Has the a??sustainabilitya?? trend snuck up on you?

I thought I was so aware. Ia??m from California and I recycle. I sort out the cans and bottles, best-on-the-block. But all of a sudden, the a??Greena?? movement has elevated to a much higher plateau! Every business organization is looking deeply at its processes, products, and funding priorities with an eye toward improving sustainability. Last month they cut off my paper mail statements for corporate expenses! Think of the cumulative oomph when all the big boys start improving core processes! This is Man on the Moon level of mass transformation. It is even hitting home!

As usual, the colleges and universities are out front on this. Why not? The next generation, our current students, have the most to gain by applying the principles of sustainability a?? everywhere. Guess they want to live here awhile. Perhaps you saw the May 2008 issue of The Greentree Gazette, featuring a??Green was then. Sustainable is now.a?? This series of articles really hit me over the head. Time to wake up. One of the contributing authors, who is right in the middle of this student-led phenomenon is Charles Redman, Director of Social Responsibility at Arizona State University. His students are a cross-section of engineering, business, journalism, physical science, and policy majors. He characterizes the student active mindset:

Is student enthusiasm sufficient to change the world? No question students are way ahead of us in thinking about this. The mission is to take that bottom-up enthusiasma??which frankly is limited in impacta??and develop ways to transform it into effective action. Students are kicking hard, but ita??s hard to turn a battleship just by kicking your feet. People in the wheelhouse are turning, too. We dona??t want one person who is going to write a book about it. We want 10 million people who are going to change the way they do business.

Well. Go Sun Devils, then.

The variety of Sustainability projects underway in Higher Education is astonishing, once you start to look around and take notice. I witnessed an amazing presentation about sustainable agriculture given to the North Dakota State Board of Education, the host school was Minot State University- Bottineau, and their Entrepreneurial Center for Horticulture. Their a??Eating Locala?? program places an emphasis on growing a variety of crops with new techniques, all organic, and reducing use of transportation, electrical and other power. They also have shown how to extend the growing season in North Dakota by almost 2 months! Ia??ll have to talk to the NDUS CIO and figure out how Oracle can take some credit for these horticultutal studies!

Hmmmm. Sounds like even an enterprise software company needs to green it up a bit. I had been guessing that all those digital 1a??s and 0a??s did not pollute or take up much volume in the landfill. But Oracle is looking at the manner in which our customers are using Oracle software products to control or improve their own overall sustainability profile. Also, part of that is the computing plant a?? that server farm. Oracle products have the potential to dramatically lighten the physical computing footprint, saving in electrical power, air conditioning, and total building costs. By the way, we have the opportunity to recognize some customer innovations and improvements:

http://www.oracle.com/applications/green/empower-the-green-enterprise-awards.html

Is your company using any of Oracle's products to help protect the environment? If so, consider nominating yourself for an 'Empower the Green Enterprise' award. These awards will be presented to selected customers and their partners (system integrators, consultants, ISVs, etc.) who are using any of Oracle's products to not only take an environmental lead, but also to reduce their costs and improve their business efficiencies by utilizing more green business practices.

Note: nomination cutoff date is Friday, August 22, 2008.

Along the same line, the Higher Education User Group has been curious about how colleges and universities may be applying Information Technology creatively to improve sustainability. There is a survey currently running on www.heug.org. Here are the halftime scores:

What about Oraclea??s own operations? I learned that Oracle is in the a??Green Powera?? partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. So are many of you! 10 of the Top 10 colleges and universities in the EPA rankings are Oracle customers (of which 6 run Oracle Applications). Oraclea??s data center in Austin, Texas a?? where our customers receive remote hosting services via Oracle On Demand a?? has been recognized by the EPA for its use of biogas and wind, renewable power sources.

So now we get it. Green has become a??Sustainabilitya??. Higher Education is leading the way because our constituents have prioritized it. Organizations, including corporations, governments, and educational institutions can make a difference, in their operations, and in the way they deploy technology. Go Green. Be sure to send in your nominations for the Oracle award, a??Empower the Green Enterprisea??.

Formal RFP-style solicitations are a fact of life for IT vendors doing business in the U.S. public sector.  Our public institutions of higher education are certainly no exception.  The art of conducting a thorough, full and open competitive acquisition process does not come easy to anyone involved:  vendor, user, CIO, or procurement officer.  It requires time, money, diligence, and endurance.

A critic might ask, "After all that RFP effort, at the end, do you know any more about the system you selected than when you started?  Did you reduce risk or save money?  Did you determine a significant difference between the offerings?"

