Oracle OpenWorld 2010 is over! While I had to leave early Tuesday (the paying job takes precedence over the volunteer job), there are many things to talk about that happened while I was at OpenWorld this year. I’ll attempt to cover a few of them in this posting.
Saturday Night, the ODTUG Board and YCC staff got together to discuss our plans and obligations for the week. With Sunday User Forum, MySQL Sunday, and Oracle Develop to attend to during the week, along with many other meetings, this was an important start to the week. It was nice for everyone to see everyone again, and to recharge and energize for the tasks ahead during the week. Below is a picture of fellow Board Members Barbara Morris and Monty Latiolais at the dinner at Annabelle’s Bar and Bistro.
Saturday Evening Dinner before OpenWorld 2010
Sunday morning, I had a breakfast meeting with IOUG President Andy Flower, and IOUG Executive Vice President John Matelski. Networking with other user group leaders is one of the prime benefits of attending Oracle OpenWorld. Thanks for breakfast, gentlemen! Sunday at OpenWorld, we were split between three different areas at OpenWorld. As always, we occupied Moscone West for the Sunday User Forum Day, and had four different Symposia to choose from. All of the sessions were well attended, and we tried to make sure someone was onhand at each session to hand out flyers and raffle entries (where we were giving out a free registration to Kscope11, to be held in Long Beach, CA June 26-30, 2011). We also manned our booth on the second floor of Moscone West. This is always a popular area, as attendees get to learn about many of the Oracle User Groups, not just ODTUG. In fact, this may be the best place to find out information about user groups while attending Oracle OpenWorld. I am confident that each and every user group is willing to talk with you about your interests, and if you are not a good fit for that user group, we are all willing to recommend each other to those in attendance. There are many user groups, and we are all here for one reason and one reason only – to support the users in the best way possible. If you were there, leave a comment on this blog posting to let us know what you thought of the day.
The second area that we supported was the MySQL Sunday program. This program was new to OpenWorld this year, and was held in the Marriott Marquis hotel, just down the street from Moscone West. Kathleen McCasland, ODTUG’s Executive Director, manned our area during this program, answering questions about ODTUG and providing information about our upcoming Kscope11 conference, mentioned above. This event was well attended, and many of those in attendance were interested in learning more about ODTUG.
The last area that ODTUG Board Members supported was at the Java User Group Forum, which was held at Moscone South. Since the Java User Groups are well established, this is a great opportunity to network with the other leaders of user groups. We all have a lot to learn from each other, and would do well to take advantage the opportunities to do so.
Sunday was a busy day, and one that kept us hopping all day long. My thanks to all those that spoke on behalf of ODTUG, those in attendance, and the ODTUG Board and YCC Staff that helped support the user group during this hectic day. To wind things down in the evening, OpenWorld attendees got experience an Oktoberfest, Oracle OpenWorld style. From what I hear, this was a fun time, with many different beers available for your consumption.
This was the first year that I was unable to attend the Welcome Reception. Being named an Oracle ACE earlier this year, I was invited to attend my first ACE/ACE Director event. Thanks to Oracle, OTN, and of course Justin Kestelyn, Vikki Lira and Lillian Buziak for putting on a first class event. Having a large number of Oracle ACEs and ACE Directors in attendance, this was a great opportunity to network with the best of the best in the Oracle technology world. I had a great time talking with many old friends, and making some new friends as well. Fellow ODTUG Board Members Jerry Ireland and John King, newly minted Oracle ACEs as well, were at the event as well.
You may ask where the Oracle ACE/ACE Director event was held? Well, this was quite a treat. We were bused across town from the Hilton to the wharf, and took over the Commodore Chardonnayfor the evening. We had dinner aboard the boat, and cruised the San Francisco Bay for a wonderful evening. The moon was close to full, and the fog held off long enough for us to enjoy the evening on the deck. Thanks especially to my dinner mates at the table: Edward Roske, Danielle White, Glenn Schwartzberg, Tim Tow, and Chis Bucchere. I had a nice time talking with other ACE and ACE Directors including Cary Millsap, Debra Lilley, and Todd Sheetz. I even (very briefly) finally got to say hello to Oraclenerd (Chet Justice). I promise, we’ll talk longer the next time that we meet! I also spent some of my time talking to both Lillian and Vikki, thanking them for putting on the event, and also starting discussions about the ACE/ACE Director Program and Kscope11. Stay tuned for more details as the event gets closer. I’ll put a couple of pictures of mine in this posting, and here is a link to Markus Eisele’s picture of the Bay Bridge from the boat. Markus’s blog can be found here.
Alcatraz Island from the Bay
Ghirardelli Square from the Bay at Night
Bay Bridge and Downtown San Francisco
Monday at OpenWorld, ODTUG was split in two different ways (at least). We manned our booth once again at Moscone West. In addition, we had a table at Develop/JavaOne that we took care of. This table was located at the tent outside the Hilton/Parc55/Nikko, about 6 blocks from Moscone West. The tent acted like a hothouse, and until the air conditioning was figured out, was very uncomfortable. We had a lot of traffic at this location, and for many in the Java Community, this was their first chance to learn a little bit about ODTUG. The hottest giveaway though was our ODTUG “ODTUGGER” tug boat. Many people wanted this for their kids, but this also got the traffic moving to our spot. Here is a picture of our boat.
ODTUGger
Monday evening was capped off with the first ever ODTUG Meetup! Held at the Thirsty BearBrewing Company. We hosted around 100 of our closest friends: speakers, Oracle Product Managers, attendees, and other user group leaders. We had a great time, good food, and good beer for everyone. This was our little way of providing another networking opportunity for everyone. Despite all of the other receptions going on, and OTN Night, we had a very good turnout for our event. We will need to evaluate the success of this event to determine whether we’d like to do it again next year, but personally, I think this was a clear winner. I hope that we can continue this tradition next year.
I had a mid-morning flight on Tuesday, so that is all of the coverage that I can provide you of OpenWorld. I missed the Appreciation Event on Treasure Island, as I understand that the Black Eyed Peas, Steve Miller Band, and Don Henley all rocked the San Francisco Bay. Maybe I’ll be able to attend next year
Thanks to Oracle for putting on a great event, to OTN, Vikki, Lillian and Justin for your hospitality, to the city of San Francisco for having such a great city, and to our attendees and speakers for your outstanding support and representation of ODTUG at this event!
