Today I attended a Introduction to CRM class. Mostly intended for new hires, but since I've never been to this class (and since I still don't know many basic CRM procedures) I decided to attend. I stepped into the room at noon, already there being some dozen people present. This eventually increased to some 25 students in total, the largest class so far, said our speaker, Kathryn Alderman.

The first activity was to introduce ourselves, stating our name, what group we were now in, what group or company we had transferred from, and a unique factoid about ourselves to make it more personable. I myself stated that I used a Macintosh at work, set up so that I didn't have to use my NT box. That brought a couple of amused chuckles, one question of whether CRM IT supported Macintoshes (no), and the person next to me saying that she also used Macs.

Then we had lunch. Some kind of lasagna (vegeterian and meat versions, of course), garlic bread, Caesar Salad, brownies and cookies. Pretty good, and it makes me hungry to write this down. This also gave me a chance to talk with a couple of people.

On to the class. The first guest speaker was a Development Manager for some product that I've forgotten, and I've forgotten his name. He went over the basic CRM groups, the top people in CRM (highlighting the important people who we were likely to interact with), and then went on to explain the Product Release Process and some of the development environment. He also answered questions as they came up, mostly questions on hoe products are released, timings, etc. All in all, a good speaker and the best part of the whole class.

At that point we had a break. Had it already been over two hours already? My, this is one of the few times that I hadn't been bored attending a class after my college years. I had at least learned a little bit more about the PRP process, which is new for 11i and is supposed to be the way that Oracle development will proceed.

After the fifteen minute break, wherein I went upstairs to check my email (still no resolution to my P2 problem!) I came back to see that we had conferenced into the quarterly financial results. Larry Ellison, Ray Lane, and a few other speakers whose names I didn't recognized were effusive about our earnings, explosive growth, and prospects for the coming quarters. This was the first time that I've ever listened to the call, which is open to all Oracle stock holders.

We then saw a video of Mark Barrenechea, our Senior Vice President, when he presented CRM 11i at some recent Oracle event. Basically he and some other people simulated using our products to generate a sale. It showcased the web interface, integration, and functionality of our product lines. By the way, something else I learned is that the difference between Executive and Senior Vice Presidents (since they both have about the same jobs), is that Execs can promise things that Oracle will do, such as new products or procedures.

The second guest speaker was Bill Lemas, Manager of the CRM Desktop Services. He went over how to fill out a Service Request, told us about some useful internal web sites to get help and information, and answered some questions. A nice guy who kept saying that his group is only concerned with desktops and laptops, servers and networking are the purview of other groups in Operations or for the general Oracle Global IT group. Apparently, CRM is unusual because we have our own support people.

To wrap things up, Kathryn then gave a brief overview of HQ Services, such as auto repair, massage services, and other non-work type of services that Oracle has partnered with other companies to provide for its employees so that they don't waste time doing it themselves. That was a long sentence. We finished by pairing up and filling out a quiz to make sure we got something out of this class.

I actually enjoyed this class. I learned a few things, met some people, and had fun. It was also a bit of a marketing thing to promote CRM and Oracle over the competition (some of the students were new employees straight out of college). All in all I'm glad I attended.