Although the RFP process is a tremendous resource drain for vendors, we are seeing a very interesting and positive trend in higher hducation.  Some new techniques in acquisition management are resulting in very valuable insight and results for higher education customers, and Oracle is winning!

A two-fer?  A win-win?  You be the judge.

Using new fact-based evaluation methods, these customers have anticipated areas where old methods were too murky and have concentrated extra attention on critical success factors within both the software product's functional characteristics, and the structure of the proposed implementation project.  The old saying still goes:  Caveat emptor.  Let the buyer beware.  Fact-based evaluations are designed to illuminate areas of risk, while allowing like-to-like comparison.  Once you know the risk, you can manage it, and correctly allocate a project budget.

So what is new is not that buyers are doing competitive comparisons, but rather the depth of product comparison, and the ability to attach predictable cost and risk scores based on product fit.

OK, buyers benefit, so why is this also good for Oracle?

Oracle has recently been awarded new contracts in two major statewide system contests.  Both of them used the fact-based evaluation model to expose the true projected total cost of ownership.  Look at some of the findings in connection with these specific evaluations, and you will see how this new acquisition methodology is providing clarity, and can help to reduce risk and surprises.  These objective comparisons have highlighted the inherent strengths of the Oracle-PeopleSoft product family, and of the sound project management methodologies employed by Oracle Consulting and our Alliance partners.

Well.  In the world of RFPs, one would say, there is nothing new under the sun.  But here is an unmistakable new trend that we are seeing in higher education.  It seems that a cumulative pool of knowledge about critical factors for an ERP or SIS implementation project has formed.  Furthermore, all products are not created equal.  Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise version 9.0 included many new business process options that become supported through configuration, avoiding altogether the need to create custom code.  Consistent investment in functional and technological product development is making a difference that is discernable to knowledgeable buyers.

I would like to offer my appreciation and admiration for the higher education customers, advisors, and external advisors who have made this step up in better acquisition management, and wish them best of luck on their ongoing projects.  Have a great summer too!

Happy New Year, everyone! 

I thought I would provide an update on Oracle's exciting new initiative, first announced last April, the Application Integration Architecture.  With AIA, Oracle is attacking the common, widespread problem faced by many of our customers of high cost to build and maintain integration between key enterprise-wide business applications.  The methodology of AIA anticipates the need for business process change over time due to external trends and new requirements.  AIA includes an infrastructure that is completely based on open standards, so that adoption will be widespread and not just Oracle-centric.  On top of the infrastructure, AIA provides a series of industry reference models for common business processes.  Integration deliverables from AIA-based projects are reusable, and designed to be relatively low-cost for sustaining engineering, such as version upgrades.

Improvement possible?

AIA takes advantage of Oracle's Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) capabilities, which are steadily being introduced throughout our business applications.  This becomes a solid proof point for SOA, and an opportunity for Oracle customers to try a real, viable SOA project to gain experience.

Who will be using AIA?  Well, it is designed to be a common method to be used across the Oracle-PeopleSoft ecosystem.  Oracle Consulting and Oracle's systems integrator Alliance partners are becoming versed on AIA tools and methodology.  Oracle Development is actively using AIA in a number of integration-related tasks.  Oracle is also using AIA in the same manner as our customers, as we perform integration among the recently acquired product lines.  So AIA is really enabling the "Protect -- Extend -- Evolve" philosophy espoused by our Applications Unlimited program!  Oracle is introducing several pre-built "Process Integration Packs" using the AIA methodology, including Order-to-Cash based on Siebel's Order Capture tied to Oracle E-Business Suite Financial Management.

Oracle Applications Integration Architecture has great potential for our customers in Higher Education.  Many of our institutions follow a "best of breed" systems philosophy.  AIA becomes the solidifying platform to pursue combinations of packaged applications from diverse vendors, custom-written applications, legacy systems, and open source components.  Oracle is already working with our independent software vendor partners, such as ImageNow and SciQuest, to utilize AIA for the benefit of our mutual customers in higher education.  Inside Oracle Development, we have started our designs to use AIA for incorporation of Master Data Management techniques into the PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions line.  AIA methods are also being planned for future versions within our Academic Enterprise Initiative, where we are improving the 2-way integration with Learning Management systems, such as Sakai.  If you have ideas about high-potential AIA deliverables, please contact your Oracle account executive or Oracle Consulting sales manager.

