Building connections comes easily to New Zealanders.
Building connections comes easily to New Zealanders.
ynne O’Donoghue is the global user Having this broad but deep knowledge gives group liaison for her country’s user group.
us the understanding to appreciate Oracle’s
That her country is New Zealand—“a small strategy in bringing the applications closer geographic area,” as she describes it—means
together, and to take advantage of that where she’s worn a lot of hats for the New Zealand
it is most relevant for the business.” Oracle Users Group (NZOUG).
She acknowledges that this experience “I’ve held a number of positions—I’ve
is unique. “It’s different than in North looked after the finances, I’ve been vice presi-
America, where the volume of activity is far dent, I’ve held other positions,” she says.
greater,” she says. “It’s fun, though. We have And because New Zealand is “at the end
a lot of variety.”
of the earth, except for Antarctica,” the job of Connections are important to NZOUG, pre- the global user group liaison is to “connect
cisely because the country is small. “If you’re with other user groups around the world to
having a problem, we’ll call people in other share ideas and experiences—as well as con-
organizations and find out if they’ve got the tent—so that we can enrich the experience
same issue. And we’ll ask what they did about of our users and also be part of the world,”
it or how they fixed it. It’s really about sharing. O’Donoghue says.
It’s not about the problems you’re having, it’s That’s exactly what I found her doing the
about how we can solve problems,” she says. day I talked to her on the Oracle campus,
Lynne O’Donoghue, Global User Group Liaison, New Zealand Oracle Users Group.
Likewise, NZOUG has a good relationship where she was representing NZOUG at
with Oracle New Zealand. “We always invite the International Oracle Users Group
This blending of boundaries between
Oracle to our board meetings—and they Community conference. Back in New
technology and applications has advantages.
attend,” she says. “When Oracle New Zealand Zealand, though, NZOUG uses a combina-
“People in New Zealand do not have highly
puts on an event, there’s communication tion of face-to-face and online learning to
specialized jobs,” O’Donoghue says. “We tend
with the user group, and we often do an intro- stay in touch.
to have very broad jobs, so that works well
ductory presentation, so it’s a close and suc- “We run WebEx sessions on our
within our community—that the products
are coming together and the technology and
cessful partnership.”
Website,” O’Donoghue says. “Presenting
It’s the kind of relationship they barely over the Web lets us get coverage over the
applications are coming together, because
have to work at. “It’s a friendly work environ- whole country. And at our annual confer-
that’s sort of what people do anyway.”
ment, and that crosses over from personal ence, we have both overseas and local pre-
That’s because companies in New
life to professional life and the user group senters, which gives our members a global
Zealand tend to be small on a global scale,
communities, O’Donoghue says. “It’s just view but shows how products and services
O’Donoghue says. “Most organizations don’t
part of our Kiwi nature.” W are delivered in a local context.”
have a large number of employees, so there’s
not really room to be highly specialized in your
NZOUG serves the entire country. “We
area,” she says. “If you look after databases for
is a within New Zealand,” O’Donoghue says. The
Jeff Erickson
cover all of the Oracle products and services
an application, you probably look after many
senior editor with Oracle group’s members work in both applications
databases for many applications, and they
Publishing. and technology areas, although the differen-
may be Oracle and non-Oracle. So you’ll tend
to have a very broad range of responsibilities.”
tiation isn’t as strong as it used to be.
The experience is similar on the applica-
“We used to differentiate between tech-
tions side. “You may be looking after one
GE S
nology and applications, but we do this less
system or multiple systems,” she says. “It’s
NEXT STEPS
and less now,” she says. “Even within the
very normal to look after multiple systems—
technology area, differentiating between
human resources, finance, everything all
READ about NZOUG
GETTY IMA
database technologies and development tech- together. You tend to know about business
nzoug.org
CBETH/
nologies is less relevant—there’s such huge
processes very well, and about all the applica-
WATCH Up Close Lynne O’Donoghue video
crossover now.” oracle.com/us/products/040703 tions that support those business processes.
NEIL MA
ORACLE MAGAZINE MAY/JUNE 2010
Learn more about the Oracle ACE program at otn.oracle.com/community/oracle_ace
MAY/JUNE 2010 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE
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