Cast Your Vote! October 20, 2009
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One of the member benefits (responsibilities??) of being a paid member of ODTUG is your right to vote annually in the elections for the Board of Directors. This is your chance to influence the future of ODTUG by casting your ballot for five of the eight candidates nominated for election for the term of 2010 through 2011.
The incumbents are (in no particular order): Tim Tow, who serves as Treasurer for ODTUG this year, Jerry Ireland, who serves as Vice President, Bambi Price, who serves as Secretary, Jeff Jacobs, Kaleidoscope conference chair, and John King, Web Chair. Three other candidates have submitted their names for consideration as well. Once again, in no particular order: Monty Latiolais, Kaleidoscope 2010 Content Chair, Mark Rittman, and David Schleis, Kaleidoscope Conference committee member.
Who should you vote for? That is up to you to decide by casting your ballot. I will give you no recommendations on this one. For information on each of the candidates, please visit: http://www.odtug.com/apex/f?p=500:250:0.
I will tell you one thing: I consider each and every one of the candidates to be well qualified. They are all my friends, and I’m proud of their decision to submit their names in this election. The Board of Directors are great examples of the volunteers that are required to keep ODTUG running, and help determine the direction of ODTUG initiatives.
Good Luck to all of the nominees!!
Your vote will need to be cast by November 2 to be counted.
OPP/APEXposed 2009, Awards, and Oracle OpenWorld 2009 October 19, 2009
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Wow! It’s been quite a while…There have been many things happening in the past month, some of them fun, some not so fun.
There are still some openings for ODTUG’s Seriously Practical conference, this year November 10 and 11 in Atlanta, GA. OPP/APEXposed 2009 should be a tremendous training value and an opportunity to get all of your questions answered. Visit http://odtugapextraining.com/ for information on APEXposed 2009, and visit http://www.odtugopp.com/ for information on OPP2009. Of course, you can attend sessions from both conferences for the registration price of one conference.
Some congratulations are due…in the most recent edition of Oracle Magazine, there are several award winners that deserve our round of applause as well. Here’s the link to the online version of the article: http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/09-nov/o69awards.html.
In no particular order, here are just a few of the award winners:
Edwin Biemond – Java Developer of the Year. Edwin presented at ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2008 in New Orleans.
Chris Muir – Oracle ACE Director of the Year. Chris is ODTUG’s Fusion Middleware SIG Leader, is leading ODTUG’s track at the upcoming AUSOUG conference, and presented at Kaleidoscope 2009 in Monterey.
Dimitri Gielis – Oracle Application Express Developer of the Year. Dimitri has been a great friend to ODTUG, and despite his absence at Kaleidoscope 2009, his influence was still present. He helped organize the Oracle Application Express tracks at the conference, and won Best Speaker Presentation and Delivery for his presentation at the Kaleidoscope 2008 conference in New Orleans.
Congratulations to these and all of the other winners in the current issue of Oracle Magazine!
Oracle OpenWorld 2009 is in the books!
ODTUG participated at Oracle OpenWorld 2009 in San Francisco this past week. We had 16 sessions in Develop, the conference within a conference, 5 other sessions within the main conference, and hosted or co-hosted 4 different symposia on Sunday, also known as User Forum Day at Oracle OpenWorld. ODTUG, the home for Oracle developers, is the perfect user group to contribute sessions for Develop. While at Oracle OpenWorld, the ODTUG team introduced speakers representing ODTUG, met with other user group leaders, met with Oracle product managers, and met and answered questions of hundreds upon hundreds of attendees that wanted more information about our user group. Terrific job to all those that represented ODTUG at Oracle OpenWorld this year.
Unfortunately, I was NOT among those representing ODTUG this year at Oracle OpenWorld. The flu bug paid a visit to my house, and I unfortunately answered the door. However, I did have the good sense to stay home and try to prevent my spreading of this virus to all of my friends. So, while I missed seeing all of you, I’m quite certain you are all better off by not seeing me last week.