If you are interested in learning more about AIA, there is a seminar roadshow series, "Oracle Days," coming around the U.S. during January-February.  The agenda includes a breakout session on the topic of applications integration.

http://www.oracle.com/events/oracleday/index.html

I've never understood this.  Why do customers pay so much attention when listening to another customer's experience?  You would draw the conclusion that this is somehow more interesting than our sales presentations with Powerpoints!

At the 2007 HEUG Alliance Conference, and in many instances since then, I have been impressed by examples of Oracle's customers who are achieving improvements in efficiency, and supporting the academic mission, of their colleges and universities.

A Showcase

A great and generous offer was made by University of Central Florida when they opened their doors for a 2-day showcase event attended by two dozen customers from around the globe. As you can see on UCF's website, this was splendid recognition of jobs well done by their staff in multiple upgrade/expansion projects.

Dr. Joel Hartman, Vice Provost for Information Tecnologies and Resources at UCF presented to the group about the history and present achivement of their ERP project (PeopleSoft v 8.9):

Joel received grins and applause with this slide:

That was his bridge to some great screen shots about UCF's executive dashboard!

On behalf of Oracle and the many customers who were guests, our heartiest thanks go to UCF for the showcase event, and congratulations on your achievements.

Final note about University of Central Florida -- read more about Becky's contribution in this article:

Campus Technology

Stay on the ERP Treadmill!

July 2007

By Joseph C. Panettieri

http://campustechnology.com/articles/48806_6/

Enterprise resource planning systems are not easy to evolve, but regular upgrades will pay big dividends.

"All that began to change in 1999, when the university deployed a new student admissions system from PeopleSoft (now owned by Oracle). Next up, UCF deployed a modern student financials system from the same vendor. But, importantly, the process did not stop there: UCF has continued regular PeopleSoft upgrades over the last few years. According to Rebecca Vilsack, UCF's associate controller, the system has now evolved to a point where it has streamlined requisition and purchase order processes, enhanced purchasing card and vendor tracking information, increased reporting capabilities, eliminated unnecessary paper trails, and minimized redundant procedures."

Quality Award

It is also rewarding when one of our customer institutions in the Oracle family is recognized for excellence:

MICHIGAN QUALITY COUNCIL (MQC) NAMES GRAND RAPIDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE 2007 STATE QUALITY AWARD RECIPIENT: State's highest honor for organizational performance excellence

President Juan Olivarez related to me how the effectiveness of the IT organization, under CIO Ray Neff, was very key to winning this award.  GRCC recently upgraded to Campus Solutions 8.9 and concentrated on usability feedback, including student user testing, to get those great results.

Innovative CIOs

This has to be a record in the modern era. How many award recipients for the coveted 2007 CIO 100 recognition do you suppose are customers of Oracle Higher Education application systems?

If you said "two," well, you are way wrong! How about four Higher Ed executives, standing alongside the Ratheons, Best Buys, and Hiltons?

Congratulations to these well-deserving award winners, who were nominated by their customers, peers, and vendor-partners:

Vince Kellen of DePaul University

 Robin Beck of U-Penn

 Erin Griffin of Loyola Marymount University

Tracy Futhey of Duke University

Vince was featured in the narrative article about CIOs and organizational change.  Figures, since Vince is a former consultant!  He is practical, too; get this quote:

"Kellen's biggest problem was the guy who hired him. His method for managing his demanding and results-hungry boss? 'I kept my list of goals in one pocket and my resignation letter in the other,' says Kellen."

Reminds me of the old joke about "make out three envelopes..."

Knowing each of these individuals personally, and their organizations as well, it is worthwhile to remind all readers.  When the CIO receives such an award, it is really also recognition for the spirit and the hard work that surrounds them:  their key functional users, the IT leads, their customers and executive sponsors.  No man is an island.

A higher challenge for us all as the Information Generation

Oracle representatives had a very interesting guest speaker at our 2008 kickoff in Las Vegas.  It was the young man who relaced the Huntley-Brinkley Report.  I observed that Tom Brokaw has followed my fashion lead by dying his hair grey.  I was looking forward to getting an update from Tom on the daily news, but instead he related his broad perspective about the force of information technology and its yet to be determined impact on our interpersonal relations and our lifetime achievement potential.

During Tom's presentation, he shared legendary tales of individuals from what Tom calls the Greatest Generation -- Americans who grew up during the Depression and then served in World War II. Tom then turned his attention to today's IT generation.

