Oracle User Group Finland Conference

I mentioned the Oracle User Group Finland Conference and Heli their President asked if I would say a bit more…

Put a user group on a boat and they can’t go anywhere, so it is a good way to ensure maximum attendance. When the boat sails between two beautiful archipelago, the thousands of Islands that make up Helsinki Finland and Stockholm Sweden the setting is beautiful, sail in May when the sun shines 20+ hours a day and it is almost heaven, and when the boat is a cruise that stops at an offshore island for just 20 minutes to give it tax free status it IS utopia. The bars did close but although I never partook I understand the Oak Table hosted their own complete with Miracle beer.

The conference (yes there was a serious point to this), was a meeting of minds. The Swedish User Group started their conference on the Tuesday morning in Stockholm, where the boat sailed from early evening arriving in Helsinki the following morning. The Finish User Group then started their conference, the Wednesday being a joint agenda for both groups. We set sail again early evening arriving back in Stockholm Thursday morning to return those originating there. I actually left the conference for a few hours to take in Stockholm and did a bus tour of the city, I would have liked a water tour of the archipelago BUT the tourist boats were on strike! That evening we sailed again for Helsinki. What a way to celebrate 20 years!

The conference agenda had a number of tracks and each session had a flag denoting the language in the printed program. UKOUG had a number of speakers take part on various legs, Jonathan Lewis, Mark Rittman, Peter Robson, Julian Dyke to name but a few. Jonathan and Julian are Oak Table members and they were there in force including Mogens Nørgaard. Speakers such as the great Chris Date and Daniel Fink had travelled from the US. So with such great company I was amazed to get one of the highest scores.

I talked about the evolution of the Fusion Strategy from Oracle. I have given the presentation a number of times but normally to an all apps audience, but on this occasion there were many technology people present, I often say ‘I’m not techie’ so I was really conscious of their presence, but I shouldn’t have worried. We overran and I then had several individual conversations with people about what Oracle’s strategy means to the way they will work in the future.

I made lots of friends and had the best time. Happy Birthday OUGF