The presence of that sign isn’t surprising, because the borough of Queens, where I live, is one of the biggest melting pots on the planet. It’s called home by representatives of more than 100 nationalities. (The city claims Queens is the single most ethnically diverse urban area in the world.)
The timing of the holiday on the same week as Labor Day and back to school only enhances that September feeling one recalls from childhood of everything starting over anew. In a few weeks, the fresh will turn into frenetic fun, when many of us head to San Francisco for Oracle OpenWorld 2013.
To rev my brain up to OpenWorld speed, I’m going to apply the theme of annual renewal to our roundup, by surfacing some subjects I’ve been meaning to learn more about.
First on my list is database as a service. Rex Wang,
The publication is a quick and informative read; it’s only 44 pages. It’s particularly worthwhile if you’re a corporate manager looking to build a business case for cloud, because there’s a chapter incorporating a checklist of reasons for adoption and a roadmap to cloud (e.g., start with consolidation, progress to private cloud, etc. ).
Cloud services are emerging which focus on specific classes of users. The latest example is Oracle Government Cloud, announced this past Wednesday. This extends Oracle’s cloud presence with a secure offering built specifically for government users. In appealing to public-sector customers, compliance with their unique security, operational, and data storage requirements is key. Oracle Government Cloud will enable agencies to leverage multiple service options, with Software as a Service (SaaS) available now and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) coming soon. My OracleVoice colleague John Foley, who’s had long experience with government IT, will dive deeper into this in an upcoming post. Meanwhile, check out his “10 Game-Changing Developments In Government Clouds.”
Back to school season is a time to get reacquainted with old friends. In social media, the distinction between personal and business friends is often obscured. I used to joke that my bucket list included the intention of meeting all my
The experience of interacting with business associates on one’s personal accounts provides a good foundation for the next phase of adoption—social in the enterprise. This is already farther along than most people realize, and many software tools are available to support socially-enabled businesses.
However, we’re still early enough in the uptake cycle that usage rules are still emerging. Mike Stiles, senior content manager at Oracle, has some suggestions in his blog post “Oracle’s 8 Social Business Best Practices.” I’m going to make you click through to read Mike’s reasons. But I will blockquote his wise words of marketing caution:
“Social is not about pitching your stuff. Social is how the public builds its perception of you, how it lets you get to know them, and how it wants to interact with you for any number of reasons. And it’s about the resulting overall customer experience that wins you raves or slams—very public ones.”
For folks out of school, September is often a time for career assessment. (See how I’m sticking with the September theme throughout the post?) The Profit Magazine piece, “Seeing Employees as More Than Their Job Description,” is aimed at managers with team members who feel underutilized. The prescription for enhancing their involvement includes finding ways to enrich the job with new and varied tasks and mentoring them.
Regardless of where you reside in the corporate hierarchy, if you get a paycheck then you’ll be interested in “The 10 Companies With The Biggest Jumps In Employee Happiness.” Note that the article ranks businesses according to their year-over-year improvement in “happiness,” as opposed to arranging them according to highest score. My employer, Oracle, came in fourth, with a 9.4% bump in reasons to be cheerful.
That’s good news, because it means I can outro with this YouTube link to Bobby McFerrin’s 1988 hit, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Actually, I recall that the song became so pervasive as to become annoying. But the link’s allowable, because the video is on EMI’s authorized channel.
You’ll have to search for yourself if you want to join the 1.4 million people who’ve viewed the countervailing sentiment expressed in Todd Rundgren’s “Bang the Drum All Day.” Finally, readers old enough to remember bands like the Clash—folks under 40 should know that they did not get heavy contemporaneous airplay—may wonder why I didn’t hotlink the final four words in the previous paragraph. It’s because clickers would’ve rightly expected a jobs story. So here’s that missing link.
What’s on your September agenda? Let me know via e-mail, here, or follow me on Twitter at @awolfe58.
For Further Reading from OracleVoice:
5 Pearls Of Ancient Wisdom For Modern CIOs
Top 10 Signs Your IT Department Has Tunnel Vision
Why Digital Disruption May Put You Out of Your Job And Into An Entrepreneurial Career
Doug Engelbart’s Legacy of Innovation Inspiration
Complexity Barrier Makes IT Matter More Than Ever
