EPM Conversations Episode 19 – A Culture Clash Conversation Or Our Kith and Kin Across The Sea Explicit

It’s a Book, It’s a Podcast Episode, It’s Kismet

A bunch of geeks (native born, immigrants; Americans all) interviewing an Australian and a New Zealander/Australian/American (it’s complicated) set Yr. Obt. Svt. to immediately think of the title of this podcast (eh, I need to get more than one hobby), who then looked up the phrase and found that…it’s a travelogue of a New Zealander’s view of the USA, circa 1888.  Seriously, what are the chances that the Mind of Cameron (often non compos mentis, invariably kind of wacky) and reality and a not half bad title smack up against each other?  This podcast episode was destiny realized.

The point behind this (I have finally managed to get round to that) is that the ties between the Antipodes and the Americas are long standing.  This may make our Cousins wince in recognition, but in my travels to their lands, I’ve been markedly struck by the similarities.  Yes, of course different origins (although related), and different emphasis in politics and society, but not unrecognizably; culturally in outlook and aspirations, we are awfully alike.  Okay,  I think so, but do they?


What then is the value of a Culture Clash episode where people-who-are-practically-Americans (ahem) are interviewed by-people-who-are-practically-Aussies-and-Kiwis?  I have noted that those who are closest and yet different are often the best observers, for they are alike enough to understand nuance but separate enough to not be blinded by a common mindset.

Richard (the man of a million or so legitimate passports) and Pete (just the one country, but Godzone)  have lived/worked in the States.  Just what are their perceptions?  What are two very different (from the US-of-A) EPM markets like?

I should note that Pete got me the 2017 Best Kscope Essbase co-speaker award that I have always, always, always wanted.  My oh my, did I want that, did I ever think I deserved it – yes, cruel ego as it was always unfulfilled – and I never did get it till Pete and I did a presentation on Hybrid Essbase.  I will note that Pete has won multiple best speaker awards at Kscope, so I have a sneaking suspicion our joint award is 20% Cameron, 80% Pete but no matter, a win is a win.  I should also note that Kscope 2017 was my last Oracle conference as a speaker, so it made the reward all the sweeter.

Richard graciously was my host at Flinders Uni way back in (I think) 2012 as part of an ODTUG conference tour of the Antipodes and facilitated (orchestrated?) an ODI/Essbase presentation at NZOUG.  My primary memory of that trip (I was in a constant state of jet lag) was dinner with Richard and a bunch of attendees and being stared at as a Real Life American geek, not commonly seen in the wild, sitting there eating his plate of spag bol, feeling more self-conscious than usual were that possible.  Oh well, I like to provide entertainment to all, no matter the cost. 

Having the two of them on the show was and is a special treat.

Not For The Faint of Heart

For those of delicate disposition, easily offended by adult words, mortally insulted by honest, open, and frank conversation, I fear you must put on your big boy/girl pants and buckle up.  We Americans, cultural descendants of the Puritans, beseeched our guests to tone down the language lest you, Gentle Listener, get a case of the vapors.  They mostly complied, but You Have Been Warned.  That takes care of the North Americans; the rest of the world won’t care.

Sensitivities aside, as always our guests are witty, insightful, and extremely interesting.

EPM Conversations Episode 18 — A Culture Clash Conversation or Fro and To and Fro Again with Kishore Mukkamala and Sumit Deo

Why is Yr. Obt. Svt. not part of this podcast? Aren’t you glad I’m not?

The Culture Clash series has – from the feedback we’ve heard – been well received. Thus far it’s been Americans talking to our comrades in performance management arms about their experience in their home country and in North America. What we’ve not had is someone from another country talking to his countrymen. This podcast deviates from that model because my Objectively Younger, Taller, Smarter and Subjectively Better Looking Brother From Other Parents is from India and is speaking with two of his Indian friends, Kishore Mukkamala and Sumit Deo. It was – and this was quite difficult for someone who has figuratively kissed the Blarney Stone – my idea to redact myself and Natalie and Tim from the podcast as we simply don’t have the background to do justice to this episode, thus, Celvin as the host.

C:\Users\cameronl\Downloads\th-3520471478.jpg

Not Cameron

One of the things that makes this such an interesting episode is that Celvin really understands the immigrants journey – all three of them have had very different experiences and yet all three have had ones that are awfully close. Because of this, I think you, oh Gentle Listener, will find nuance and understanding in this episode that may very well be unique.

They came for opportunity. They left for family.

One of the things that I found so interesting about this podcast (your hosts and our guests listen to all of our episodes before they go live, the former for OMG-is-this-any-good and the latter for OMG-am-I-going-to-get-fired-over-this-content) is the effort and challenges Sumit and Kishore underwent as they came to the States and built a life only to return to their homeland. Their reasons differ slightly but commonly share the threads of family ties and duty. One cannot but admire their undoubtedly hard (have a listen to what they had to go through to get into this country and work here – it ain’t easy) decisions, for this is what real men (and women but c’mon, they are quite literally guys) willingly sacrifice for their families.

Their paths here (and I include Celvin) are interesting, their careers varied, their love of Essbase similar. They are inspiring stories and (for once) I as a listener was quite moved. I am sorry they left the States as I would very much like to meet them in person.

A couple of key things to listen for: guns, sports (American sports), movies (Hollywood is more accurate than one might imagine), personal space, Americans’ openness and friendliness, and just where are the servants.

