Oracle Tech Conferences

16/11/2019 Leave a comment

It’s mid-November 2019. The leaves have mostly fallen and the nights are drawing in. That can only mean… it’s time for Europes 2 biggest Independent Oracle User Groups to have their conferences.

The first, starting Tuesday 18th November, is DOAG – the German Oracle User Group – in Nuremberg.nuremberg I’m flying out there a couple of days beforehand as I have meetings, and it’s nice to travel and chill out too. This year I’m speaking about Oracle Database Statistics at both conferences, but I only have time for the “basics” talk at DOAG so I’ll try to get some Unconference time to talk about when it gets harder.

Then, from the 1st to the 4th December, it’s the UKOUG Techfest 2019. This is slightly different this year as we have split the main conference, comprising Tech, Business Apps and JDE into 3 separate components at different times of the year. The Tech-only conference has stayed in the December slot (with Business Apps moving to June).

We have also moved the conference to Brighton. New location, Great town.

I’ll be talking about  Oracle Database Statistics, but this time in 2 slots, Database Stats #1. Doing it Right, the Easy Way (Monday 2nd December 09:00), then in a bit more depth I’ll do Database Stats #2. Doing it Right, When it’s Harder (Wednesday 4th December 11:00)

For a UKOUG “conference survival guide”, I recommendbrighton-autumn UKOUG Techfest Survival Guide 2019. All you need to know about getting the most out of 3.5 days of Tech shenanigans. Turn up, learn, but also try to meet people and have fun! I hope to see you at one of both of these conferences, maybe have a coffee or somethings stronger – easy on the stalking though (read Martins Survival Guide first)

If you have not registered for Techfest 2019, you can do that here: UKOUG TechFest 2019!

There a full agenda of around 250 Oracle-related Tech talks. The problem isn’t trying to work out if there’s enough to see, but trying to work out how to prioritise all of them!

See you there!

techfest19_2000x400_techfest

Advertisement

Filed under doag, UKOUG Tagged with , , , , ,

POUG18

18/09/2018 2 Comments

So that was POUG18 – the Polish Pint with Oracle User Group. This is the 3rd annual conference (and the 4th event) I have attended. IMG_4748A new location, many new speakers but the same vibe, energy and level of fun. Taking place in Sopot on the Baltic Sea, it was simply excellent and has to be the most fun Oracle conference in Europe. Its just a good size. Not too big, not too small.

We were lucky with the weather, which was mostly warm and sunny – this always helps lift events!

 

 

But the conference was again simply excellent. Great work by Kamil and Luiza (and everyone else involved!)

IMG_4762Packed rooms, amazing presentations from excellent speakers and personalised beer. What’s not to like!

Pretty much the only thing missing was POUG fixture Martin Widlake.IMG_4761

 

So as the sun sets on another POUG, we look forward to the next one. Where will it be this time? Front runners are the unpronounceable Wrocław, Poznań,  Łódź or maybe in somewhere the mountains.

Thank you for inviting me.

Next… SpOUG – the Spanish Oracle User Group Tech Day next week. Hurrah!

IMG_4828

Filed under POUG, UKOUG Tagged with , , ,

Off to Poland…

04/09/2018 Leave a comment

This week I will be speaking at the Polish Oracle User Group annual conference in Sopot, Poland. It looks like a beautiful location for what is a really fun conference. As well as being surrounded by some of the most knowledgeable and excellent technology speakers in the world, there’s also plenty of fun and dancing taking place.

If I am extremely unlucky, I’ll end up swimming in the Baltic Sea. If you are unlucky, you’ll see me swimming in the Baltic Sea. Where I am from in the England there is an expression “It’s Baltic”, which means it is very cold outside. Very cold. So it is because it’s cold, OK. 🙂logo

I hope I’ll see you in Poland – fantastic place to visit with lovely people.

And don’t forget the parties and the dancing. Oh yeah!

And don’t believe all you hear about the vodka and axes, it’s much worse than that!

 

 

Filed under Administration, POUG, UKOUG Tagged with , , , , ,

Riga Dev Days 2018

03/06/2018 Leave a comment

rigaLast week I spent some time in Riga, Latvia. It was unusually warm, much to the consternation of the locals who wanted it to return to more normal sub-20C instead of the current 27C. Riga is a long way North.

It is also beautiful, friendly, and hosts a great conference! RigaDevDays is a Development conference, talking about Architecture, programming paradigms and also databases (which is usually where I fit in). img_4003-e1528018968617.jpgI was speaking about Oracle Optimization. I particularly enjoyed watching presentations about technology where I have little or out-of-date knowledge – it can really open up new thought processes, but it also tends to show that there’s nothing really new and nothing that somebody else has not tried before. It’s also good to see technology trends, see how our industry is evolving.

