Flex. Expand. Connect.

I'm at the PeopleSoft Connect Conference. I'm sitting in the keynote hall waiting for the PeopleSoft head honcho, Craig Conway, to come on stage and impress upon the crowd of how great things are in the PeopleSoft world -- but they're not going to be complacent -- how they will in fact strive to better everything, from their software to customer service. It's the standard fare -- I've heard it at many conferences before. Undoubtedly, the message will be delivered with emotion -- with that constipated look that says, right now, this message is coming from somewhere very deep. The pre-show entertainment has taken the stage, in the form of a couple of female contortionists. They're quite talented and are being human pretzels to heavy pop music. The contortionists are replaced by a pair wrapped together in a single costume and undulating around the stage -- I don't think what they're doing classifies as dancing. Now we have a well buffed male and female pair, performing some elaborate physical feats. They're serious, moving in slow motion and doing things that would kill most of us if we tried, with muscles that most of will not have. They're too serious though -- they must be holding something back with all that concentration. The keynote hall is huge. There are over 10 giant screens for everyone to see the stage. The searchlights are strobing across the stage and the hall -- and the giant balls that are hanging from the ceiling have funky animation being projected on to them. Now there are dancers with bouncing balls on the stage -- dancing to 80s music from SF bands. Okay! … Here comes the Craig-miester! Let the circus begin! There are 15,000 people at the conference -- the room is packed. It's apparently the biggest turnout PeopleSoft has ever had at a conference. So much for scary-Larry! My favourite quote from Craig: "Have you every had a bad dream that just doesn’t seem to end? We have, and it's been going on for 15 months!" The highlights of the keynote:

• PeopleSoft and IBM announced a big partnership, worth about $1 billion of investments for both companies.
• TOE -- Total Ownership Experience -- prepare to be experienced!
• More news release from the conference can be found at PeopleSoft.