Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Ace Adventures - Dan Morgan

I’m trying to decide what was the best part of PSOUG’s Oracle Days event up in Seattle last week. Was it hearing an advocate of IBM Z series fire back, quite convincingly, at IBM’s blade server rivals? Was it getting a serious lesson in data storage by Pillar Data Systems as they introduced the Axiom 600? No, the best part would have to be riding to Microsoft in Dan Morgan’s Jaguar to shoot clandestine video for our upcoming Oracle Magazine story and video podcast.

As we were driving, Morgan, second in command at the Puget Sound Oracle User’s Group, discussed the benefits of being an Oracle Ace Director. “It doesn’t lead directly to money,” he said. But it does, he said, come with interesting speaking opportunities, such as upcoming engagements that Oracle booked for him in Finland and, I think, Bulgaria. And it does lead indirectly to money.

When Morgan, a teacher of database technology in University of Washington's continuing education program, does do consulting gigs being an ACE Director can help land the job. “”When I walk into a client who is also talking to a global giant like Accenture, I simply ask if the firm is going to put someone on their account who is recognized by Oracle as one of the top people on the planet who really, really knows his stuff,” he said. “So in that way, I guess it does lead to money.”

Take a look at Morgan’s library and you will see one reason he’s an Oracle Ace Director. Also check out the other resources on the PSOUG Website and you’ll see just how good a resources a regional user group can be.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Jeff,

A point of clarification: Dan Morgan is NOT a professor at the University of Washington. He's a instructor who teaches a night class at the UW Extension course. He likes to tell people that he's a "professor at the UW" (sometimes even a "tenured professor", but he is not, and has gotten in some hot water over this misrepresentation. All you need to do to confirm this is ask the University of Washington. The library at psoug.org is very good, however.

Jeff Erickson said...

Thanks for the clarification. Dan may have said that he is a teacher at UW and I made an incorrect assumption. It was a long time ago. I'll update the post. Do you have a blog I can read? Thanks.

- Jeff

skymaster said...

Jeff,

You might want to fix the link to Dan Morgan's Jaguar. It points to Mauricio Naranjo's Oracle ACE page instead! Nothing against Mauricio he is a good guy and I know him well.

Cheers,
Ben Prusinski, Oracle ACE

PS: Jaguar is nice car but BMW M3 is a lot more fun to race at the track!