 03:30 PM | Moscone West – Room 3019
  • SCHEDULEThursday, September 19, 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM | Moscone West – Room 3019
• Cutting-Edge New Tech in Oracle Database: Microservices, Blockchain, Streaming [CON4669]

  SPEAKERS

  Wei Hu, Senior Vice President, High Availability & Emerging Technologies, Oracle

  • SCHEDULETuesday, September 17, 05:15 PM – 06:00 PM | Moscone South – Room 155D
• Enterprise Blockchain Is Real: Production Apps on Oracle Blockchain Platform [BUS3490]

  SPEAKERS

  umberto arrighini, CIO, fabbrica d’Armi p. Beretta spa

  Zhu Kuang Lee, Standard Chartered Bank

  Mark Rakhmilevich, Senior Director, Blockchain Product Management, Oracle

  • SCHEDULEThursday, September 19, 12:15 PM – 01:00 PM | Moscone South – Room 152B
• Exploit Technology Innovations Today with Smarter Enterprise Applications [PRO5699]

  SPEAKERS

  Simon Nicholson, Oracle

  Krishnan Rajan, GVP, Oracle

  Eric Rogge, Product Management, Oracle Digital Assistant, Oracle

  • SCHEDULEThursday, September 19, 09:00 AM – 10:30 AM | Moscone West – Room 2006/2008
• Extend Oracle SaaS and Design New Experiences with Intelligent Automation [GEN6040]

  SPEAKERS

  Antonia Casamassima, Chief Information Officer, Ferrari S.p.A.

  Salvatore Ancoretti, Head of Customer Marketing, Ferrari spa

  Suhas Uliyar, Vice President, Product Management, Digital Assistant/AI & Integration, Oracle

  • SCHEDULEWednesday, September 18, 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM | Moscone South – Room 207/208
• How Blockchain Will Revolutionize Multi-Enterprise Supply Chain Networks [CON5793]

  SPEAKERS

  Michael Richter, Director Product Marketing, Emerging Technologies, Oracle

  Prasen Palvankar, Senior Director Product Management, Oracle

  Rajan Kashyap, Head of Solutions and Blockchain Center of Excellence, Birlasoft

  • SCHEDULETuesday, September 17, 04:15 PM – 05:00 PM | Moscone West – Room 2009C
• How Retailers and Brands Can Take Advantage of Blockchain [CON6098]

  SPEAKERS

  Gerald Poncet, Senior Director, Consumer Markets, Oracle Industry Solutions Group, Oracle

  Nikhil Vadgama, Deputy Director, University College London

  • SCHEDULEWednesday, September 18, 04:45 PM – 05:30 PM | Moscone West – Room 3012
• Industry 4.0–Based Smart Factory in Action [THT5391]

  SPEAKERS

  Sheetal Prasad, Chief Enterprise Architect, Senior Practice Director, Oracle

  Hemanth Gujjola, Technical Manager, Oracle

  • SCHEDULEMonday, September 16, 02:45 PM – 03:05 PM | The Exchange (Moscone South) – Theater 2
  • SCHEDULEWednesday, September 18, 03:30 PM – 03:50 PM | The Exchange (Moscone South) – Theater 1
• Making Blockchain a Reality for Retailers and Brands [PAN6099]

  SPEAKERS

  Gerald Poncet, Senior Director, Consumer Markets, Oracle Industry Solutions Group, Oracle

  Lukas Puender, Co-Founder, retraced GmbH

  Nikhil Vadgama, Deputy Director, University College London

  Vojko Kercan, Managing Director, Dhimahi d.o.o.

