Unlocking Insights: Why Conferences Matter

I very much enjoy speaking at conferences, and talking to everyone there. The insights that you get into how other companies are running their systems is incredible. The innovative approaches that different people and companies have to solving the same problems never ceases to amaze me, and the only way to really discover this. You get unparalleled access to question Oracle PMs and other experts in their field over a coffee or a beer.

The amount of knowledge shared at a conference is amazing – you learn about features and practical implementation of them in a way you just can’t discover with a search engine or a training course. Much of the content is marketing-free (well, there’s always someone…) The speakers aren’t pushing “features” at you hoping you’ll buy their product – they are explaining how to use them, what you could be doing with your systems, and maybe some really geeky internals – stuff not in the manuals – which give you a greater understanding of how everything is glued together.

Speaking has given me the opportunity for me to get to know so many great technologists it’s amazing, plus I have travelled to places that I would have otherwise never seen.

I have spoken at 5 conferences so far this year in Switzerland, Norway, Slovenia, Poland and Italy, as well as at a meetup in Sweden, and there’s 2 more to go:

DOAG – 18th-21st November in Nuremberg, Germany. The Agenda is here

UKOUG – 1st-3rd December in Birmingham, UK. The Agenda is here

I have a special fondness for the UKOUG – I started volunteering to help them around 2005, have spent 5 years on the board guiding it (through Covid) and now I’m back to volunteering again. Hope to see you there.

Conferences are a great resource – go to them, learn, have some fun over a coffee or a beer (or maybe an excellent whisky), and come back to the office with a head full of possibilities.