"Technology is organic to the current generation because they're growing up with it," Tom said.  "The risk, however, is that our youth will think that life is a virtual experience -- to solve poverty, just hit Help; to solve global warming, hit Escape; and to have a relationship, send a text message. Technology is a great tool, but will do little good if we short-circuit our souls." 

Tom also noted, "I've been a keen student of IT since the beginning. It gives me satisfaction to know we can still innovate in this country and reinvent ourselves."

He closed by saying he hopes that when his granddaughter writes a book about us 45 years from now, that she'll be able to report that we had the IT tools and we used them well.

==================================================

Let's all get to work on that book by Tom's granddaughter!

Oracle was founded 30 years ago. . . 1977. The first customer was the CIA. Anyway the sendmail that brought this anniversary to my attention caused electrical sparks to fire off in the ol' brain. I had to take a few minutes to reminisce. Yes, I recorded this daydreaming break on my timecard. I started with Oracle (before my sojourn to PeopleSoft) in 1990. There was a new buzzword concept then called client/server. Processing sounded too dry, I suppose. Looking back, I suspect the entire client/server concept was a ruse for the big new UNIX server manufacturers like Sequent and Pyramid to invade the huge DEC VAX VMS minicomputer install base. Anyway, we were all engaged in important debates about TCP/IP -- was it a viable networking competitor to DecNet and IBM Token Ring, or was it just a sandbox tool for those whackos in Higher Ed and the Intelligence agencies?

Not to be outdone in the invention of buzzwords, Oracle hopped right on client/server and introduced "DOPI."  Every customer presentation given by Oracle representatives had to stress DOPI:

D - Distributed

O - Open

P - Portable

I  - Interoperable

In 1990, Oracle sensed a sea change in the world of computing architectures. The minicomputer decade of the 1980s had achieved new, lower price points and a degree of ease of use. The dominant architectures were all proprietary, such as VAX VMS, HP3000, Data General, Wang, IBM AS400, etc. Oracle had a big share of the DEC VAX market for database, competing with DEC Rdb, Ingres (oh, those cobwebs!), and that rascal Sybase. Oracle proposed a database and networking layer that afforded transparency and interoperability across dissimilar computing environments. Folks -- stop chuckling -- it was radical at the time!

There is a timeless quality in DOPI. Over the years, repeatedly, we see warfare among competing architectures, environments, proprietary innovations, and new immature standards. For instance, I just acquired my first Palm Treo PDA, and it is running a Windows mobile client 5.0, which as I understand it, competes with PDA operating systems from RIM (Blackberry) and Apple. Hmmmm. . . Sony versus BetaMax, and TCP/IP versus DecNet. You be the judge, but would you agree that Oracle over the years, has stepped up to each new sea change and fallen back on its core product principle: DOPI, to the benefit of its customers?

How DOPI are we today?

Web Services, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), XML, UDDI, SOAP, LDAP, BPEL -- these hot new technology innovations and standards are all DOPI in nature. Oracle continues to make technology development investments using the same principles of DOPI, after all these years. Did you know that Microsoft's .NET environment is supported by Oracle Fusion Middleware? That' s DOPI.

New today is another DOPI concept: Open Source. These initiatives, such as Linux, MySQL, Kuali, or Sakai present both challenge and opportunity to a commercial enterprise software provider, such as Oracle. To the extent that Open Source really embraces and settles on mainstream standards, it looks like that fits into Oracle's business model. Oracle has introduced complete Open Source support for Linux. Our Higher Education contingent has opened partnerships with Sakai participants, intended to lead to offering of integration capabilities, and subsequent full product or solution packages.

Oracle's Fusion roadmap is 100% DOPI. We are delivering exciting new methods for integration of heterogeneous applications via SOA built right into PeopleSoft Enterprise 8.9 and 9.0, as well as Oracle E-Business Suite 12. It's all about choice.

Still DOPI after 30 years!

On January 31, 2007, Oracle President Charles Phillips conducted a worldwide announcement event that puts teeth into the "Applications Unlimited" program.  The shipment and general availability of new versions of our PeopleSoft Enterprise and Oracle eBusiness Suite product families makes for a time of great excitement among our customers, partners and employees.

How common is it for an information technology company to make announcements, as Oracle did in January 2005, about large-scale product development projects spanning multiple product lines... and then to actually achieve the milestones on time?  The word unprecedented comes to mind!