  • SCHEDULEWednesday, September 18, 09:00 AM – 09:45 AM | Moscone West – Room 3012
• Modernizing Intercompany Billing Using a Permissioned Blockchain Platform [PAN6441]

  SPEAKERS

  Gary Crisci, Principle Architect, General Electric

  Mark Rakhmilevich, Senior Director, Blockchain Product Management, Oracle

  • SCHEDULEWednesday, September 18, 10:00 AM – 10:45 AM | Moscone South – Room 209
• Optimize Your Supply Chain Performance with Oracle SCM Cloud [CON4933]

  SPEAKERS

  Rahul Asthana, Senior Director, SCM Product Marketing, Oracle

  • SCHEDULEThursday, September 19, 09:00 AM – 09:45 AM | Moscone West – Room 2011A
• Oracle Blockchain: Helping Reduce Carbon Emissions and Find the Tastiest Steak [CAS1787]

  SPEAKERS

  Karl O’ Connell, CIO, I.C.B.F.

  • SCHEDULEWednesday, September 18, 10:00 AM – 10:45 AM | Moscone South – Room 152B
• Oracle Blockchain Platform Integration with OAuth 2.0 [TRN5099]

  SPEAKERS

  Tapas Pramanik, Principal Technical Support Engineer, Oracle

  • SCHEDULEThursday, September 19, 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM | Moscone West – Room 3003
• Oracle Cloud: The Next Big Things [GEN3248]

  SPEAKERS

  Douglas Johnson-Poensgen, CEO, Circulor

  Ashish Mohindroo, Vice President, Oracle Cloud, Oracle

  Diego Netto, Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Booster

  • JOIN WAITLISTTuesday, September 17, 12:30 PM – 01:15 PM | Moscone South – Room 207/208
• Payment Modernization with Open and Agile Frameworks [BUS6281]

  SPEAKERS

  Karthick Prasad, Vice President, FSGBU, Oracle

  • SCHEDULEWednesday, September 18, 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM | Moscone West – Room 3004
• Revolutionizing Finance and Supply Chain Powered by Blockchain [CON6588]

  SPEAKERS

  SHAGUN GOYAL, Oracle Digital Finance and Blockchain Leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP

  Richard Pumphret, Finance & Enterprise Performance Blockchain Leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP

  • SCHEDULEMonday, September 16, 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM | Moscone West – Room 2011B
• The State of Analytics and Machine Learning [CON5884]

  SPEAKERS

  Shyam Varan Nath, Director IoT & Cloud, BIWA User Group

  Dan Vlamis, CEO – President, Vlamis Software Solutions, Inc.

  • SCHEDULEMonday, September 16, 12:15 PM – 01:00 PM | Moscone West – Room 3016
• Transformative Potential of Blockchain Technology in Healthcare Payer [CON6175]

  SPEAKERS

  Srini Venkatasanthanam, Vice President, Oracle Health Insurance, Oracle

  Mark Rakhmilevich, Senior Director, Blockchain Product Management, Oracle

  • SCHEDULETuesday, September 17, 04:15 PM – 05:00 PM | Moscone West – Room 3004
• Trust and Visibility in Business Networks Using Oracle Intelligent Track and Trace [PRO5794]

  SPEAKERS

  Michael Richter, Director Product Marketing, Emerging Technologies, Oracle

  Prasen Palvankar, Senior Director Product Management, Oracle

  • SCHEDULEThursday, September 19, 01:15 PM – 02:00 PM | Moscone West – Room 2000
• Using Oracle Blockchain to Prove the Ethical Sourcing of Conflict Minerals [CAS2567]

  SPEAKERS

  Douglas Johnson-Poensgen, CEO, Circulor

  • SCHEDULETuesday, September 17, 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM | Moscone West – Room 3007A
• Using Process Automation and Integration to Manage Blockchain and B2B Transactions [PAN5844]

  SPEAKERS

  Nathan Angstadt, Director Product Management, Oracle

  DIBYA MOHAPATRA, Technical Manager, Avaya Inc.

