COLLABORATE 09: Day 3 (Wrap-up)

Slow day for me. I did not attend a single session. However, it was no where near dull.

First stop, the Oracle Press room. May I go to Oracle OpenWorld this year?

Finished writing up my post on Billy Cripe's session following that.

This is my 12th post for the conference. I've posted about 200 tweets over the last 4 days. I've done a lot of writing. It's not as easy as I thought it would be. For instance, I spent about an hour and a half on my interview with Jan Wagner. I think the longest non-technical post has taken about 15 minutes, because it's usually just a rant straight from the brain. The reason the post took so long is that I was trying be as professional as I could. OAUG provided me with a free pass to the event so the least I could do was take my time and get it right. So far the feedback has been good.

Back to the story. I went into the exhibit hall to finish up some work and up walks Mr. Cripe. He sat down and we chatted for awhile before he went into silent mode to finish up his upcoming presentation (or was it his book signing zone?). I then see @jtdavies reply to @cpurdy. I wonder if that's Cameron Purdy, formerly of Tangosol and now with Oracle? The only reason I know his name is because of this post from last year, Application Developers vs. Database Developers. I click through and it is him, so I follow him.

I then get up to go to lunch and end up at the table right next to my previous one. I start talking with the people (there were 3) at the table, then tell them I am there as a blogger. Sure enough, the guy to my left is on the Board of Directors for IOUG. I met the President of the Board last night. Weird.

When I mention my blog, the other guy chimes in, "Hey, I've read something from your blog...App dev vs. Database Devs". Turns out he is an engineer on the Coherence team. Wow.

So we get to talking, and talking, and talking. I then ask for a demo of Coherence...around 2 o'clock, my legs and back had had enough and I had to finish up some other work, so I left, reluctantly. It was so nice to have an intelligent discussion without the religiousity (is that a word?) usually involved in such discussions. We talked about those that say a database is no longer needed and perhaps why and also about some who don't use databases or decide to roll their own in a flat file or something. I certainly came away with a much better idea of what Coherence was/is. I wanted to see a GUI or something, but it's really just a set of libraries (I also asked if I could load it into the database :).

Small freaking world isn't it?

I spent the rest of the (short) day catching up on email, twitter and other writing. Wifey and LC came and picked me up and then we were on our way back to the Roller Coasters.

COLLABORATE 09: It's a Roller Coaster

Tonight was the big customer appreciation event at Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios. My goal for the evening was acquiring a bracelet for Kris and fortunately a new friend gave me his. He left this morning so he wasn't going anyway.

Despite living about an hour or two away for the past 20 years or so, I've never been to Universal in Orlando. Universal in California, a million times.

Nothing better than going to a theme park with 2 or 3 thousand people...compared to the usual 20 or 30 thousand. No lines for anything. Free food everywhere and drinks were modestly priced (I can't complain about paying for my own beer now can I?).

We ran into 2 people we met on Monday and walked around for awhile. We then parted ways and I sat and people watched...talking to whomever sat next to me. Since we parked it next to the Hulk, Kris decided to take it for a spin, 5 times.

Good times.

If you can't tell, I enjoy these types of events (conferences). It is nice to be able to meet new people and people you've only known online.

COLLABORATE 09: ECM and Rocking Out

I was told by Jake that I needed to meet Billy Cripe.

Who is Billy Cripe? This guy:

From jkuramot

Kilts are awesome. I wish (I probably could actually) I could wear one every day. I'll have to try it out.

Anyway, Billy is the Director of something or another at Oracle. I decided to attend his presentation yesterday, entitled, "How To Become An Oracle ECM Rock Star".

How To Become An Oracle ECM Rock Star

View more presentations from billycripe.

Not your normal bullet point presentation. WIN.

I'm sure he's been called it before, but he's definitely an evangelist for his product. He worked at Stellent and they were acquired (what new) by Oracle a few years ago. Rumor has it, he has a new book out as well. (As I was standing in a fairly long line for lunch, he walked through the line telling everyone about it. WIN.)

His enthusiasm is infectious. I now want to know more about ECM. WIN.

He's a big advocate of the social web, empowering users. The part that most stuck with me was his example on creating mashups, not the integrate with Google Maps kind necessarily, but allowing everyone to put together the data in a way that best suits them. WIN.

We've talked a bit since his presentation and I like the idea of unstructured data (Billy says something like 80% of an enterprise's information is unstructured). Something like this (I think).

From oraclenerd

How does it fit in with the database world? Does it at all? Interesting questions to ponder. I've always had this nagging feeling about all the email, documents and other materials that people have...how do you find them? How do you share them? How do you turn that raw data into something meaningful? You could be missing out on a new idea without all this information right?

If you get a chance to see Billy speak, take it. You won't be disappointed.

Read more about Oracle's Enterprise Content Management system here.

COLLABORATE 09: Day 2 (Wrap-up)

Another long day at COLLABORATE. I'm not complaining, I'm just out-of-shape. I've walked about a million miles with a 40 lb backpack. Good news, I've lost 3 lbs. :)

After a long night, I got in kind of late today. Add to that the fact that I got lost on the way...with GPS. Sad really.

I attended a short presentation on SwingBench, grabbed a quick lunch and then headed on down to the Press Room with David Peake (ran into him in the exhibit hall). He's a funny (and fun) guy. Well traveled to say the least.

After fighting with my computer for 30 minutes I went old school and used a pen and paper to prep for my interview with Jan Wagner. While waiting, I read every single OAUG packet I could find.

I spent a little more than 30 minutes with Mr. Wagner and headed back downstairs to get online. I may or may not have stopped in the exhibit hall for snacks.

I (finally) heard from Billy Cripe [ blog | twitter ] and decided to attend his session on ECM. What is that? I have no idea. ECM stands for Enterprise Content Management. Not only did I want to meet Billy (at Jake's suggestion) but I wanted to see what else was out there. I thought Oracle only had a database?!

Which reminds me, I need to write up his session. Let's just say he's an infectious speaker. Well worth the trip to the edge of the OCCC (again, no internet connection).

Billy then invited me to the ECM party and I gladly accepted.

In between Billy's session and Billy's party, I got a demo from Sue Harper [ blog ], the Product Manager for SQL Developer. She showed me some tips and tricks with both SQL Developer and the SQL Developer Data Modeler. I even submitted an enhancement request, though she already had that one queued up.

Ran into Dan Norris talking to Sue Harper. He introduced me to Ian Abramson, the President of IOUG and I tried to convince him he should let me come to all of his events...for free. Dan and I presented the case for allowing bloggers (not that they weren't allowed, there's just no policy yet) to attend. Especially super cool ORACLENERDs.

Off to the ECM party which had a Cinco de Mayo theme. Margaritas, Mojitos and beer. I think there was food...and some guy in the corner hand-rolling cigars. Fun was had by all. I had to retire early so I could come home and write. Tomorrow night I'll be getting a ride home so I won't have to worry about drinking or getting lost...