Congratulations to Oracle for putting on a tremendous show! I was able to listen to the keynotes and listen to some interviews via their live feeds. This helped me feel like I wasn’t missing everything. Great job on the interviews and the coverage by everyone, including Justin Kestelyn and the team from OTN. Thanks to everyone!
And the Nominees are… September 20, 2009
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The ODTUG Board of Directors annually elects around half of the Board for a new two year term. This year, there are five slots open, and 8 outstanding nominees. We have 5 incumbents that have re-submitted their names for consideration: Jerry Ireland, Jeff Jacobs, John King, Bambi Price, and Tim Tow. There are three additional nominees interested in serving on the ODTUG Board: Monty Latiolais, Mark Rittman, and David Schleis.
Who would I like to see on the Board? While I won’t share my personal choices, I think all eight nominees have impressive credentials, experiences, and viewpoints to bring to the Board. They obviously have the desire, drive, and determination in which to represent the ODTUG members. In the end, there are no bad choices. I’d be proud to serve alongside any of these eight nominees. Jerry, Jeff, John, Bambi, Tim, Monty, David, and Mark – I wish you all the best of luck. This should be a great election.
How do you find out more about these candidates? The best way is if you already are acquaintances of these nominees, and talk with them. You can find out a lot of their interests and goals for the organization by talking with them. Their campaign statements and biographies are located http://www.odtug.com/apex/f?p=500:250:0.
Voting is now open through November 2, 2009. For the first time ever, the process is available on-line. On-line voting should enable more people to respond and vote, and will greatly simplify the tabulation process. Many thanks to Wendy Fletcher of the YCC staff, and to Scott Spendolini of Sumner Technologies to implement the change. As it states on the website, if you have any questions or problems when voting, please contact wendy@odtug.com.
One caveat to this voting process is that you must be a paid ODTUG member to vote. This is your opportunity to help shape the Board of Directors for the next two years. It is your responsibility to vote, and if you think that your vote does not matter, well, you’re sadly mistaken. I know that in the recent past there has actually been at least one tie in the voting results. As in any democratic process, your voice will be heard if you submit your vote, so get out there and do it!
OPP/APEXposed (http://www.odtugopp.com/ or http://www.odtugapextraining.com/) registration is going great! Don’t miss out on this amazing training and educational opportunity. Your next best opportunity will be at our annual Kaleidoscope conference next year (about 7 months beyond OPP/APEXposed). Can you afford to wait that long to get the answers that you need on that mission critical project? I didn’t think so…
Later…
Nominations and other tidbits… August 27, 2009
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ODTUG (www.odtug.com) annually elects directors to serve on the Board of Directors. The people that are elected are expected to devote a considerable amount of time in support of the organization. We have monthly conference calls, and up to two face to face meetings per year. We are responsible for the leadership and planning for the group. If elected, the term is for a two year term. For more information, please click here. If you think you have what it takes, I look forward to seeing your nomination. The deadline for submissions is just over a week away, so please hurry.
In a recent announcement from Oracle, one more hurdle has been cleared in their bid to acquire Sun Microsystems. The U.S. Department of Justice has approved the acquisition, and it now faces one more hurdle: the European Commission. This governing body is expected to make an announcement concerning this acquisition in the very near future.
Oracle Open World 2009 is nearly upon us. ODTUG has 16 presentations that will be included within the body of Oracle Develop during Oracle OpenWorld. I hope that if you are attending that you will be able to head to one of our sessions, and sample just a little taste of what you can expect out of each and every session during our conference, ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010.
Speaking of ODTUG Kaleidoscope, our conference committee has already started meetings concerning the 2010 version of the conference. I look forward to sharing some of the details as soon as possible with you, just not quite yet…
20 years and counting… August 12, 2009
Posted by odtug in ODTUG, Oracle, User Groups, Work.3 comments
I celebrated my 20th anniversary today at my work. I think that my length of service is an anomaly in the industry today, and a testament to the kind of company that I am proud to be employed by. Their support allows me to grow both personally and professionally, and without this support, I would not be able to volunteer for ODTUG in the fashion that I do now. Thanks for a great 20 years, Hortica Insurance and Employee Benefits. I look forward to the challenges that each and every day bring to my job! Let me know, you faithful readers, what your longest stint with a single company has been in your career up to this point. Please leave me a comment.
