Letter from our CEO

July 2020

Welcome to July 2020 and the start of the third quarter of the year.

Here are the three themes that are driving our agenda this quarter.

COVID-19

We continue to plan for and react to the COVID-19 world we are all living in. We are still providing #LegendaryHelp and running our #FromRocketWithLove program to help you, our customers and partners, navigate through the challenges and opportunities of your new business realities. In the second quarter, all of us at Rocket – from software development to technical support, from professional services to customer success, from sales to marketing – have focused our efforts on helping our existing customers and partners. That will continue in the third quarter. I encourage you to reach out to us – we are here for you. Here is one example of how our team recently helped a customer through an important system upgrade cycle.

A wholesale equipment distributor was working on migrating their ERP system to a new hardware platform. The Saturday before they were going live with their new platform, they noticed their shipping provider was failing. Since their ERP system is built on top of our Rocket MultiValue database technology, this customer called us for help. One of our Rocket engineers received this urgent call on Sunday morning and began pulling together a team of Rocket experts to help. The case was quickly resolved and the customer was able to go live on its new platform

No, the problem was not related to our software. But that doesn’t matter to us – that is the type of #LegendaryHelp we provide. Regardless of the day of the week or time of the day — and especially now during COVID-19 times — every Rocketeer is expected to live our core values, put you first, and make sure you don’t fail.

Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity

It shouldn’t have taken me this long to elevate this topic within Rocket and talk it about it more publicly. But you can see from my June letter that the murder of George Floyd was the turning point for me and, by extension, all of Rocket. I – and we – could not stay quiet any longer. So, June 2020 marks the beginning of our more public journey around inclusion, diversity, equity and related topics at Rocket. We launched our first-ever employee working group to identify and drive change in these areas. We call this group RIDE, which stands for Rocket Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity. Their mission is to develop the right strategies to promote equality and make a meaningful contribution (actions, not just words) to righting the wrongs that have lasted for far too long. The group’s first recommendation, which was immediately implemented, was for Rocket to declare Juneteenth an official company holiday. The group has also committed to measuring and tracking our progress, actions, and impact.

Hybrid Cloud

Where are you in your journey to hybrid cloud? We are offering two very specific engagement models this quarter to help your journey. We are launching Rocket.Build (our Rocket-branded hackathon) in August. You can participate by contributing a team to “hack” with us or providing a project idea that we will “hack” for you. We are also recruiting customers and partners to join our Rocket President’s Advisory Council (RPAC). Based on your input, Hybrid Cloud will be a core theme for both Rocket.Build and RPAC.

Thank you for your business. Thank you for your partnership. Stay safe. Stay healthy.

Onward and upward we go together.

No band is more synonymous with peace and love than The Beatles. It’s fair to say that the sixties (and beyond) would have taken a very different turn without the global influence of the Fab Four. As the group evolved throughout their decade together, their lyrics took on deeper significance as they went beyond the standard fare of most of their contemporaries. Here are four of their iconic songs that map to how I’m feeling right now.

All You Need Is Love
This 1967 anthem captured the essence – and the hopes – of the “flower power” movement. The band performed it live to a global television audience of 400 million people, the first-ever global television link.

Revolution
This song has been hotly debated since it was released in 1968 (it has often been seen as an attack on the "New Left"), but its pacifist themes are an enduring echo of the turbulent year in which it was written.

Help!
This Lennon/McCartney collaboration is widely regarded as the transition between the Beatles' early and later career. Lennon later called it one of his most personal songs, as it represented his difficulties of dealing with the band's sudden stardom.

With A Little Help From My Friends
Ringo Starr's most recognizable vocal performance is also one of the Beatles' most poignant songs about the need to work together to lift everyone up.