  Michael Meiner, Director, Product Management, Oracle

  • SCHEDULEThursday, September 19, 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM | Moscone South – Room 210
• What’s New in Oracle Blockchain Platform [PRO3489]

  SPEAKERS

  Deepak Goel, Senior Director, Software Development, Oracle

  Gary Crisci, Principle Architect, General Electric

  Frank Xiong, GVP, Oracle

  • SCHEDULETuesday, September 17, 12:30 PM – 01:15 PM | Moscone South – Room 213

 

My Favorite Enterprise Blockchain Articles

For the past few years I have been working on Blockchain for Enterprises, and I get a lot of questions about where to get started.  There are a lot of complicated explanations about the technology of blockchain, but I try to talk about how Blockchain (or Distributed Ledger Technology) is different to traditional databases; where it can be useful and how it will be adopted.  If these things interest you too, then you will find the articles below a good starting point.  I’m thrilled that I have had articles published in some prestigious publications, I hope you enjoy them.  As always, I love feedback and discussions so please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Forbes: 4 Real World Blockchain Use Cases

These four design patterns are a good way to categorize use cases and also stimulate ideas for use cases in your industry.

Channel Futures: Making Sense of Where Blockchain Can Impact Your Business

This is a more comprehensive (but very readable) explanation of the four patterns of use cases in a guest blog post I authored back in 2017.

Wall Street Journal: Why Blockchain Will Fundamentally Change Corporate Finance

This article captures a lot of important points in how back office functions will be impacted by Blockchain technology.

Database Trends and Applications: Why Permissioned Blockchain Technology Is Important to Enterprises

My article explains how blockchains are different to a database and why for some applications they are a better option.  It was exciting to have this highlighted on the cover of the print edition last year.

Forbes: What Will Spark The Blockchain Explosion?

Some thoughts on where we will see the enterprise uptakes and what factors are needed for the “Killer App” to evolve.

Bloomberg Accounting Blog: Lack of Consensus Reigns with Blockchain

I was interviewed for this article after presenting at a conference, I like that they opened with:

“one of the common bifurcations of blockchain types is between private and public blockchains, such as explained here in a blog on the AICPA website. David Haimes, believes this to be a “false dichotomy.”

The article is a good read and I get to explain the differences between Permissioned versus Permissionless Blockchain networks.

 

 

Join me at Oracle OpenWorld

In under two weeks Oracle will have it’s annual conference here in San Francisco and it should be a very exciting time.  I will be talking about Blockchain technology and how it is applicable to Enterprise Applications and business processes, with a particular focus on ERP applications.

I will also be putting my faith in the conference WiFi and showing some demos of prototypes we are working on.

My session details are below, last year my session was full so I advise you to register (here) as soon as possible to be sure you get a spot.

Blockchain Applications Use Cases and Live Demos [PRO6215]

In this session learn where Blockchain can add real business value and how it fits into existing enterprise business applications ecosystems. See the types of patterns across multiple industries, including real-world examples. The session also includes live demos of a number of Blockchain applications.

 

David Haimes, Senior Director, Oracle

Wednesday, Oct 24, 11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | Moscone South – Room 154

Learn About Blockchain at Oracle OpenWorld

In less than two weeks tens of thousands of Oracle’s customers and partners will gathering for our annual conference in San Francisco.  It’s always an exciting time, but this year I am more excited than normal because I’ll be talking about some of our work on Blockchain technology.  Blockchain, or Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is one of the most exciting and disruptive technologies to emerge for a very long time and I’ve been quietly researching and working with it for quite a while in semi stealth mode (if you follow me on twitter you probably picked up on this) and this year a lot of Oracle experts will start showing you some of our work and sharing our views and insights.  Given the level of interest in the topic, I expect all the Blockchain related sessions to be packed houses so register for them as soon as you can to avoid disappointment.

So three ways to find Blockchain sessions

1. Use this Focus on Blockchain document that lists keynotes, demo, sessions, hands on and panel discussions.
2. Go to the session Catalog and use the handy filter as seen below
   
3. Just use this link to register for sessions I’m presenting
   

Oracle Joins Hyperledger and my Blockchain Session at Oracle OpenWorld

Although it was announced in an Oracle blog post a few weeks ago, there was an announcement from Hyperledger today which has been picked up by coindesk and a lot of other news outlets.

