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).
