So then this morning I see a billboard that said “In the war of ideas; Are we sending out children out unarmed?”

This is a question that seemed profound to me today. We live in a world where our knowledge is one of the most important qualities we can each have. This knowledge is what makes us productive but it also makes us interesting.

So how do we address this? We send our children to schools where there are educated on the way the world works and how we can find our place in it. However is this preparing us for what we really need? Do we have the skills we really need? Are we street savvy? Today the world is a complex place. One where we must be prepared for multiple influences on our everyday lives. We need to understand the influences of activity in all corners of the Earth. We need to understand how economic factors in the Far East impact North America and vice versa as well. You need to look at the big picture to be able to take a stand on how you react to various scenarios. It is no different in the IT industry. This is a place that has so many influences that you really need to understand how each impacts an IT project. You need to be armed with knowledge.

The world today is about acquiring knowledge and using it in a way that benefits everyone around you. So it is imperative to gather knowledge and quickly turn it into value. It is never too early to start this journey, but it is one that you must start so that you can be prepared as well as creating an environment where ideas are valued.

We have been waiting for quite a while to see the final release of the software (which is now available from Oracle) which has been much anticipated. We in the BI and data warehousing space have seen so many products over the years, such as Cognos, MicroStrategy among others, but Oracle never really had a great answer and Answers to these vendors, that is why this release is so important.

The latest incarnation of the OBIEE stack includes many new functions and features. It has a solid approach to dashboards, scorecards and reporting and provide it all from a common interface, which is a nice change. The software will still need to prove itself but at this point things look very promising. As I begin to work with the product I will be sharing my experiences. I will also be at Oracle OpenWorld in just a few weeks and I excited to see more on BI and all of the other DW technologies, and hope to meet some of you there to exchange even greater ideas.

If we look back the first President of the IOUG was Michael Corey, a big man, with a big voice and a personality that drew people in. He was one of the founding members of the community when Oracle did not understand how this group of independent user, customers and consultants could help make the product better, but that’s what he and the other Oracle users who put together a group which found Oracle’s ear and helped us start this road that is the user community

After the bravado of Mike Corey came the calm and diplomatic Merrilee Nohr, a true professional who brought a calmness and a direction which turned this group into a more professional organization. Merrilee struggled to build a solid relationship at a time when Oracle was starting to evolve into what it is today and in many ways Merrilee educated Oracle on the value that the community brought and how important it was for Oracle to support us.

After Merrilee I recall Rich Niemiec. There are few people like Rich, for those of you how know of him, know he is a great technical genius who taught us lots about performance and leadership. He led as any good Ex-Marine would and helped to motivation the Board and the community onto better things. As Rich once said to me “Leaders are chosen when they are needed and ready to take on the challenge,’” and Rich was there to help stabilize the IOUG during some rough times in working with Oracle.

After Rich, came Kim Floss, a customer of Oracle’s, which is always a good thing, as Oracle likes their customers and when one came to lead the user group like Kim, it was a great for our relations with Oracle as the relationship evolved.

Following Kim, was Ari Caplan. Another one of a kind leader. He brought a quiet calm and a strong leadership. He knew about a lot of cool stuff and was a business leader in the Oracle community. He also had a skill for baseball and analytics and today he works for the Chicago Cubs, maybe Larry can use him one day if he buys a team. And of course it was during his watch when we launched the first COLLABORATE conference and a new era in user group events was born.

Then came me. I am proud of what I did to help the user community and Oracle during my two year tenure. It was exciting and evolving as Oracle continued to expand while the user group continued to focus on the networking, advocacy and education. And together with the Board we all did a good job.

Which leads me to the current President. Andy Flower, who is a great, engaging and strong leader who is focused on continuing to grow the community. It will be under Andy’s leadership when we will welcome one of the newest communities to the IOUG; that of the MySQL community. After our meeting I am confident that Andy will help us move the community to a period growth while still keeping us focused on our core community.

Plus he looks a lot like Bobby Flay, so we can get good tables in restaurants and bars.

The IOUG has come a long way in the past years and will continue to evolve and change just as our great leadership has done over the years

The summer is the quiet time for user groups. We have finished one of the greatest Oracle user events in May, when Collaborate 10 ended and now we are interacting with our members in the virtual world. The IOUG as other Oracle groups run independently, which means we receive no funding from Oracle. They provide the user community access to the resources available at Oracle, which is a great value. We also support Oracle at their events; as we will be doing during this year on Sunday Sept 19th at Oracle OpenWorld where we will be providing a great technical program.