Attending conferences is a fabulous way to be educated, with awesome levels of expert knowledge on-tap. As well as learning new things, you can discuss how to resolve your problems and get fresh ideas about the best way to solve your business dilemmas.

Here’s a few photo’s from Riga! Attend a conference, learn from each other – it’s great!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Filed under rigadevdays, UKOUG Tagged with , , ,

UKOUG Call For Papers: Tech18, Apps18 and JDE18

28/05/2018 Leave a comment

The call for papers for Tech18, Apps18 and JDE18 is now open until Monday 4th June at 09:00. You have until then to submit an abstract for whatever you would like to talk about!

tech18-com-v2

What would you like to talk about? You’re telling me you have nothing? I don’t believe you. Everybody has a story to tell. Your work has value an your experiences and wisdom will help others avoid your mistakes and follow your successes.

apps18-com600x220-v1

Telling others about your experiences will help your career and enhance your knowledge – the only time I learn more then preparing a talk is when it’s all broken (after which I usually do a presentation about why it was a problem, how we fixed it and what we have done to prevent it happening all over again!)

jde18-com-600x220-v1

And don’t forget, you only need to submit an abstract today – a couple of paragraphs describing the presentation. You only have to actually write the talk if it gets accepted! 🙂

Yes, I know you’re a bit nervous, standing up in front of people. So am I. That’s normal. Don’t worry! We are here to help. First time speaker? Got a talk accepted and would like some help? I can put you in contact with an experienced speaker to provide some guidance and reassurance. You can do it! What are you waiting for?

Filed under UKOUG Tagged with , , , , , , ,

HrOUG – The Croatian Conference

01/11/2017 1 Comment

Arriving on Tuesday afternoon, directly from the Slovenia Conference and it’s straight into the 3rd Autumn conference! Conveniently, Slovenia and Croatia are timed together and are held within a little over 1 hours drive (plus a 15 minute boat ride!) apart. Well done on that one guys!IMG_1892

A quiet beer as many speakers and delegates wait at the docks for the boat to arrive, and I seem to be timing these sunsets well!IMG_1795

Wednesday was a day off, so Tuesday night allowed me to let my hair down a little and have a drink until late into the night. Wedneday, and the organizer, Davor, had arranged for all of the Oracle ACEs and Oakies to go on a tour of nearby Pula followed by some Go Karting. Great fun! I knew nothing of Pula so I was rather surprised to discover a huge Amphitheatre there!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The talks, on Thursday and Friday, were a repeat of the talks in Slovenia about Histograms and Plan Stability.  A great conference in a truely excellent location – having the conference on an island gives it the same magic as the OUGN conference: you can’t just wander off, we are all there together and that really adds to the conference.

IMG_1933

Rovinj with Andrew!

As a added bonus, one of my friends happened to be in the nearby town of Rovinj on the Friiday afternoon, which meant a serendipidous meet-up for lunch.

Overall a wonderful pair of conferences which felt as much a holiday as work, although I think I need a holiday to recover from them.

Filed under Administration, HrOUG, UKOUG Tagged with , , , , , ,

High Five POUG: Polish Oracle User Group Conference?

06/09/2017 Leave a comment

I’ve just returned from presenting at the 2nd annual POUG Conference, this time in Krakow, Poland (the first was in Warsaw). This is the Polish Pint with Oracle User Group conference and is exactly what a conference should be. Educational, Informative, Well-executed and Fun.  It was based in a lovely city, with a wonderful friendly people, good food and great beer!

The Speakers gift was very thoughtful - a personalised t-shirt which my wife has declared too good to wear!

As you might imagine, with a name like Pint with Oracle User Group, there is beer to be drank. But in this case it was as available as the tea and coffee – and completely free! Several hundreds of litres of it were consumed over the course of the 2 day conference, a tiny little bit of it by me. I suppose this is the side effect of having a conference in a micro-brewery. Talk about organization skills!

IMG_1606

Brewery and Conference Location!

There were around 30 speakers giving talks, many of them well-known Oracle ACEs of various hues but a couple of first-timers who were excellent too.  It also reminds me that you don’t need to be an expert to speak at conference. You don’t need to know the n-th level of detail like Jonathan Lewis. You just need a story to tell about something you did that was interesting! I assume we’re all doing something interesting in our jobs from time to time? If you are not, you might want to try to find a job with interesting things to do, then talk about them!

One unique thing was being walked onto stage to a thumping good tune (I picked Human, by Rag’n’Bone Man) by an anthropomorphisation of the POUG Logo – basically a IMG_1571young ‘Oracle’ dressed like Obi-Wan Kenobi. They were also there to help out the delegates and speakers with any queries or problems they may have. Usefully they were all current or recently completed students on their way to being a doctors, vetenarians or structural engineers. High quality help indeed!