Personally for me, this January 31^st announcement is very satisfying.  It proves what was "missed" during the gloomy 2005-2006 predictions of the competitors and expert analysts.  Fear, uncertainty and doubt spells "FUD."  Here is an article worth a read, from the Oracle customer magazine, Profit, February 2007.  While reading this article, the thought crossed my mind, "What is the greater danger: to go with a software supplier that is vigorously developing new capabilities, or one that is going to ride that old horse until it collapses?"  Maybe I'll call my old pals from MSA or McCormick & Dodge, and ask their opinion.  I enjoy John Wookey's closing observation:

http://www.oracle.com/oramag/profit/07-feb/p17insight.html

"When a company takes a different path, people may have trouble understanding it and competitors can create FUD around it. Putting passion and investment behind extending the current software and simultaneously evolving the next generation isn't the way applications companies usually do business. But it should be."

--- John Wookey, Oracle's senior vice president of applications development.

I would like to congratulate the Oracle customers who participated in the successful hosted beta test project for PeopleSoft Campus Solutions 9.0:

• Boise State University
  
• University of Maryland University College
  
• California State University System

For our customers who may be entering a system planning period, I would again offer the resources of Oracle, both Applications and Technology Divisions, to assist by providing the latest product roadmap information.

Go Apps Unlimited!

Happy New Year to the entire community of Higher Education customers and Oracle H.E. staff!

As we turn the calendar to 2007, it is a time of high spirit among our community.  The December shipment of the brand new PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.0 product family is a major milestone achievement!  Yet the most striking recent shift in the composition of our customer base really concerns the significant achievements and successful implementation or upgrade of customers to version 8.9.  As I encountered customers roaming around Educause and Oracle Open World conferences this fall, and in my travels on the road, I was really struck by their enthusiasm for their new production 8.9 systems.  Since the new 9.0 version is a functional enhancement built on the same underlying toolset and architecture as 8.9, it is worthwhile for the community to take note of these 8.9 customer accomplishments.

Before we totally follow the mad rush to the excitement of PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.0, it is worthwhile to recall the advancements brought to all of us by 8.9.  Functional capabilities like Candidate Gateway, Enterprise Asset Management, and the Student Center were introduced in 8.9.  The User Productivity Kit became a popular tool to enhance the delivery of new capabilities to the user population.  From a technology standpoint, 8.9 introduced the concept of the "Person Model" in Human Capital Management and Campus Solutions, enabling advancement in SOA techniques of integration.  But the greatest impact from your feedback has been delivery of the promise of "Superior Ownership Experience."  PeopleSoft 8.9 delivered completely redesigned user interface screens based on usability testing.  Fewer clicks, fewer data entry errors, and more logical navigation through the business processes were all 8.9 goals.  SOE also provides "wizard" tools for more readily managing service packs, bundles, and fixes.  Upgrade effort was a target for reduction, and empirical feedback says that has been achieved as well.  Today, Superior Ownership Experience has been adopted as one of the principal design goals across all Oracle Applications, including the successor "Fusion" platform.  Refer to our white paper on Oracle's product direction for Superior Ownership Experience.  http://www.oracle.com/applications/fusion/fusion-superior-ownership-experience-whitepaper.pdf

Many, many customers have implemented PeopleSoft 8.9. Too many to mention here. But a few highlights from customers who have passed along their 8.9 stories:

• Several major universities have completed success 8.9 upgrades of the full suite: HCM, Campus Solutions, and Financials. All have commented on the ease of the upgrade compared to previous experiences and so were able to uptake new modules they had not implemented before such as Talent Acquisition Manager and Candidate Gateway to name just two.
  
• Two of the Big 10 with large, complex university systems, not only upgraded to PeopleSoft 8.9, but are working on roadmaps for the use of Oracle Fusion Middleware tools and components now certified for PeopleSoft. Some have also started using Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as part of their plans to continue to simplify the integration of their complex university system.
  
• And one of our largest community college system customers praised the student self-service enhancements in 8.9 that made it so much more intuitive and easier for their student community to take advantage of the self-service features, reducing the administrative burden.
  
• Featured on HEUG.org Online:

o        Gettysburg College -- HCM/CS upgrade: On October 16, 2006, the Gettysburg College PeopleSoft Upgrade Team completed the latest upgrade of the combined Human Resources and Student Administration Campus Solutions version 8.9 with about as much fanfare as a parade of turtles. The team's low-key approach to the upgrade provided confidence and support to all business processes. The college community received just-in-time end user training in September, remarking mostly that the new pages and views were slightly different, but easier to navigate.

• Pepperdine University -- initial implementation of PeopleSoft Financials 8.9 in August 2006.
  
