I trust you’ve listened to Part the First of the interview with Gabby. This episode is better. Why? Simply because Gabby starts interviewing us and we get a taste of what it’s like to be on the other side of the metaphorical table.
I’m not going to reveal any more than that – it’s simply too good and if you don’t end up laughing at Gabby’s interrogation techniques and our squeamish answers, well, you simply don’t have a good sense of humor.
Join us, won’t you?
I (and the rest of your EPM Conversations hosts) first knew Gabby from his time in Essbase product management, a role he has long left. Celvin and I (50% of your host population) have been out of the Oracle space since 2017 so it’s difficult to remind ourselves that nothing stands still, and certainly not a dynamic personality like Gabby. Forgive us two if some of our questions dwell overmuch on the past, where Natalie’s and Tim’s are focused on today.
However, Gabby’s past story is one worth exploring as it informs the present – from the military to multiple startups to Big Red. Throughout it, he’s his inimitable self, bringing humor (yeah, this is the plug for the first episode, but wait till the second episode – it’s…incredible, and it doesn’t make sense unless this episode is heard first) and a playful wit to the performance management space.
HyperRoll and its first home in Oracle Express, ASO, the lawsuit, HyperRoll’s purchase by Oracle. just what exactly is Hybrid Essbase (the number of hours we’ve debated just what is happening under the covers), Essbase’s place today and tomorrow, working at small and large firms alike, helping out idiots who write multiple books on Essbase, and philosophy. That’s an awful lot to cover in an hour, hence this episode as part one of two.
Join us, won’t you?
This podcast is dipping its collective and metaphorical toe outside of the warm and cozy confines of performance management with a conversation with a guest whose job, passion, and personal interest is understanding the relationship of human behavior with business through the lens of marketing analytics. Join us, won’t you, on this fascinating conversation with Kevin Lawrence that is most definitely not within the scope of traditional EPM but most definitely within the scope of your interest.
Kevin’s had an interesting path, one that isn’t really the norm in our profoundly boring and all too predictable fascinating EPM world: from the arts to nonprofits to the Fortune 100 to Find The Loose Brick.
Numbers without an understanding of the nexus of business and people are meaningless. Kevin’s professional life has deeply informed how he and his clients understand how you and I interact with corporations and their products, services, and oh yeah: each other.
For you wee lads and lassies who weren’t around to hear this song when it first came out to witness the change in tools and corporate culture and customers (us) and of course analytic tools and how they are used has changed the introduction to this podcast will be informing. You’ve never had it so good.
For those of us who were, the evolution analytics path mirrors our own beloved performance management products.
Regardless of our experience, the need to understand how companies and their customers interact has remained exactly the same.
The present and the future of marketing analytics are in Kevin’s professional purview and should be for you as well.
Fascinating stuff and well worth the listen (I encourage you to enjoy both the video and the podcast but not at the same time) if you want to expand your horizons beyond the finance side of a business.
We hope you like the episode as much as we do. If you do enjoy it, please give us a good rating on the provider of your choice as it both bathes our ever-needy egos and also – and rather more importantly – allows listeners to more easily find us.
Join us, won’t you?
A polymath is, “a person of great and varied learning” although Mike is too modest to agree with that description. If you but listen to this conversation, you (and he) will see that it is a fair characterization.
NB – The above graphic isn’t for n00bs but instead for veteran EPM practitioners who recognize the graphical genius of the long-gone and much-lamented Arbor Software’s training decks. Mike has several ties to this as you’ll hear.
In addition to Yr. Obt. Svt., this conversation also has Natalie Delemar as our guest host and regular John Booth. This varying cast of characters is what I hope is the (or at least a) future of EPM Conversations. Tim, Celvin, John, and I are wonderful (ahem) hosts but there’s much, much, much more to EPM than us, cf. our guests and Natalie.
I’ve known (at least I was at the same conference although as I really and truly worked 100 hours that week in addition to presenting and working a booth so if I did meet Mike I have no recollection of it) Mike since Kscope 2009 in Carmel.
What I didn’t know was how much Mike has done: Atari 600xl owner, COMPUTE! magazine subscriber, English school teacher, roofing product computer operator/developer, operations management, Hyperion course writer, Essbase consultant, Planning consultant, Essbase PM, Big 4 consultant, startup analytics evangelist, Big 4 (but a different one) leader, and I’m sure a few more roles I’ve missed. What is crucial to understand and what is central to what Mike does and cares about is making sense of data, i.e. analytics.
We hope you like the episode as much as we do. If you do enjoy it, please give us a good rating on the provider of your choice as it both bathes our ever-needy egos and also – and rather more importantly – allows listeners to more easily find us.
Join us, won’t you?
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Amazon Music
RSS
Stitcher
iHeartRadio
TuneIn
Deezer
Overcast
PocketCasts
Castro
CastBox