IOUG blogs

Today was a great start to the conference. Despite hearing there are over 40,000 attendees at the conference I thought everything ran smoothly. Sunday was Special Interest Group (SIG) day for the Oracle user groups. These presentations highlighted top speakers from the Oracle user groups. I attended a number of excellent presentations by highlighted speakers from the IOUG and other user groups. Lots of buzz that SIG presentations were excellent presentations to attend.  Focus of the day from everyone seemed to be understanding BEAs integration in Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle apps presentations.
My day at Oracle open world.

• Presenting on Oracle Open World at 8:30. Very happy to see it was standing room only at my presentation. Some people must of thought that it was the line for free breakfast.
• Breakfast with Mike Ault, one of my favorite database people.
• Quest users group, an excellent high energy group.
• ODTUG – love dem shirts!
• OAUG – awesome as always
• Definitely visit the Oracle user groups booth in the user’s pavilion.  IOUG booth rocks!
• Meeting with different Oracle product managers and product leaders.
• Bloggers event. A very cooool group.
• Duncan Mills presentations on Web architecture.
• I thought Steve Lemme’s presentation on Oracle Fusion Middleware was a very unique perspective and enlightening on the roadmap to successful projects using Oracle Fusion Middleware.
• Hooking up with different leaders from the IOUG and ODTUG, the two key technology user’s groups in the Oracle world.
• Food was excellent at the evening get togethers.
• Seeing Dan Norris, president of the Oracle RAC SIG.  Always lots of great humor and perspective.  Geaux RAC SIG!

Blogging can save your life!

One of the great stories of the conference was hearing how Debra Lilley (one of my favorite people) was stuck in an elevator at hotel and started blogging on how she was stuck on the elevator. Someone monitoring the Oracle blog for the conference called the hotel and helped get her out. Glad you’re okay Debra!

Thought of the Day

Loving seeing that with Oracle highlighting Oracle Open World as a green event once company advertised the green event by handing out advertisements using paper!

Quotes of the Day

“Chillaxxxxx”

“He’s like a satanic chihuahua under a strobe light”

Sunday Keynote: Carville and Matalin
Sunday as excellent with Mary Matalin and James Carville entertaining the attendees with a humorous and enlightening view of world of politics.Lots of interesting highlights.  James Carville said that we are in a time where things are changing faster than ever.  He said we can expect tremendous change in world events between now and the election.  He thinks if the people between 18 – 29 come out in high numbers its going to swing the election to Obama. He thinks there is going to be a tremendous generation gap in the US.   I really enjoyed their humor and insights.

Tony and Bonnie, we miss you and wish you were here!

Top ten ways to maximize your Oracle Open World experience.

1. Attend user group (IOUG, OAUG, Quest, ODTUG) events.   User groups are one of the best ways of networking at a conference.  Introduce yourself to leaders of the user’s groups and to volunteers they always want to be helpful and can give a lot of great advice on the conference.
2. Prepare questions to ask attendees at the conference to get conversation going.
3. Stop at the user group booth events and talk to the representatives and see how you can meet people with similar interests.
4. Introduce yourself to yourself to as many people as you can.  It can be kind of scary but everyone wants to meet other people.  Ask them on ideas on how to get the best out of the conference and who their favorite speakers are and what events they like to go to at the conference.
5. Look at people’s badges and see what areas they are interested in.
6. Spend sufficient time planning your schedule and which presentations you want to attend.
7. There are always great evening events.   See which ones would be interesting to attend.
8. Start each day early,  lots of people are relaxing having breakfast so it can be the easiest way to meet people before the day gets hectic.
9. Look at different blogs, podcasts and Oracle Mix on the conference, they can give you insights and the lastest information.  If you haven’t joined Oracle Mix you should consider joining.
10. Spend sufficient time in the vendor booth area.  Talk to the people at the booths and most important bring a lot of the free gifts home.

Have fun at the conference and I hope to meet you there!

IOUG at Oracle Open World
Oracle Open World (OOW) is going to be a great conference this year. The Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) again has a great role at OOW. OOW starts with the Special Interest Group (SIG) day, with the IOUG having a number of the best recognized speakers delivering presentations on areas ranging from Server Technology, Middleware and Business intelligence. The IOUG is the leading user group for Oracle technology. I highly recommend visiting the IOUG booth at OOW and attending IOUG presentations and events. OOW just keeps getting bigger and better every year. I’ve heard they are expecting around 40,000 this year. The conference is from September 21 – 25, 2008 at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco.

George Trujillo Presentations
I’m very fortunate to get the opportunity to open and close the conference. My two presentations are in:

Getting Started with Oracle Fusion Middleware (Sunday September 21, 2008 8:30 – 10:30am)
Demystifying Oracle Fusion Middleware (Thursday September 25, 2008 13:30 – 14:30pm)

Leverage Networking at the Conference
It’s going to be a great networking opportunity. Throughout the week I will be meeting with Senior Oracle managers in the server and middle-tier technology areas. I will also be meeting with leaders from the IOUG, OAUG, Quest and attending Sun Microsystems events. Getting involved with user groups is one of the best things you can do do further your career in terms of getting into the information stream of industry leaders as well as getting great networking opportunities.

Key areas for me include:

• Getting the latest information on the BEA integration into Oracle Fusion.
• Interacting with attendees and seeing what their current challenges are related to Oracle Server technology. The Oracle DBA is working in an ever increasing level of complexity when it comes to database servers. Having the typical administration, tuning and backup and recovery skills is no longer sufficient. Having additional skills in RAC, Data Guard, Streams, Enterprise Manager and storage are very important for production DBAs. Yet, at the same time DBAs have to start increasing their skills in getting ready for a new level of management of Oracle applications and the upcoming Oracle Fusion applications.
• Finding out exactly where we are with Oracle 11g Release 2. The Release 2 of a major version of Oracle has always been the target platform most organizations move to. As always we can expect a significant amount of enhancements to Oracle 11gR1 as well a new features in the Oracle 11gR2.

I hope to see you there!