I have been working on/with Blockchain or Disitributed Ledger Techncology(DLT)* for some time, as have many, many people inside Oracle.  I have also been talking to A LOT of our customers, because when a technology has the possibility to make huge transformations to the way we do business, collaboration is critical.  I love that I am able to not only be part of the conversation on how the technology evolves, but also how enterprises will be able to benefit from it and how it will impact existing applications and business processes in the short, medium and long term.

I will share some of my work in my session at Oracle OpenWorld in a few weeks, so if you are coming to San Francisco for that, hopefully you’ll join me at the below session (register now in case it gets fully booked)

There are plenty of other sessions discussing Blockchain, watch this space for a comprehensive list.

 

*The controversy on what is a Blockchain and what is DLT merits a blog post all of its own.

I’m speaking at Collaborate 17 in Las Vegas

This year will be my sixth year at Collaborate, according to my recollection I first presented there in 2011 and have only missed one year (2013) since then.  It’s going to be a shorter visit than usual, so apologies if I don’t get to connect with you or attend your session.  Here is where you can find me…

Monday

Two of the most knowledgeable speakers you will see are speaking at the same time, there should be a law against it.  I might shuttle between the two, because I don’t want to miss either presentations

2:45 PM– Jasmine H – Mohan Iyer

How do I know where to use – FAH, FAHRCS or SLA?

2: 45 – South Seas I – Thomas Simkiss

Tips and Tricks – Get the most out of Financial Reporting in the Oracle Cloud

4:15 Jasmine H – General Ledger SIG – Always a good knowledgeable crowd.

Tuesday

7am – Morning run

Join myself, Peter Care (@FXLoader) and hopefully quite a few others for as many laps of the Mandalay bay pool complex as you feel up to.  This is now officially an annual tradition, we ought to get OAUG to put it in the agenda.  Best way to blow away the cobwebs and energize yourself for the day ahead.

8:30am – Keynote –  Glenn Finch, IBM

I have been quietly spending a lot of time around blockchain for some time now, so this got my attention.  If you don’t know about blockchain you should, I’m happy to talk about it at any opportunity.  This excerpt from the description should give you an idea how big it really can be

“emerging technologies such as Blockchain, Cognitive and Quantum Computing will do more than change our businesses. They will transform industries and create their own ecosystems “

Expect to hear more from me about blockchain as the year goes on.

1:30pm – I’m speaking about @FAHRCS

Come see my session – 1:30 PM–2:30 PM South Seas G

How E-Business Suite Customers have achieved modern reporting in the cloud

2:15pm – Fintech Design Jam

I’m a mentor for this two hour Design Jam run by the Applications UX Innovation Events team.  If you have not registered not sure if there is time now, but if you already are I will see you there.  Our goal is to help the teams tell a story about how they would use Fintech in their work, helping them hone in on a manageable 3 minute story showcasing their design.

5pm – airport… (and breathe).

 

Is Your Job At Risk Of Automation?

Last week I blogged about Automated Accountants, which was discussing chatbot use cases rather than full automation of a person. However the concept of automating what knowledge workers do today to the point were we really do have a fully automated accountant is something I have been researching too.

I had a twitter discussion with Vinnie Mirchandani (@dealarchitect) about automation as he is authoring a book on the subject.  I agree with him that dirty and dangerous jobs are the first candidates for automation, but I also believe knowledge jobs are good candidates too and it will happen faster than many expect.  In the world of finance we have seen continual adoption of technology to move us from paper based Ledgers to highly automated cloud accounting software with integrated reporting, social networks, mobile etc. I think the pace of change will accelerate because new technology is now so easy to adopt in the cloud and innovations are rolled out faster than ever before.  So automation will happen quicker for those corporations that are already adopting these cloud based business applications.