ODTUG’s SP Conference (here) or (here) is moving right along. The agenda is fairly well set, 5 tracks for PL/SQL and 3 tracks for Application Express. Keynotes by Steven Feuerstein, Bryn Llewellyn, Scott Spendolini and Mike Hichwa. Registration is already going well, and we anticipate another crowded house (no, not the band). Get your funding for registration, reserve your seat on a plane, and make your hotel registration now to ensure that we have space for you at this event. You won’t regret it.
Oracle OpenWorld 2009 is fast approaching. Lots of great sessions. Lots of great networking opportunities. A great, fun, and culturally diverse city. Oh, and by the way, one of the best user groups in the world will be present and in the User Group Pavilion. Many of our Board members will be present during the conference, some of them presenting sessions that you will be able to choose from. I hope to see you there in October.
Kaleidoscope 2010 planning is continuing. Look for an announcement soon on both the location and the opening of the abstract submission process. We are looking for the best of the best to present at Kaleidoscope 2010, and look to improve on our critically acclaimed Kaleidoscope 2009 conference.
Rolling on… August 1, 2009
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All seems quiet, but ODTUG continues to roll on…
In July, we have continued to work on the evaluation process for ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2009, in preparation for Kaleidoscope 2010. We always take a close look at the evaluations each year. This effort is continuous, as we are always trying to improve the conference. Regardless of how good of a job we think we did, there are always things that we can do better. Jeff Jacobs will be the conference chair for Kaleidoscope 2010, so he is taking an extremely active role in this process. I know that Jeff is focused on doing the things that will make your conference experience tremendous. Expect frequent updates about Kaleidoscope 2010 on this blog, including an announcement soon about the location for 2010. Our Executive Director, Kathleen McCasland has been planning site visits to various locations in order to secure a place for Kaleidoscope.
In the middle of July, Kathleen and I attended the North American President’s meeting in Atlanta, GA at the Oracle offices. This is a semi-annual meeting of the leaders of the major North American user groups. Oracle provides us the location and is always a wonderful host. Mary Lou Dopart and Tina Weiss do their best to make this experience as productive as possible for all involved, both Oracle representatives and user group representatives. Thanks Mary Lou and Tina!
Planning for Oracle OpenWorld 2009 also continues. This conference will be held in San Francisco from October 11-15. ODTUG will once again have a presence in the User Group Pavilion. I look forward to renewing our relationships with the other user groups, with our friends at Oracle, and with you, the members and friends of ODTUG. If you are planning on attending, please stop by our booth and say ‘Hi’. I look forward to the Appreciation Event, held on Wednesday October 14th on Treasure Island, this year featuring Aerosmith. I’ve seen Aerosmith a few times in the past (including once on a double bill program with KISS), and they always put on a tremendous show. I hope to see you there!
ODTUG has announced our Seriously Practical conference for 2009, OPP/APEXposed 2009, to be held in Atlanta, GA on November 10-11. Registration is now open, so you should make your plans now to attend. Steven Feuerstein and Scott Spendolini have put together a tremendous program for this conference.
There are many more things that ODTUG is planning and working towards. We are always focusing on bringing forth more value for both your membership dollar and your conference(s) registration fees. I’ll let you in on our plans as soon as I can.
Sorry for the short post, but I’m preparing to head out on a family vacation. Monterey was great this year, but I only got to see the conference hotel property, and Old Fisherman’s Wharf. I was too busy for really relaxing much. The family and I need to recharge our batteries, as the kids head back to school in less than 3 weeks.
A special Happy Birthday to my wonderful wife Lisa today!