• Cal State San Bernardino -- Admissions Self Service 8.9: CSU San Bernardino went live with PeopleSoft Student Admissions 8.9 on October, 2, 2006, with Admissions Self-Service following on November 1, 2006.  These project go-lives also included an implementation of the PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal 8.9, with Admissions and Finance self-service functions built into the portal.  Single-signon and LDAP were implemented across PeopleSoft HR, Finance, and Campus Solution applications.  As a part of the Portal project, an Identity Management solution was also implemented to facilitate single user account activation and maintenance. 
  
• Frederick Community Colleges -- Campus 8.9: October 17th was declared VU-day for Victory over the Upgrade. The Upgrade steps and re-customization were completed in-house by a small in size but large in talent team of developers.
  
• Williams College -- completed HCM/CS 8.9 upgrade in November, and here is the comment about hard work being recognized (can you relate to this?): An article about the upgrade was relegated to page 6 of the Williams Record, the student newspaper, suggesting that it was as routine a transition as we'd planned for.


• Northern Arizona University -- upgraded to HCM/CS in October 2006, CIO comments that the stability is noticeably better.
  
• San Diego State University -- recent initial implementation of HCM 8.9.  We chose to implement Workforce Administration, Workforce Development, Talent Acquisition Manager, Candidate Gateway, Time and Labor, Labor Cost Distribution, Position Management, Benefits and Benefits Administration, and some limited self service/manager self service functionality. SDSU viewed Oracle Consulting's project management role as "excellent" with a high level of mutual confidence.
  
• Arizona State University -- impressive fast-tracked implementation of CS 8.9, featured in a recent Oracle press release.  Read the spirited ASU team comments in their online blog: http://wire.asuutoblog.net/?cat=5

• University of St. Thomas, Houston TX -- completed a smooth upgrade without external consulting assistance.

Robust product enhancement and new version availability is a very visible, tangible sign of health for an Applications vendor.  When the customer base adopts the new versions, and achieves beneficial advancement via the upgrade process, this is a true proof statement of the business proposition.  Thanks to all of our new 8.9 customers for the vitality you bring!

So how was your summer?  Here was an August item that had the locals buzzing here in Los Angeles.

Black Pearl at King Harbor Marina, August 26, 2006. Filming of Pirates of the Caribbean III. Captain Jack rumored to be around, but not spotted.

So speaking of piracy, bridge to identity theft.  

Higher Education and Identity Management - what is this all about? Just another IT feeding frenzy?

If you're like me, "Identity Management" is one of those professional advancement topics that I'm going to get to "soon."  By gosh, I'm going to read up on that. Nobody stole my identity this week, though, that I'm aware of.  Probably a fad for someone selling black boxes. Remember the Xerox Encryption Gateway? Hah.

May 30, 2006.  Walk out, get the Los Angeles Times off the driveway, thrown under the impatiens where the paper delivery guy always gets his kicks, payback time.  Yawn, need some coffee quick.  Dodgers 12, Braves 5 on Memorial Day; heh, heh. Tomahawk chop that, Braves. Whoa!  Front page, L.A. Times:

College Door Ajar for Online Criminals
Hackers discover that universities are rich in personal data and easier prey than banks

Clearly, it is time to concentrate on these new security vulnerability trends, and to learn how Oracle may offer solutions, especially to our customers in Higher Education.

Excerpts from the L.A. Times article:

Cyber security officials say hackers are realizing that colleges hold many of the same records as banks. But why hack a bank, one official asked, "when colleges are easier to get into?"

And for the first time in seven years, colleges identified security as the most critical issue facing their computer systems, according to a survey of about 600 colleges released this month by EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit group that promotes information technology use. In a 2000 survey, security wasn't even among the top five concerns.

The L.A. Times article was followed by a larger set of 4 articles in USA Today on August 2, 2006. 

When the mainstream media is putting a technology topic on page 1, that means we have left the niche realm of IT or Education magazines. Both the Times and USA Today articles pointed out the open-forum traditions of higher education, which creates "large portals to information". So our problem is an academic attitude with 1,000 year-old roots?

