28/05/2010 by Simon Tomey.

If you’re looking for Sympathy its in the dictionary between “Shit” and “Syphilis”

I had a great conversation with Struan yesterday - a good friend mine of mine who I can highly recommend as a high performance coach (mindset specialists focusing on behavioural change). I’ve been wrestling with some things recently and Struan reminded me that it’s great to look forward to what we have, rather than to lament in what we think we have lost.  Afterwards I visited the Tate Britain for the first time in over 13 years and visited what seemed like a roomful of dear old friends (PRB paintings such as Ophelia, Triumph of the Innocents, April’s love). 

One of my favourite PRB’s is “the Lady of Shallot”.  A painting which is not only technically excellent, but almost dripping with pathos and which draws me into a great sadness for the beautiful lady of who loses her life of shadows as she encounters the real world (which spurns her).  It is right indeed to feel moved by this painting and its romantic theme.  There is a deep yearning in us all as we long to slay dragons, but end up measuring out our lives in coffee spoons¹ and living our lives in quiet desperation².  However, in the same way that it would be wrong to ignore the pain of the Lady of Shallot, it would be wrong to surrender to the view that all is lost.  The reality is that life is good and not just good it is very good and abundantly so.  No more is this evident at present with the British spring, with new life bursting forth everywhere we look (even in crowded London).  We have the power of new life in us, but often chose the wallow in the evocative sweet sadness of the Lady of Shallot rather than courageously fight to improve things.  It is interesting that, in the Lady of Shallot, it is the potent knight Sir Lancelot who awakens the Lady to life, but also he who fails to rescue her. 

I think this applies especially in our current social and economic climate as we lament that “the future is not what it used to be”, rather than courageously doing the hard work required to bring great change and improvements in the organisations we come into contact with. I love working with BeLife and the great team of consultants we have as we bring small but real benefit to Oracle users. 

Notes:

1.       T. S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1919)

2.       Henry David Thoreau “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

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28/05/2010 by Roshan.

If there was a single document that was the source of all our cultural assumptions, these three words (or something a little more eloquent, perhaps beginning, “We hold these truths…”), would be in the opening paragraph. Each word speaks volumes.

I

The locus of our culture is the individual. We rarely think of ourselves as intrinsically part of indissoluble collectives. Want to change country? All you have to do is find another willing to accept you as citizen. Want to change company? Hand in a letter of resignation. Want to change family? There are ways of making that happen. We are a culture used to thinking about ourselves primarily in the first person singular.

Own

We are a society of owners. We care very much for our things. We define ourselves by our stuff. Most of our work and much of our waking lives are spent in the acquisition and enjoyment of things that we own.

Me

Here the simple sentence becomes very meaningful. Our society ripples out from the core assertion that individuals have primary possession of their time, labour, intelligence and creativity. Because I am not a slave to a master, have no feudal duties to a lord, and no essential loyalty to a sovereign, I am the owner of my body, my time and the products of my mind and labour.

Much of our culture from sexual ethics to education policy is built on this assumption. Education becomes about the maximization of individual potential. Similarly, the only sexual taboos that can remain are those against non-consensual behaviour. Marriages can be reneged if the partners choose to part.

Extrapolated out, this assumption has become the framework of Capitalism. Billions of I own me’s trading the fruits of their work with each other in an attempt to increase the scope of their ownership.

What if the core assumption was wrong? What if fundamentally, I am much more complex than a package of self-ownership? What if you, by virtue of being human also, had important claims on me that I own me cannot acknowledge? And, with what words should we talk about we?

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09/01/2010 by Simon Tomey.

We understand the requirement to be to get this cake into your tummy …but don’t worry we have a 30 second window and team of consultants on hand who are equipped with installation accelerators.

I attended another great conference at the UKOUG in December this year. It was good to catch up with some old friends, make new acquaintances and learn more. My contribution to the presentations this year was “BI Publisher and a Reporting Roadmap”. You can get the slides here http://www.oracle.belife.co.uk/BeLife%20-%20BI%20and%20the%20Reporting%20Road%20Map%20v1.0%20pps.zip

The presentation was initiated by what seemed to be a universal view that sponsoring and implementing some BI projects was a bit like convincing your FD to eat a Christmas cake whole in 30 seconds flat (and pay several hundred thousand pounds for the privilege). I think that you can implement great Oracle BI one slice at a time – starting with the EBS free and integrated functionality found in BI Publisher and progressing piecemeal to the powerful and impressive OBIEE. Here’s what I think are characteristics of a good BI roadmap:

• Benefits
  You can get benefits whenever you stop. You don’t have to continue to the bitter end, if you’ve taken a wrong turn.
• Low Risk & Cost
  Pleasant surprises only. Minimise risk and cost.
• You’re in Control
  Get consultants to advise you and transfer the knowledge so that you are in control of the project & the technology and can combine it with your deep business knowledge and expertise.
• Supported & Sustainable
  Ensure the components are Oracle compatible and on future roadmap.

We are introducing a “BI Publisher template library” as an excellent way to kick start the implementation of the rich and useful functionality in BI Publisher. See http://www.BIPTemplates.com for more details.

Check out the presentation and tell me what you think.

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