Welcome Back…Wednesday at Kaleidoscope, ODTUG Hyperion SIG News! July 9, 2009
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Wednesday at Kaleidoscope brought about more of what we are known for…great content! At this point, we were entering our fourth full day at the conference. While some folks were a little bleary eyed (from the Hyperion Midnight Madness, and then a game(s) of Werewolf afterwards), everyone was still cheery and interested in attending sessions. All day long, in one of the rooms, we featured all Fusion Middleware, all of the time. Paul Dorsey, Grant Ronald, Duncan Mills, Peter Koletzke, and Avrom Roy-Faderman took part in various sessions throughout the day. Considering this was seven days before the official launch of Fusion Middleware 11g in Washington D.C., attendees got the opportunity to learn more about Fusion Middleware from some of the world’s foremost experts on the subject, and in a very timely fashion. (Hint: if you haven’t seen some of the photos, check them out here – and add your own photos to this collection to share with everyone).
In addition, our Application Express tracks kept going, bringing 12 more sessions to our attendees, including one by Joel Kallman on managing your Application Express instance using the Oracle Database Resource manager. The quality of presentations throughout the conference was staggering. The positive responses that we received have been overwhelming.
Wednesday night, we held our special event. This year, we provided some amazing food, with a jazz trio playing some great music while everyone enjoyed their meals. Then, the featured guest for our special event, comedian Don Friesen, took us on a comedic ride including his new iPhone antenna, IM messaging, among other things, and he had most everyone in the audience ROTFLOL! Don did a great job, and if you happened to miss his performance, I’d encourage you to go out and see him sometime, or order a copy of his DVD. Even Stanley got his moment in the spotlight with Don. The night ended (at least the special event) with some high energy dancing to a DJ spinning some tunes in the pavilion. Those that still had some energy went out afterwards and played another game of Werewolf into the wee hours of the morning.
ODTUG Hyperion SIG News!
I just heard the news earlier today about our Hyperion SIG…they held their elections at Kaleidoscope, and today that elected Board went through the process of internally electing the officers of the SIG. They have three positions that are voted on: President, Secretary, and Web Chair. And the results are (drum roll please): Gary Crisci has been elected President, Angela Wilcox has been elected Secretary, and Cameron Lackpour has been elected Web Chair. This team will be leading this SIG for the next year. They have a tremendous challenge to live up to the performance of this SIG in the past year. The SIG was completely in charge of the content for Hyperion at Kaleidoscope in 2009, including the hands-on labs for Hyperion content. Great job team, we could not have done it without you. Congratulations to all three of you!
I have to pass along my thanks to Edward Roske, the outgoing President of the ODTUG Hyperion SIG. When the SIG was formed, Edward served as President until this first official election. His energy, enthusiasm, and commitment to the Hyperion User community is tremendous, and he deserves a lot of thanks for helping to build this program with ODTUG from the ground up. Well done, Edward, thanks!
That’s all for now…
Tuesday at Kaleidoscope, and Twitter June 30, 2009
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I’m looking for some feedback here. Please post your comments or thoughts to this blog posting. If you attended Kaleidoscope 2009, you were aware of our Twitter initiative. Right outside of our registration desk, we had a monitor set up with a laptop to search for #odtug on Twitter. Several times throughout the conference, I would pass by the monitor and catch up on what was going on in the sessions (it’s not easy keeping up with 11 sessions at the same time when you can only attend one). The other thing that I found extremely interesting was how many other folks were watching the Twitter feed as well. I’m waiting to find some statistics on its usage, such as how many different people were participating, and how many of those Tweets were interactive (someone pushing a message out and getting a reply). I’m encouraged by the buzz that was created, and I know of some folks that were unable to attend that were following along with Twitter as well (including Dimitri Gielis, who was interested particularly with Mike Hichwa’s APEX 4.0 presentation).