I think it is worth an alternative consideration. Think about the "Enterprise," and who roams within that boundary. For a bank, manufacturing firm, or a government agency, who are the users that populate the Enterprise? Employees is the answer, plus a few registered external suppliers with light privileges to perform a few selected tasks. At a university, who is within the Enterprise? Everyone needs to be included, and their use is heavy, mainstream, transaction-based. Students, who may also be employees, are demanding ever-broadening self-service transaction access. Faculty, administrative staff, visiting research professors from who-knows-where, advisors, alumni, donors, applicants, and non-applicant recruits must be within the fence of the Enterprise. Consider this excerpt from the L.A. Times article:

And Sacred Heart University in Connecticut reported last week that a security breach has compromised the Social Security numbers and some credit card numbers of 135,000 people -- some of whom never applied to, worked at or attended the university.

Like many universities, a spokeswoman said, Sacred Heart collects personal information from college entrance exams, college fairs and recruiting firms. Robert M. Wood, chief information security officer at USC, said the college's computer system is scanned by hackers an estimated 500,000 times a day.

An important lesson is that potential solutions to issues of security and identity management in Higher Education must address this unique, fast-turning population scope with a far-reaching fishnet. That is why the Oracle Applications team has linked its strategic initiative for Student Lifecycle Management with our Oracle Technology teammates who are offering new ideas and product capabilities in Security, Identity Management, and Provisioning. I'm not your security architect, but even I can sense the potential of a Higher Education solution based on PeopleSoft Enterprise databases for Recruiting, Students, and Employees in the new HCM/CS 8.9 "person model", managed through the Oracle Identity Management product set, coupled with issuance controls within the PeopleSoft Directory Services module which ensures synchronization with HCM/CS data. Provisioning, Single Sign-on, and role-based access privileges prevent duplicate records and keep a tight rein on all access roles, including that of student recruits or applicants. Lastly, new data integrity tools within Campus Solutions 8.9 provide for maintenance and clean recordkeeping with regard to duplicate student records, an old problem of student administration which can be a door to unauthorized entry and access to private demographic data and other security violations. This powerful solution is possible based on the early 2006 certification of Oracle Fusion Middleware for PeopleSoft Enterprise.

Oracle more recently announced its 10g package of Identity Management and security-related backbone features within Oracle Fusion Middleware. Certification with Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise and eBusiness Suite 11i was part of the announcement.

This link includes various white papers and an upcoming Sept. 27th Security Summit in New York City to be led by Oracle President, Charles Phillips.

How can we learn about this important topic (yes, there are even Sarbanes-Oxley implications, how's that for gravity?)... other than following all these URL links?

Well, EDUCAUSE in Dallas is only a few weeks away, October 9-12, 2006.  Look for me, I'll be the one in the black Oracle logo golf shirt. The main Oracle themes this year are as above:  Identity Management and Security placed in the context of advancing student services and the Student Lifecycle Management initiative. In addition to coming by the exhibit booth to discuss this, learn more by attending one of the side sessions. In particular, try to attend Jerry Hanley's presentation, as he has been providing a lot of thought leadership since joining us from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

One last point from a security layman:  even the best IT security tools and ERP architecture must be deployed consistent with your organization's Security Policy.  Furthermore, you must be able to audit the actual practice against that policy. Again, there are new Oracle products to enhance auditing. But the proper set up of roles and access methods is essential. Check with Oracle Consulting about a security audit.  Find out if you are making best use of the Oracle and PeopleSoft products today, even before you contemplate major improvements.

See you in Dallas, where we'll learn together how to defeat the pirates lurking around our higher education data stores and foil their efforts to breach our systems.

Oracle's fiscal year ends May 31^st.  Some old-timers told me that is designed to give the employees a busy and interesting Memorial Day weekend...hmmmm.

The new plans and commitments by our Higher Education customers are everywhere.  At OpenWorld in September 2005, the theme was presented: "Protect, Extend, Evolve." Many of you are doing just that!  The adoption of PeopleSoft Enterprise 8.9 is widespread, upgrades are going well, and the 8.9 redesigned web page screen interfaces are receiving pure flattery.

The biggest surprise to me for the year just ending is the apparent rejuvenation of hot interest in eProcurement.  We saw all the "eCommerce" magazine covers in 2000, and not much since.  I surmise that many of you, now that the gloss is gone, are finding new solid business processes that make sense to manage indirect spend, while allowing easier online shopping for your end user customers.  Oracle's new partnership with SciQuest, a leading provider of catalog and content management services has no doubt helped to complete the picture of a fully integrated eProcurement solution.

The new companion to eProcurement is Enterprise Asset Management.  At NACUBO in Honolulu, July 8-11, Oracle and BearingPoint will be demoing our joint "Campus Lifecycle Management" solution. Please stop by to learn more.

