I’ve always had a hard time describing what I did at a software company to folks outside software (lawyers, doctors, basketball players, club hoppers, etc). Part of the reason is that I am pretty private and ridiculously modest and overly calculated. However, I was having one of my frustrating days with technology, and someone asked me again to explain, and I just let … said it. Reading the thread later, I am pretty impressed with the description. So I figured I would share.
Enjoy.
YOU: talk to me ... im bored
hows ur day going?
ME: tis going well. fighting with technology :)
YOU: like always lol
ME: yeah ... story of my life
YOU: lol
what are you working on, overall
ME: nothing. just reading up on technology stuff to see if i'd get any ideas
YOU: what did you do at Oracle (sp?)
put it in layman's terms plz
ME: engineering, then management, then sales consulting
YOU: engineering what?
and sales consulting what?
ME: software development. sales consulting. oracle products that businesses
build their custom applications on (e.g. orbitz.com, bankofamerica.com,
gap.com build their websites and a lot of other internal applications
using our software). So they are the ones we sell to ... selling
multi-million dollar multi-year deals to them
YOU: ok so you build websites and deal with other computer issues for major
companies, basically.
ME: no.
imagine all the software that a business like bank of america needs to function.
Most of that runs on oracle software.
YOU: ok
ME: so the software that keeps track of their customers, that sprint uses to keep
track of your account information, that the customer agents pull up when
they ask u for your customer id when u call in to huff and puff, etc.
the whole world runs on software. All the businesses run their software on oracle
(and some on SAP and some on IBM). We make the world run.
oracle is to big business like microsoft is to direct consumers
(ie microsoft sells their software to you and me, oracle sells their software to
bank of america, us govt, procter and gamble, fannie mae, etc)
YOU: oh what, so u think ur all that?
lol
ME: nah ... just trying to explain. Most folks don't get it and just say
"so u make web pages and fix computers?". I don't even know how to fix computers. ..
I know how to program, and build software ...
ie i can create a program like itunes, or i can create a new facebook,
but if ur computer is acting up, i wouldn't know what to do (sometimes).
YOU: thats what I meant, but didnt know how to say it. so when you were a consultant
you went to businesses and tried to get them to use oracle?
ME: yep - sales consultant ... so I worked in the sales organization and
sold our software to businesses.
YOU: oh ok
very interesting
VERY interesting