Oracle ACE Director?

 

Eddie wrote about the New Oracle ACE and Website, which was news to me, so I thought I’d take a look. The new category of “Oracle ACE Director” supposedly signifies “a higher level of expectation in terms of community activity”.

I must admit to feeling there were definite tiers in the ACE program. I personally consider certain individuals to be on a different level to the rest of us mortals, so the introduction of an ACE++ seemed like a good idea.

When I looked at the list of people who are ACE Directors the cynic in me came out in full force and here’s why:

  1. Every ACE Director has expertise in “Oracle Fusion Middleware”. There is not a single person listed as an ACE Director from a Database Management or Development background. So knowledge of the database, the product that made Oracle great, is not worthy of any note.
  2. The majority of ACE Directors are newly assigned ACEs, with a few notable exceptions. So all the people who were previously deemed worthy of ACE-dom are not actually as worthy as the new kids on the block.
  3. In my opinion, some people stand head and shoulders above the other people in the list of ACEs. When I look through the list, none of the real stars of the Oracle community are listed as ACE Directors. It seems people like Tom Kyte, Jonathan Lewis and Steven Feuerstein (to mention just three) don’t currently qualify as having “a higher level of expectation in terms of community activity”. Are you sure?

I’m sure that some of these points will be rectified in the coming weeks, and I don’t want to put other people and their achievements down, but for the moment, this whole re-jig of the Oracle ACE program doesn’t look right to me.

Cheers

Tim…

UPDATE: I subsequently read the top “Oracle ACE News”story, which says,

“The Oracle ACE and Oracle Fusion Middleware Regional Director programs have merged, with the latter now being known as “Oracle ACE Directors.” Furthermore, Oracle Database experts (on management and app development) are now eligible to serve as Oracle ACE Directors as well.”

That explains a lot of my current gripes. Hopefully, the rest will be ironed out soon.

Author: Tim...

DBA, Developer, Author, Trainer.

7 thoughts on “Oracle ACE Director?”

  1. I agree for 100%!

    The problem is that the Fusion Middleware Directors got the “ACE Directors” title…
    If you know you could apply for a FMD yourself and a “normal” ACE you need to earn…

    I understand Oracle for doing it, but like you Tim, I’m not sure it needs to be like they did it now.

    Just my thoughts,
    Dimitri

  2. Hi.

    I was not bothered by the fact I’m not an ACE Director. I was more bothered by the fact that some of the people I think of as being on the top of the list have not been recognized. I realize now that this is just a matter of time, but I think it could have been handled better.

    Cheers

    Tim…

  3. I agree too Tim.

    I was also very surprised that some of the people you’d expect to be in the highest ‘category’ were not actually listed as ACE Directors (like you I checked the names out as soon as I spotted it 😉

    Perhaps it’s just the terminology that is being used, since to me ‘ACE Director’ reads very differently to ‘Oracle ACE/Fusion Director’

    John.

  4. Tim, thanks for the post. A couple things to note:

    The new “top tier” was created by merging the OFM Regional Director program with the ACE program. Thus, by definition, the ranks of Oracle ACE Directors are for the time being populated by OFM experts. However, as we note on the Web page, the top tier of the program is now also open to database management/performance and database app development experts. Thus, you will indeed see the most “deserving” individuals rise in the ranks, regardless of their expertise.

    That being said, ACE Director-ship does involve a higher level of commitment – so regardless of how much one deserves the recognition, one has to be willing to make that commitment as well.

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