So at this time you should consider being part of the group and include your voice in the independent vision from your user group. It’s time to get involved and time to include yourself in some information and knowledge sharing.

It is great to be part of a user community where people and ideas come together to improve how we all do our jobs on a daily basis. The personal and professional learning’s which we all have the opportunity to acquire during the week is so significant. The relationship we build. The elite people of our profession who educate us. The COLLABORATE event is like no other.

Our meeting in Las Vegas ended yesterday and I have had some time to reflect on it and how the IOUG has once again succeeded. For all those attended in-person and on-line the value is obvious. What is not obvious. There is a team of volunteers and staff who hard for most of the year to deliver a total program that is second to none.

The IOUG Board of Directors helps to guide the community and support a program of education 365-days-a-year, but the week of the COLLABORATE is the concentration and distillation of the entire year. The Board which includes Andy Flower, our incoming IOUG President, and Judi Doolittle, who has helped the IOUG launch or new and improved web site, Jon Wolfe, our Education director who delivered another superior educational event, Todd Sheetz, who has grown the SIGs and RUGs at a unprecedented level, Steve Lemme, who helps guide the vision for the group and adds a special perspective, John Matelski, our Director of new technologies is working to bridge Oracle and the new communities, Michelle Malcher, who has helped developed a new membership program which you will see in the coming weeks and months and of course Kent Hinkley who makes sure we are fiscally responsible. The Board together helps to steer the user community based on what we need. Of course the conference committee and all of the various volunteers and staff, made it a year to remember.

If you didn’t get a chance to attend the make sure you start planning now to be part of COLLABORATE11 in Orlando, FL on April 10-15, 2011…..if you are serious about your Oracle job then get off your chair and get ready to get to Oracle for a quantum leap in your professional development.

Discussions with a few attendees has already paid for the conference.  Networking, insights and experiences of other attendees is invaluable.  Attendees will be making  thousands to millions of dollar decisions that will have tremendous impacts on their customers and companies.

Looks like the Fusion presentations went really well, I heard a lot of great comments.

I asked a number of people last night and today what was the main reason they were at conference. Answers included:
- “To understand trends and directions”
- “Enterprise best practices”
- “To hear what the experts say, I can read a book or the documentation. It’s the gotchas, lessons learned that matter to me.”
- “Virtualization”
- “Everything”

Really looking forward to ACE dinner and networking this evening.

Regular attendees of the conference to the person all place extremely high value in this. It is important that if you are new or fairly new to the conference, you should remember a lot of people are going to the conference to meet other people and exchange ideas. Make sure you get involved. Find a board of director or volunteer and you’ll find someone that would enjoy getting you more involved in the user community.

I listened to a keynote from the MySQL Users conference on user communities and I thought I would share some of the thoughts and discussion.  “The Engines Of Community” presented by Jono Bacon.  Author of the “Art of Community”.

“A shift in thinking and actions of citizens is more vital than a shift of thinking and actions of institutions and formal leaders.” Community leaders need to understand technical work flow. Democracy does not work in a collaborate environment. Collaborate environments need to be based on meritocracies.

Discussing community. “People join communities to have a sense of belonging.”  Talking about the mechanics of community: Communication channels, Structure, Collaboration and Environment. Don’t want to create a community of fiefdoms.  Need to make teams feel important.

George Trujillo, Jr.

More details of MySQL 5.5 new features can be found at http://mysql-dba-journey.blogspot.com.   Highlights of MySQL 5.5 is speed, speed, more speed and scalability.   MySQL 5.5 has benchmarked at 200% faster than MySQL 5.1 and 364% faster for writes.  MySQL 5.5 scales to 32  cores.  Oh by the way, biggest Internet apps are already using MySQL 5.1 because of its raw speed.

Sun technology, Oracle VM, Sun Virtualization, MySQL, Java along with Oracle database server and Fusion Middleware makes me feel like a kid in a candy store. 

George Trujillo

No technology runs in a vacuum.  So to me the incredible power of the Collaborate 2010 conference allows presentations on Oracle Database Server, Oracle Application Servers, Applications, Peoplesoft, Sun technology, Operating Systems, MySQL, Virtualization, Hardware, Storage etc. all at one conference.  It’s great to see the IOUG continuing to show leadership with increasing Sun and MySQL technologies activity. The exposure to all this technology in one week for me personally generates an incredibly high ROI for time and money.

George Trujillo, Jr.

George Trujillo, Jr.