Thankyou Roel for Making me Think about the value of ODTUG

I really enjoyed reading Roel Hartman’s blog on how ODTUG / KSCOPE can change your life, and saw a number of similarities. I first spoke (deliberately) to a technical audience at KSCOPE in New Orleans the same year as Roel, and although I was a confident speaker they gave me the new opportunity to talk to developers about the business benefits of what they are doing.

Like Roel I am an ACE Director which came about from me linking the technical and functional sides of Fusion Middleware. ODTUG are the best forum for this (outside of my own user group UKOUG obviously), because they have dedicated FMW tracks supported by Oracle Product management, and the excellent Sunday Symposiums.

This year I am submitted a paper on when and how you would extend Fusion Applications and really look forward to having the discussion this presentation has. We have over the years said that applications should not be customized and yet Fusion Applications are written in such a way, using metadata to deliver what the user sees that we can extend them.

I am also helping Susan Duncan with a presentation on ADF Mobile development, showing has this has been used in Fusion applications which are the ultimate shop window for FMW.

I recently visited Australia with my job at Fujitsu and the timing corresponded with the ODTUG Seriously Practical BI & EPM event and I was honored to be asked to speak there. I talked about how BI & EPM are usedin Fusion Apps. ODTUG members are using the technology that underpins these applications and knowing how they are used makes these members a valuable commodity. I was even more honored when I was asked to add this to my Kscope sessions.

So attending KSCOPE can change your life but it defiantly changes other peoples’ lives through community service days. I have painted schools, cleared weeds and cleaned classrooms as part of these events and boy does it set you up for a week of learning at the conference. I am really looking forward to being part of this year’s endeavors.  When you leave a conference you take away great memories but the community days ensures  you to leave something behind of value.

OUG Ireland - March 2013

I really must get better at adding these blogs on time! almost 6 weeks late on this.

First UKOUG had a very prompt comment out on the event which I think summed up the day very well. And all their photos are  available on the UKOUG facebook page

For me it was about themes, there were two very distinct themes in the agenda , mobile and analytics that were across all streams. Again showing how important it is to look at the big picture, and one of the reasons we are moving to a flagship Applications conference in October. At the start of the event I  suggested that people should look across streams and attend a session they may not have originally chosen. For instance , the BI Apps in the EBS stream was just as relevant for the BI community, and the same went for the JDE community which I was really pleased to see for the first time at OUG Ireland.

Mark Rittman and Brendan Tiernay were amongst those speaking on analytics along with local presenters and Nadia Bendjedou talked about how Endeca is being integrated with EBS.

I talked about Fusion (surprise), first my what does it mean to you, and enjoyed listening to an update from Standard Life about their Fusion implementation. I also spoke about FUSE as an example in Ultan O'Brien's mobile ADF UX session. Mobile also appeared in both keynotes and in an APEX session from Roel Hartman. Roel also presented on APEX fundamentals with Alex Nuijten

The latest edition of Oracle Scene came out on the same day with a special Ireland edition  and I had an article about NI Water and their achievements.

My company were also in attendance and I am very proud that Fujitsu support UKOUG.

The evening before the event we had an ACE Dinner and had the opportunity to welcome Brendan Tiernay as the first ACE Director in Ireland (I live in N Ireland, different place). It was also really nice when this was mentioned in the keynote the next day. There was a great showing of ACEs and it was fantastic to get together, thank you OTN.

I have blogged before about Wee Oscar whose mummy is an Oracle Developer, and Oracle Dublin led by Paul Diamond were gearing up for a charity cycle ride to Belfast where Wee Oscar lives to raise money. They were in the exhibition hall and raised over €1,000 on the day and over €12,000 in total.