COLLABORATE 09 - OAUG Forum
For those that don't know, COLLABORATE 09 is May 3rd through May 7th in Orlando, Florida.
About COLLABORATE 09The Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) and Quest International Users Group (Quest), present COLLABORATE 09, Technology and Applications Forum for the Oracle Community. As an educational conference, COLLABORATE 09 helps users of the full family of Oracle business applications and database software gain greater value from their Oracle investments. Created by and for customers, COLLABORATE 09 offers an expert blend of customer-to-customer interaction and insights from technology visionaries and Oracle strategists. Expand your network of contacts by interacting with Oracle customers, solutions providers, consultants, developers and representatives from Oracle Corporation at COLLABORATE 09.
I was fortunate enough to attend Oracle OpenWorld in November of 2002 (with a few swims in the bay) and I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt like I quite a bit by going. I would love to attend as many of these conferences as I can but I haven't stayed anywhere long enough to be eligible for perks like conferences. But that's not the only way to get there...
There are a couple of different ways to go:
- Pay your own way - Conference fees, hotel and travel could run easily about $3,000.
- Have your company pay for all of it - The ideal, but not likely especially given the current financial situation most companies are facing.
- Submit a paper, have it accepted, and present - As much as I would love to do this I don't think I'm quite ready yet. This would at least get you in the door but you would still have to pay for travel and lodging.
- Get a media pass - OpenWorld has offered bloggers media passes for at least the last 2 years. You're still on the hook for travel and lodging.
- Live close to the host city so you don't have to pay for travel and lodging
- Combine #4 and #5 and make it a family vacation. Bonus points for getting your parents to pay for lodging!
I opted for #6. How? Easy.
Twitter.
At 10:41 PM Feb 4th from TweetDeck I posted:
A few days later I received this reply:
And then silence...until I pinged them again:
Got a response the next day:
Thanked them appropriately:
Then yesterday I checked my email and I had a Direct message from COLLABORATE_09_OAUG:
How cool is that?
Lesson Learned:
Don't be afraid to ask, the worse someone can say is "No."
I daresay this would not have been possible without twitter. Sure I could have looked up their email address, but I probably would not have. Twitter made this absolutely painless. Thanks to
Jake for finally giving me a reason to use Twitter.
Labels: 2009, collaborate, oracle
