COLLABORATE 09 Day 2 (Tuesday)

Day 2 of COLLABORATE. The conference looks to be a great event and the folks that were able to attend are really enjoying it. We have so many great sessions here this week. I wish I could get to all of them .

I moderated BI Panel yesterday on critical success factors for BI projects. The key factors really looked at making sure that you have business sponsor involved in a project. Generally when IT drives a BI project, the benefits can be limited. As well there was discussion on making queries run fast. So if you can’t return data back fast enough people will not want to use what you build. Another point was made that people need to work incrementally and not try to boil the ocean, but to focus on a project that will provide the best return in the shortest amount of time.

Right now I am in a meeting with some of the Regional User Group leaders. These are the folks that help to get the Oracle technology message to users on a local level. The IOUG helps these groups and works as a place where we can share best practices. There are people here from the Florida, Salt Lake City, Cincinnati, Up State New York and Tina Weiss from Oracle. It’s great to hear how each group is putting together events to serve their local constituents. These folks are great volunteers and put in so much time in organizing their events, and I feel that everyone should support their local Oracle group. You can’t undervalue of these local meetings for learning and networking. It’s always amazing to me when I attend a local meeting the people that I meet, this interaction is so important.

Party last night at the event was an IOUG “Tuning” party. This was an open mike and karaoke party and was awesome. It’s really amazing to see some of the hidden talents of some of the IOUG attendees. Who would ever think that James (an Oracle DBA) could belt out some classics from Les Miserables. Of course the networking opportunities were amazing and got to meet so many great people.

On with the show......