DAD: at his most huggable and corniest

Dave Duffield is not slick - he kept forgetting his notes and guest mike at the podium. But during his talk at Workday Rising he was also generous and brought up several executive guests to the stage, thanked his growing partner list and he was entertaining:

• He had a Top 10 list why Workday went IPO which included a reference to “if Anderson Cooper can come out, so can we”
• He teased his co-founder Aneel Bhusri about bragging about product features, and that he could do better with contract closings and invited the CIO of City of Orlando to sign her contract on stage.
• He gave his CFO palpitations with frequent teasing on forward looking stuff and a guessing game on the + in a slide which showed 350+ customers. After the Orlando signing his slide changed to 351+ customers
• He presented a photo gallery which showcased his family members and pets as fans of various Workday customer products.
• In a dig at Oracle, he quipped “I love walking all over on Fusion” and pointed to the brand of shoes he was wearing
• He periodically had slides with SAP and Oracle characters peeping in the conference room
• He tossed Cloud Cakes (a Twinkie like product of one of his customers, McKee) with gusto into the crowd, then wondered if he had adequate legal protection if those projectiles hurt anyone.

For all that he got by my count  three hugs and one high-five on stage.

Corny he may be, but as his initials suggest, he is also beloved.