Oracle ACES return their awards

The Oracle ACE program appears to be in trouble, amid pushback where qualified Oracle experts are rejecting the Oracle ACE award. There are also complaints that a highly-vocal group of self-proclaimed Oracle “experts” have been manipulating the Oracle ACE nomination system, creating a mutual admiration society in order to get Oracle ACE awards.

Oracle stockholders will find that Oracle's ACE program is a brilliant way of enlisting gullible DBA's and developers to loyally tout the virtues of Oracle technology. For the price of a tacky glass trophy, Oracle has flattered a small army of foreigners into publishing positive things about Oracle in blogs and on social media. The Oracle ACE program reminds me of the local Raleigh Man of the Year scam.

"I don't need no stinkin' college to be an Oracle ACE."
No Degree Required!

Not everyone Oracle ACE agrees about the value of a College Education! Doug Burns, (an Oracle ACE), believes that Oracle is more of a trade than a science, and that a college degree is not necessary:

"Mr. Don Burleson, you talk rubbish. I have a very basic high school education but left pretty quickly to play around with computers and taught myself.

I've lost count of the number of degree-educated colleagues who I wouldn't allow near a database."

But the savvy Oracle professionals see through this manipulation and recognize that the Oracle ACE program is a win-win program for losers with low self-esteem. The recipient gets a flashy title to prop-up their fragile ego, and Oracle gets a dedicated evangelist.

Rejecting the Oracle ACE award

Before returning his Oracle ACE award, Australian Oracle consultant Howard J. Rogers said that his Oracle ACE was almost completely worthless, and complained that the Oracle ACE program accepts “complete nobodies”, a true statement that suggests that there are political motives behind the ACE program:

“There’s a bunch of complete nobodies who nominated themselves for starters and got approved despite a paucity of any demonstrated technical skill or community contribution at all.”

Another commentator on SearchOracle notes that the people who are awarded the Oracle ACE tend to be chronically under-employed, a necessity when an Oracle ACE award is correlated with people who have the time required to answer tens of thousands of OTN forum questions:

“I’m always suspicious of these self proclaimed ‘gurus.’

Most of them, in my experience, are your stereotypical glory hunters. The type who has to be the center of attention.

“O look at me, I wrote a book” . . . “O look at me, I’m so underutilized at my job that I’ve had time to respond 5,000 times on OTN.”

Smug, arrogant, full of their own sense of self importance and quite irritating. – Steve”

A review of the Oracle ACE list reveals that Oracle Corporation has been awarding the Oracle ACE to people with vastly differing credentials. Some ACE's are graduates of the world best technical universities while others are not even qualified to take a technical job at Oracle Corporation, and Oracle has been awarding the Oracle ACE to blue-collar tradesmen without any significant work experience or College-level learning.

How can Oracle make the ACE meaningful?

Personally, I think that the Oracle ACE program would be greatly improved if Oracle would vet nominees using the same training criteria that they use to hire their own developers. Oracle Corporation rewards professionals who have distinguished themselves by graduating from a competitive school and those with stellar work experience, why shouldn't the Oracle ACE program?

Even the Oracle Academy is very specific on the training and experience requirements to become a practicing Oracle professional, minimum qualifications that are not met by many of their own Oracle ACE's.

Title: Sr. Database Administrator Project Manger

Description: Development, implementation, enhancement and maintenance of database. Support and Maintenance of the Databases Management of product design, engineering, implementation and integration. Initiating and maintaining partner relationships.

Requirements: 5+ yrs. + Bachelors degree 4+ yrs. + Bachelors degree

Salary: $100,000+ $90,000+"

- Read how Oracle ACEs are speaking out against foreigners working in America.

- Also read my notes about the Oracle ACE Director program, and why it is a joke.

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