Announcement of our partnership with Sakai, open source for academic content, is our entrée into the academic management space. To quote Curtiss Barnes, Oracle's global director for Education Industry Strategy, in our June press release: "When I speak with our customers about the Sakai project, it is increasingly clear that this community can bring about a sea change in the use of IT for academic and research enterprises. Now is the time for an ERP vendor to truly get engaged and help to drive beneficial outcomes for faculty and their students and researchers and their collaborators."

I would only add that it is Oracle leading the way in this arena. Go to this link to read more about the Oracle and Sakai partnership.

This was also a busy week with the new HEUG Board retreat in Seattle where Curtiss Barnes, Jeff Robbins, and Theo Bosnak presented Oracle updates, and continued the important dialogue with the list of key HEUG issues.  I hope that all our Higher Education customers appreciate how hard these Board members work on all of our behalf.  They are generous with their time.  A second version of the Technical Advisory Group's white paper about the road to Oracle Fusion is being worked with vigor, due out soon.  Kari Branjord (University of Minnesota and TAG leader) and Jeff Robbins collaborated in Seattle, with the goal being an objective work product that contains solid input from Oracle.

Time to blog off.  Allow me to conclude with some interesting inside Oracle folklore.  Did you see United 93?  That is a documentary movie that will get to your heart.  Oracle sponsors an employee award, per this message by our EVP Randy Runk:

On September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer and the other passengers and crew members aboard United Flight 93 proved that everyday people can make extraordinary heroes. Todd will long be remembered as the American hero who said "Let's roll" as he and others attempted to take down their hijacked plane, preventing it from becoming another weapon.

But what many may not realize is that Todd Beamer was a hero even before the terrorist attacks. Every day he made choices to better himself, his family and those whose lives he touched at work and in the community.  Todd's colleagues at Oracle recall him as a man of integrity, passion and focus; one who strove for the mutual success of the customer and his Oracle team. It is in this spirit that the Todd Beamer award was created.

I encourage you to nominate an individual within your team who exemplifies the life of Todd Beamer and is deserving of the prestige and honor with which this award is held. The winner will personify the qualities Todd lived on a daily basis including:

• 
  
  Leadership
  
  
• 
  
  Teamwork
  
  
• 
  
   Integrity
  
  
• 
  
   Professionalism

I just thought that you would enjoy some insight into inner workings at Oracle that are quite unlike how the analysts and media usually portray the company.

Talk to you soon...

Welcome to my blog for the Higher Education community. Why a blog? Well, we've had a lot of feedback from our customers and Oracle folks that we could do a better job of getting the word out faster when things happen that affect our customers and the higher education community as a whole.

Like the Oracle announcement a couple of weeks ago about Applications Unlimited. All of you in higher education wanted more than the "corporate" explanation. You wanted to know what Application Unlimited means specifically for higher education. Although we had more information, we didn't have a really fast way to get it out to all of you. Posting it on Oracle.com, sending it to the HEUG Online and to all the higher education user groups, and including in "Plugged In" still doesn't always reach everyone who has a need to know.

So here you go. My first blog includes THIS LINK to where you can find information specific to higher education about Apps Unlimited, what it means for the community, and how you and your institution can and will be involved in determining the roadmap that best suits the unique needs of Oracle's higher education family.

I had the fun experience of discussing Apps Unlimited with some of our customers just as the news was breaking, and during the week that followed. Initial reaction: "What's the catch?" Then, finally, "Well, what's not to like here!?" I heard someone say, "Well, news breaking in Opryland, been there, it's a crazy place!" I told my team, "Give it a week, the industry analysts will tell us all the potential dangers!" It really will be interesting to see how our various customers use this new flexibility in their own roadmaps!

Blogs... We'll keep these messages short and timely and refresh at least once a week--more often as required by events and news items. And even more important, YOU are invited to contribute to the blog to keep it fresh and interactive.

And speaking of news--did you see the stories being picked up about your great successes on your campuses with Oracle solutions? Here are just a couple of links you might check out. And thanks to the featured institutions for taking the time to contribute.

MSN Money
Higher Education Institutions Expand Services and Transform Their Campuses with Oracle Applications and Technology
May 1, 2006
By MSN Money Staff

Yahoo! Finance
Higher Education Institutions Expand Services and Transform Their Campuses with Oracle Applications and Technology
May 1, 2006
By Yahoo! Finance Staff

Help me spread the word about our new blog! And I'm looking forward to your contributions.

Regards,

Jim McG