I came across an interesting article on the BBC entitled Will a Robot Take My Job? which has some nice tools to let you search for your job and determine how likely it is to be automated and despite my earlier assertions I was surprised that accounting professions were so high on the list of those that would be automated.  You can see my summary graphic below

The full report from Oxford University’s Martin School is worth a read as it goes into a lot of detail of skills that are hard for a machine to replicate and those that are easier so you can understand the reasoning behind the ratings.  My profession in software development has a pretty low chance of being automated, I have to come up with original ideas and negotiate and these are things it is harder (at the moment) for machines to automate but it might just be a matter of time.

This will not happen in one shot, but over time more and more tasks will be automated, which is good because it will give is some time to think about the much bigger issue; what do we do now so much of what we as a workforce do is automated?  The common wisdom is the workers will gradually move to work on higher value tasks that cannot easily be automated and drive greater and greater value.  There is a lot of evidence to support this, but that discussion probably deserves a blog post of it’s own.

Automated Accountants: Personal Assistant Technology

In my house, Alexa (aka Amazon Echo) is part of the family.  My young children check the weather whilst eating their breakfast, see how their favorite sports teams are doing, get some jokes, movie times and anything that pops into their head they will just “Ask Alexa”.  They also have a lot of fun seeing how Apple’s Siri and Alexa answer the same questions and which works better for what.  Observing these interactions and interacting myself has been a very good hands on research exercise and I have been thinking for a while of enterprise applications.

We can use personal assistant technology bots to use context and intelligence to provide a natural interface and increase participation in our cloud applications.We can increase participation on two groups of users

• Casual Users
  • They have infrequent and limited interactions with the applications and do not have the time, or the training and familiarity with the capabilities to participate effectively.  They don’t know what information they can get, never mind how to get it.
• Power Users
  • For these users it is about reducing the time it takes to do highly repetitive or UI intensive tasks.  This is like me at home getting sports scores or weather from Amazon Echo, I could easily look it up on my phone but it is easier to just say “Alexa, weather” whilst I am pouring my coffee.

I put together a team to enter a hackothon by our UX innovation team last month and we tried to focus on the former use case.  A high level manager who is very busy, runs a team of 50-100 people and manages to budgets but does not have a secretary.  We imagined her wanting to know details of budgets and implemented three flows

1. Inquiry on remaining budget
2. Details of who spent a budget on what
3. Transfer funds from one budget to another (say from travel to computer hardware)

We spent a lot of time trying to make the interactions as natural as possible, so getting the natural language trained correctly was key and we also wanted to use Amazon Echo, IM and SMS messages to interact with the live data in an ERP Cloud environment.

It was a great experience and we learned a lot technically. but probably more of a revelation was the different design strategy for these types of interaction.  The other teams also did some amazing things(read the event review here) so we were pleased to pick up third place overall and the People’s Choice Award (voted on by all the participants).

I fully expect Automated Personal Assistants to be a key interaction model for Enterprise applications going forward, just as we are seeing them start to take off in the consumer space.   Exciting times.

The Times They Are A Changing

Nobel Prize Winner

I am focusing on some new things here at Oracle.  I’ll be dedicating a lot more of my time looking into emerging technology trends and how we should be applying them to the enterprise ERP or financial management space.

So how does this effect this blog?

I’ve been blogging for many years on Intercompany, Financial Management and ERP, mixing in some general technology posts.  Now I plan to start writing about new technology trends a lot more.  I have always been interested in this, but now I have more time to get deeper into it and I find blogging about things helps me understand them better and get feedback and insight from others, so it is a win-win.  I have enjoyed all the comments on the blog and words of encouragement that people have given me in person, that has been a huge motivation to continue writing (even tho I have been posting as frequently as I would like the last few years) and respond to comments.  I hope that feedback will continue.

So now I have got this announcement out of the way, I can get started… watch this space.