After this year’s Oracle MSCE event, I was reminiscing about the Agile Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Oracle events I participated in over the years. First the Agilities as an Agile employee, including the legendary Agilities in Las Vegas (Bellagio) and Orlando (Disney) – veritable lovefests for the Agile product. Then, the more subdued corporate Agility after the Oracle acquisition, and finally, the token presence of manufacturing applications at Oracle OpenWorld.
With MSCE, however, Oracle finally figured out how to give enterprise manufacturing applications their time in the sun. I have been to all MSCEs, including the first one in San Francisco, as an independent consultant. In this most recent one (MSCE 2017), however, I participated as an employee of an Oracle partner, Zero Wait-State. And boy, does that make a difference. This blog contrasts my experience as an attendee on both sides of the fence -- as an independent consultant vs. partner employee -- and sheds light on why one would ditch the world of independent consulting in favor of joining an Oracle partner.
The most noticeable difference is that as an independent consultant, I didn’t have booth duty and thus I had the time to actually go to sessions and hear about the exciting things people were doing with Agile. Other Oracle partners did not consider me to be a competitive threat because I subcontracted to many of them. And, customers or prospects did not think I was trying to sell them anything and subsequently would genuinely ask for my opinion. I miss those interactions. And, for the record, my years of PLM experience haven’t diminished nor lost value since leaving the independent consulting arena. The question then becomes, how do I build trust as an employee of a partner? More on that later.
So, the other side of the fence – attending MSCE as an employee of a partner. As I said earlier, the first difference is booth duty. Given that the show floor was open the entire time, there just wasn’t enough time to attend the sessions I wanted to attend, experience “living” in the Agile community, and learn from speakers and the questions answered during their sessions. 
Secondly, once you man a booth or identify as someone working for an Oracle partner, the relationship to people changes as well. Customers and prospects think that because you are talking to them you are trying to sell them something. Oracle partners start seeing you as the competition and a threat to their business. And most disappointing, Oracle people (including ex-colleagues) talk to the partner as a piece in their (chess) ecosystem they need to maneuver and position just right, not to you as an individual anymore. Granted, there are some exceptions. Thankfully, some of the folks that shared life in the Agile trenches with me have not changed one bit.
Why then, did I jump the fence and join an Oracle partner company? After reading my thoughts above, you would think I had lost a good chunk of my professional identity and crossed over to the “dark side”. Fortunately, this is not the case. In fact, being part of a partner comes with major advantages not available otherwise. For starters, you are now invited to speak authoritatively as an Oracle Agile PLM expert, reinforcing yourself as a thought leader. You also get to participate in customer dinners, host "birds of a feather" lunches, and attend other exclusive partner events. Most importantly, you are introduced to companies you would otherwise not get to meet. As PLM is being redefined because of the move of companies and applications to the cloud, it is important for me to be in touch with these leading companies and get a feel for the ideas that are emerging.
Fortunately, Zero Wait State has these types of customers and is interested in building out the necessary infrastructure and frameworks to support those ideas, which is why I accepted the position to manage and define those new products. Just look at some of the educational product webinars we have done in this regard in the past months. We have many exciting new products and enhancement to our existing product portfolio on the horizon, thanks in part to the intel we gathered at MSCE this year. And now that I’m full time with ZWS, I look forward to you continuing to reach out to me to discuss your PLM challenges and new ideas. I’m still YOUR partner; don’t lose sight of my years of PLM experience just because I’m on the other side of the fence. I have even more to offer now!
One last thought. Granted, this is just one perspective after attending only one MSCE as an employee of a partner. Talk to me next year to see if my experience in 2017 was a fluke or if it is a trend.
What are your thoughts on this? Please comment below.