A world united by Enid Blyton

At the end of every episode we (well, Celvin this time) ask our guests who in history they’d like to have dinner with, what they like to read, and the movies that they like in an attempt to know the real person.

I am as a native born American, somewhat taken aback by the well-read nature of our guests in this series. Kishore and Sumit are from their answers, people whose interests go far beyond just work and sports (I fear I do a disservice to my fellow Americans but let’s be real: how many philosophers does your average USAian list in his I’d-like-to-have-dinner-with-this-person) . But most importantly, how many Americans are fans of the Famous Five? Hah! I am. Well, I think the Secret Seven were better, but the Famous Five are just fine as well.

I’m not an Indian, I’m not even an Honorary Indian (there are many times I wish I was), but I am a huge Enid Blyton fan, courtesy of my father’s USAID­ contract in Guyana. From the Cameron Lackpour library, photographed on his office desk:

I’m not sure if listening to this podcast will convince you to dive into the really quite magical world of Enid Blyton, but if you have children, I urge you to dip your toe into the metaphorical water of Peter, Janet, Pam, Barbara, Jack, Colin, and George and of course listen to our two fascinating guests. It really is a superb episode.

Join us, won’t you?

EPM Conversations — Episode 13, A Conversation with Elizabeth Ferrell, Accountant (ex), Advocate (of so many things), and Aviatrix

Natalie Delemar and I – as with so many others in the performance management space – first met Elizabeth Ferrell at a conference, in this case ODTUG’s Kscope.

Elizabeth’s path to her current job, focus, and professional interests evinces the typical path from school, to finance, not-at-all-usual hobby, and now to our beloved performance management community.

But to characterize Elizabeth as typical is to do her an injustice or perhaps just inaccuracy on Yr. Obt. Svt.’s part. As evidence of that (beyond of course this EPM Conversation episode) is to have a read of Elizabeth’s thoughtful article on the state of your – ours – work satisfaction and what we do with that.

Her episode is just as thoughtful.

Join us, won’t you?

EPM Conversations — Episode 12, A Conversation With Kumar Ramaiyer, Workday Adaptive Planning Business Unit Vice President

As Everyone Knows, But Hardly Anyone Actually Does

One of my fondest recollections of Kscope (umm, one year or another, they all blend together after a while) is sitting in on Kumar’s introduction of Exalytics (remember that Wave Of The Future?).  As Kumar dived deeper and deeper into the hardware behind Essbase-on-Exalytics, he prefaced each increasingly (exponentially?) complex computer engineering concept and detail with, “As everyone knows…”.  If only.  I sure didn’t.

Key to Kumar’s personality is this liberality of intellectual comradeship:  he thinks that surely whatever a given  insanely complex topic might be is easily understood by the average geek.   This (possibly insanely optimistic) generosity of intellectual spirit informs this podcast as Kumar takes us (and you, Gentle Listener) through his journey from theoretician to developer to advocate to Vice President of Engineering  while working at Informix, Oracle, and now Workday.

Cubes, Cubes, Cubes

Beyond the interesting personal history (and you have to catch Kumar’s glory days in the NCAA and yes, really; we in the performance management space are polymaths), he gives one of the most passionate, cogent, and comprehensive arguments of the cube as the ideal for planning and budgeting.  I’ve worked with non-cube forecasting tools and while they certainly have their uses, calculations that are trivial in a cube can be hard graft otherwise.  Listen to Kumar and be convinced.

Hear the conversation

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 just like you to more easily find EPM Conversations.

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EPM Conversations — Episode No. 6, A Conversation With Mike Nader, EPM’s Very Own Data Analytics Polymath

EPM doesn’t get a lot of polymaths, does it. Yet Mike is exactly one of those.

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.

But wait, there’s more

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.

Hear the conversation

  • Start – 2:55 Introduction
  • 02:55 – 14:56 How Mike Started with Analytics and EPM
  • 14:56 – 25:41 EPM vs Analytics
  • 25:41 – 28:05 Adoption of Tools in Different Organizational Functions
  • 28:05 – 36:04 Tools That Can Merge Financial and Operational Datasets
  • 36:04 – 43:44 What EPM Technologists Should Know About Analytics
  • 43:44 – 53:30 The Medium Term Future of Analytics
  • 53:30 – End Outroduction

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?

 

EPM Conversation – Episode No. 2, Part 2, A Conversation With Essbase Lady, Natalie Delemar

Intro and outro, part 2

Short and sweet? Yep, that’s the way it is on the ever-busy www.epmconversations.com. Let us give thanks. That’s okey, ‘cos we’re going to let the conversation speak for itself.

This is the second and (alas) last episode with our very special guest, Natalie Delemar. Here’s the agenda:

  • 00:45 – 06:40 The Changing State of the EPM (Vendor) Market
  • 06:40 – 17:20 What’s the technical profile of people getting into the various EPM tools now? Developers, Administrators and Groovy.
  • 17:20 – 22:32 Why has Oracle incorporated so much customisability via Groovy? History of Groovy in Oracle EPM.
  • 22:32 – 34:25 How long will Essbase stay the Engine for Oracle Planning?
  • 34:25 – 40:26 ODTUG Board Experience and Growth from the Professional Community
  • 40:26 – End Summary / Conclusion

It’s all Good Stuff.

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.

As always, you can listen on 

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