Tuesday at the conference, we had lots more content to share with the attendees. Some of the highlights includes the various panels: the Database Development Panel, with Cary Milsap, Tom Kyte, and Steven Feuerstein, among others (apologies, I cannot name all of the panel members for every panel…), the BI/DW Panel with Mark Rittman, Jean-Pierre Dijcks, and Dan Vlamis, and the Tools Panel, with Sue Harper, Duncan Mills, and Maggie Tompkins. Add in about 50 more technical sessions available, and Tuesday was a busy day.
Late Tuesday afternoon, the Oracle ACE Directors, sponsored by Oracle Technology Network (OTN) hosted Sundown Sessions. These sessions allowed attendees to discuss various questions and topics in rooms manned by the various Oracle ACE Directors. Sessions included Database Management and Performance, Hyperion, Essbase and BI, Database App Development, and Middleware and SOA. These sessions were jam packed for the most part, with some rooms requiring extra chairs to be brought in. After these sessions, OTN sponsored a reception for all attendees to have some food and drink, networking with the ACE Directors all the while. A huge thanks to OTN and the organizers of this event: Justin Kestelyn, Vikki Lira, and Lillian Buziak. At the end of the evening, the Oracle ACE Directors took a short bus ride to the Monterey Beach Resort for a special dinner and bonfire afterwards.
Tuesday was a special day at Kaleidoscope 2009, and all the attendees got to really understand ODTUG’s unofficial motto of “Work Hard, Play Hard”.
On a side note, Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g’s launch will take place Wednesday, July 1, 2009. If you cannot attend in person (in Washington, D.C.), please follow the link below and register to watch the keynote live via webcast. ODTUG’s very own Vice President Jerry Ireland will represent ODTUG in-person at this event.
Monday at Kaleidoscope 2009 June 29, 2009
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General Session time – I didn’t see anyone much before the General Session. Jeff Jacobs and I were rehearsing for our speeches, and making sure everything was ready for John Kopcke.
I started out the general session talking about the ODTUG mission statement, and how we, as ODTUG Board Members and volunteers, have tried to work towards the ideals of this mission statement. In case you missed it, here is ODTUG’s mission statement:
To establish members as leaders in their organizations, provide timely access to the latest technical information, facilitate communication within the Oracle community, and provide a united voice to influence the technical and strategic direction of Oracle and other vendors.
I also tried to encourage others to volunteer for ODTUG, as volunteers are the heart of our organization. If you are interested in volunteering, let me know, or any other Board member know, or e-mail our volunteer coordinator, Monty Latiolais, at monty@odtug.com.
I had the extreme pleasure to announce the next award winner for ODTUG: the Oracle Contributor of the Year. We give this award out annually to an Oracle employee who goes above and beyond in helping out ODTUG throughout the year. This year, we had two excellent nominees, and decided for the first time to hand out two awards: one to Todd Trichler, who helped coordinate our hands-on labs and runs the installfest annually, and the other to Al Marciante, who has acted as our Hyperion SIG’s liason for the past two conferences, and has chaired the Sunday Hyperion developer symposium both years. Congratulations gentlemen, for all of your hard work on behalf of ODTUG for Oracle, and on behalf of the entire user community!
Jeff then took over and presented three more awards: the Editor’s Choice Award, to Peter Koletzke, the best presentation – style to Peter Koletzke, and the best presentation – content to Dimitri Gielis. Dimitri was unable to attend, due to the impending birth of their second child. Congratulations Peter for both awards, and congratulations Dimitri for your award and an even better present soon.
Jeff spoke about many things happening at the conference during the week, thanking many of the volunteers, laying out the highlights for the rest of the week. He then was able to introduce John Kopcke, our keynote speaker. John flew cross country to talk to the Kaleidoscope crowd, and those in attendance were not disappointed. Afterwards, John made some time available to talk with the ODTUG Board, immediately prior to his flight to the UK. A great big thank you to John for helping make Kaleidoscope 2009 truly memorable.
We then had four sessions, three of them purely technical, and an hour slot in the afternoon for our vendor presentations. Our vendors are a key part of the success of Kaleidoscope, and many of them had a session in which they were allowed to market their products or services, as well as give the audience technical information. Thanks to all of our vendors for your support of ODTUG!