Many thanks to Kamil, Luiza and everyone else at POUG for a wonderful conference to remember.

IMG_1536I was debuting a new conference talk about Histograms. The talk went well, I think, but there are a couple of tiny kinks to iron out for the next time I present it – in Slovenia and Croatia – next month. Best remove the POUG-specific slides too, right Adam!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oh, and the talk of the Conference was…Martin Widlake, with a gigantic beer!

IMG_1610

Martin Widlake giving a rather good talk about the parallels (and perils) of Beer and Development

 

 

Filed under POUG, UKOUG, User Groups Tagged with , , , , , ,

UKOUG Tech17 Call For Papers!

08/05/2017 1 Comment

The UK OracleUser Group has opened its Call For Papers for our flagship conference.

tech17We are looking for presenters across all Oracle technologies – and non-Oracle Open Source tech too! Showcase your skills in front of a thousand technologists of all skill levels and experience.

Do you have a story? Yes, you do. Submit an abstract here! You don’t need to be explaining the deep dark internals of an obscure part of Oracle nobody else has ever seen. Just tell us what you are doing. That’s cool, and that’s what we care about (although if you do have a talks about deep dark internals, we’ll have that too)

two_cakes

Image originally tweeted by @fictionaIs

But I’m not Original?

That’s not how delegates see it. That’s not how I see it and that’s how the selection committees see it.

You can be so the (wo)man, and own the conference! Two cakes? Yes please!

We have over 250 speaker slots available over the course of 3.5 days. We want new speakers, we want old speakers (which is lucky), we want everyone!

Whether you speak or not, the combination of awesome agenda a social interaction makes it the best all-round Oracle conference in the world. See you there!

Filed under UKOUG Tagged with , , , , ,

Oracle Conferences

13/12/2016 1 Comment

So the conference season is all over for another year. I have had a bumper crop of conferences and have been a very lucky man to attend and present and learn.

 

OUGN – The Boat – a 2 day conference on a ship. We’re all in it together, and nobody can sneak off after the last talk and avoid the party as we are all in the middle of the sea. So much fun, and the less said of me finding myself in a corridor at 1.30am, wearing only a sm… [redacted on public decency grounds]

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

POUG – Pint with Oracle User Group Poland in Warsaw lived up to its name. So many good parts to it; tables of beer, way too much vodka, great organization but the engagement of the audience was the highlight for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bgoug_group

BGOUG-Great location, group shot

BGOUG – Bulgaria’s twice yearly conference. This one was in Pravets, an hours drive from Sofia. I cannot sing the praises of this conference highly enough. Beautiful location. Kind-of like being at a family wedding with added learning and less fights 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DOAG – Flew straight from Sofia to Nuremberg to the biggest Oracle conference in Europe. Extremely good conference on the outskirts of a lovely city. So much to opportunity to learn, it was amazing.

 

 

 

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

UKOUG – Obviously the very best conference in Europe, but I am biased as  I help to organize this conference. This year I took a larger role leading the team pulling together the Database agenda, which was about 1/3 of the total content of Tech16. Lots of hard work, but it payed off with a bumper crop of speakers from Oracle, over 60 ACEs, a list of excellent topics and only a couple of room allocation problems where we got a bigger audience than we expected (but fortunately none in my streams)

 

As well as helping Organize UKOUG Tech16, I also run several 1-day community events each year as the Chairman of the UKOUG Special Interest Group (SIG) for RAC, Cloud, Infrastructure and Availability.

ukoug_communities

UKOUG Communities Meet

At the UKOUG we have a “communities” evening, with beer, wine and nibbles for a couple of hours. I also bring a bottle of whisky for people to taste (I like whisky) and several other speakers and delegates also brought favoured bottles, including Belgian and German Whisky. The German stuff was great!

ace-dinner

UKOUG Ace Dinner

I’d like to thanks all of the organizers, speakers and delegates for making the UKOUG and all of the other conferences for letting me attend, speak, learn and have a wonderful time this year.

Finally, thank to Jennifer and the Oracle ACE Program for helping all of our communities, big and small, to hold these events and provide Prawn Toast and Thai Green Curry at the UKOUG ACE Dinner 😛

 

 

I hope see all you in Ireland in March!

 

Filed under UKOUG Tagged with , , , , ,

DOAG Conference + Exhibition

26/07/2016 Leave a comment

Another quick post to let you know I will be presenting at the German Oracle User Group Conference [DOAG], which runs from 14th-18th of November 2016

This is a huge conference and exhibition over 4 days with many DOAG_2016tracks and a vast array of great speakers.

I hope to see you in Nuremberg! It will be good. Oh, yes. Es wird gut sein

 

DOAG Konferenz + Ausstellung 2016

Filed under Administration, Appearances Tagged with , ,