Best Practice doesn’t stand still.

At the IOUC Summit , Oracle brings together the leaders and representatives of the many hundreds of users groups they have around the world. Examples were given of collaboration between the groups and of best practice. UKOUG is often quoted as best practice especially in the areas of Surveys, Conferences and Fusion Input. We are not however sitting on our laurels and also listen to other groups and see where we can collaborate and learn to give more value to our membership.

There was a lot of interest in our new conference series, and we met with the Oracle ACE Program to see how we can mutually benefit. We have a lot of ACE speakers who already find presenting at UKOUG rewarding but we want to expand this. But we also want new speakers, perhaps we should start a 'buddy' system and pair up experienced speakers with those who have yet to get started but have a story to tell?



All the user groups talked about economic pressures and the effect on members some of whom have already lost jobs and many others under threat. In these times we as User Groups must also tighten our belts but ensure we give the support and education needed to our members so that we can together survive. In the last difficult period the user groups actually flourished, in hard times the value proposition of the user group is more acute and provides great opportunities for people to learn from each there when more traditional education may not be an option and UKOUG does represent incredible value.