The evening ended with our Shop, Dine and Play event in Monterey. ODTUG provided bus service to/from the Hyatt, the Monterey Beach Resort, Old Fisherman’s Wharf and Cannery Row. This allowed many of the participants to see some of the wonderful city of Montery. The food was great, the attendees had a great time, and everyone took the opportunity to visit the rest of Monterey.
That’s enough for today, and I was only able to cover Monday at Kaleidoscope 2009. Next year’s Kaleidoscope promises to do it even bigger and better than this year, as we are constantly trying to make each year better than the previous one. If you need to add an item to your training budget for next year, make sure you plan on attending Kaleidoscope 2010, to be held in…oops, I can’t tell you than one yet, you’ll have to check back soon for that piece of information.
Later…
Kaleidoscope 2009 is in the books June 28, 2009
Posted by odtug in ODTUG.3 comments
This should be the first in a series of posts about Kaleidoscope 2009. There are too many good memories to put them all in one post, so I’ll try and relate a few in each posting.
Community Service Day – June 20 -
One word…WOW! The ODTUG Community turned out for our second annual community service day. The Oracle Ace Directors were out in force to help our efforts, helping rid the Martin Dunes of the dreaded South African Ice Plant. This invasive plant species is ruining the fragile ecological balance in the area, crowding out other plants and changing the natural habitat of the area. The ODTUG Brigade spent three and one half backbreaking hours pulling the plants, piling them up, and relishing in our hard efforts. This is a great tradition, started last year in New Orleans, and one that ODTUG will strive to continue if at all possible. A great big thanks to the Big Sur Land Trust for helping us set this up, and to OTN for sponsoring this event.
Sunday Symposium Day – June 21 –
Four Symposiums = A Virtual Must Day to Attend. Our Symposia have evolved throughout the years, and now have enough content and variety that most all of our attendees came in on Sunday, Father’s Day, to soak up the knowledge being delivered in these sessions. We had four different symposia: Hyperion Development, Application Express, Web Architecture, and SOA & BPM. These themed days have become a highlight and a great way to start out the week.
Congratulations to our first award winners, presented in the Sunday Evening keynote. There can be no one more deserving of a lifetime achievement award than Steven Feuerstein. Steven is the “father” of our SP conferences. His presentations are always highly rated and he is always willing to share his knowledge and expertise. Congratulations Steven!
ODTUG Volunteer of the Year for 2009 – Monty Latiolais! Way to go Monty! Your dedication, desire, drive and determination to help ODTUG out in any way possible during the past year could not be overlooked. You have taken on many responsibilities (Technical Journal author, Kaleidoscope executive conference committee, hands on training coordinator, volunteer chair, Kaleidoscope presenter, Oracle Open World 2009 program chair, and probably others that I have missed. Monty is a great volunteer, and volunteers are the heart of ODTUG. We’re looking for volunteers all the time, so if you’d like to help out, please contact Monty or any ODTUG Board member.
Steve Miranda gave us a great keynote on the Fusion Development project. Steve showed some of the new apps off to the group, and we appreciated Steve driving down from his home on Father’s Day to present to our attendees. Steve spent a little time afterwards talking to the ODTUG Board, and we were glad to host him and get a little one on one time with him.
The Welcome reception followed in the vendor exhibition area. The food was great, the music was nice, and the vendors were happy to see all of the attendees. I heard from several of them that the quality of the leads that they received during the Welcome reception alone was worth more than the fees that they paid to exhibit at Kaleidoscope. This was a winning combination to all involved, and a great way to end the first full day of content at Kaleidoscope 2009.
That’s enough for this posting, I’ll try and give you some more updates in the next few days. I hope you were there, and if you weren’t, I hope you were following along in the blogs and Twitter tweets (more on that later). Depending on your company’s budgeting cycle, you might want to start planning for the greatest training opportunity in 2010, Kaleidoscope (location and dates to be announced later).
