How’d You First Get Involved with ODTUG? - Part 8

I wanted to know how people first got involved with ODTUG so I sent out an email to some of my fellow ODTUGgers. Due to the sheer volume of responses I'll be posting multiple blogs to share their experience with you. Today's post highlights Kevin McGinley, Joe AultmanFlavio Casetta and Rick Nickerson.

kevin mcginley.jpeg

ODTUG member Mark Rittman invited me to get involved with the BI Track for Kscope11 and to speak at the ODTUG user group day at OpenWorld 2010. He invited me to be on his selection committee and suggested I submit an abstract to speak.  I helped select the abstracts for Kscope11 and spoke as well. My abstract write-up was selected as Editor's Choice for the entire conference. That was a nice "cherry on top" for my first Kscope experience, which was fantastic. I registered as a member and was offered the opportunity to take over the content for the BI Track, which I did for Kscope12 and will be doing again for Kscope13.

~ Kevin McGinley, Red Pill Analytics

The first year that Hyperion was on the program, my boss sent me to Kaleidoscope. I decided to make the most of it, meet people (Cameron), and get involved. I volunteered for the community service day and went to every session. There were not a lot of ambassadors lining up, so I got a silly hat and did it for a bunch of sessions. I wound up meeting and hanging out with some of the "big names" in the Hyperion world. I even found out I was a little bit of a "big name" from posting on the Network54 boards. Anyway, it just grew from there. When stuff needs moving, I move stuff. When they needed people for the SIG board, I ran. When they asked me to be in the Thirsty Games, I said yes. I just try to help, that's all.

Joe AultmaninterRel Consulting

flavio.jpgMy first experience with ODTUG was at Kaleidoscope 2008 in Daytona Beach. I went there not only to listen to the best Oracle experts, but also to meet them in person for the first time. Five years later, I am glad to say I count all the people I met at Kscope08 among my best professional contacts. They could help me on various occasions to save the day. Conferences are not just about great content, but also about building relationships with people that really stand out.

Flavio Casetta, yocoya.com

I believe I was introduced to ODTUG through my quest for APEX education. Rob and Fakhar attended a seminar four years ago and came back with the idea that ODTUG was very pro-APEX (and less Java). Of course, that was back then. I think things have changed. Anyway, from that, Fakhar and I attended the one in Washington. For me, that fortified a lot of things that I knew and was quite a valuable experience. I don’t think Fakhar was as stoked on all the APEX as I was. As a matter of fact, I think Fakhar was always under the impression that APEX was not enterprise ready. I believe that changed during the conference in San Antonio when ODTUG picked up more on ADF and he could see them being compared side by side. That was very enlightening. He is still more ADF but I think he has a better respect for APEX now. This stuff is quite valuable even though one does not actually get trained. It is very eye opening and puts placeholders in your mind of where you might need to go for the next step. And you pick up a lot of pointers from the technical sessions.

~ Rick NickersonAppraisal & Collection Technologies


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