Another Euphoric State Conference

I have arrived in San Diego at this year’s Teradata Partners Conference now, and as usual when I reach the West Coast of the United States I feel somewhere in between a terrible jet lag (the difference to Milano and most of Europe is nine hours) and feverish excitement that tells me to just shrug off the fatigue and enjoy. When I flew in on Saturday, I found myself humming “it never rains in Southern California” to the San Diego rain and some people even seemed to nod at me in silent agreement. Now, who was it again that referred to California as “Euphoric State?”

The only real calamity that plagues this piece of land (apart from the occasional earthquake) seems to be wildfires that break out from time to time. In fact, back in 2007 a wildfire raged in the area near Rancho Bernardo where both the Teradata Research and Development and the Global Support Center (GSC) reside. The authorities wouldn’t run any risk and ordered an evacuation that forced Teradata to close its facilities temporarily. They were not harmed, and a few days after the fire (and the smoke) was gone, operations resumed as usual. In the meantime, the GSC was facing a major challenge, having to ensure that Teradata’s 24/7 customer support would be kept up. It turned out that its business continuity plan worked splendidly and operations progressed despite of the fires. For example, when a retailer reported performance challenges at one of its nodes, Teradata Customer Services were on cue and solved the problem as speedily as usual. The GSC was rising to the challenge alright.

The proximity to Teradata Research and Development at this year’s conference makes sense because – I think I can reveal that much – that there will be a lot of technologically relevant announcements from Teradata and its partners on Monday. During the next few days, I plan to follow around some journalists the Expo area and report back to you which partners they are most interested in and what questions they debate. The same goes for the various conference highlights, most importantly the general session on Monday where our Chief Marketing Officer Darryl McDonald will explain his concept of the socialization of data.

So much for now. Let the show begin!