My OOW14 - EOUC 12 Short talks on 12c

In my OOW14 Objectives post I talked about the planned 12 Short Talks on 12c
session I was hosting for the EOUC. As I said usergroups have their own dedicated content on the Sunday of OOW, and the EOUC had a stream with presenters as voted by the various EMEA user groups.

The idea of the session was 12 presentations all about the 12c database and was proposed by Ralf Koelling from the DOAG and I volunteered to host. I knew it would be a big job, 12 of the best speakers all with their own way of preparing for events, so I wasn't optimistic I would be able to control them all.

Douwe Pieter van den Bos included an article on this session in his OOW OTech Magazine edition (page 23) and OTN's Bob Rhubart created this blog and podcast which I really recommend as you can Hear Jonathan Lewis discussing table dancing.

I sent out a PowerPoint template including an intro slide that showed a picture of Jonathan Lewis, gave them a slide number limit, and a deadline for sending to me so I could get it spliced into a single deck.

Twelve professional presenters with an unbelievable track record, but follow instructions....no
Three (in addition to Jonathan) sent them back still with Jonathan's picture, another three used their own template including one with a different resolution, others completely ignored the number guideline and Alex Nuijten decided to be white on black slides and some didn't turn up until after we arrived in San Francisco.

The original line up was      

      1. Upgrading to 12c: What Will It Break? Jonathan Lewis, Oracle ACE Director, OakTable
      2. The Optimizer in 12c. Christian Antognini, SOUG, Oracle ACE Director, OakTable
      3. Data Pump Enhancements in 12c. Osama Mustafa, MEOUG, Oracle ACE
      4. Pattern Matching in 12c. Gurcan Orhan, TROUG, Oracle ACE Director
      5. PL/SQL Security Enhancements in 12c. Alex Nuijten, OGH, Oracle ACE Director
      6. Data Redaction in 12c. Oded Raz, ilOUG, Oracle ACE Director
      7. A Case for the Multitenant Architecture, Even with a Single PDB. Tim Hall, UKOUG, Oracle ACE Director, OakTable
      8. How Does Oracle SQL Developer Manage Multitenancy? Ami Aharonovich, ilOUG, Oracle ACE
     9. Multitenancy: Impact on SaaS.   Kashif Manzoor, MEOUG, Oracle ACE
    10. Oracle Multitenant in Standard Edition: (How) Does This Work?    Julian Dontcheff, OUGF, Oracle ACE Director
    11. What Features Will 12c Offer Traditional Oracle Apps?  Bjoern Rost, DOAG, Oracle ACE Director
    12. In-Memory—Enables Us To?  Dimitry Volkov, RUOUG, Oracle ACE

Unfortunately Kashif Manzoor was taken ill the day before flying out to OOW and had to withdraw, I did try and find a replacement but with no luck, so I had to do it, more on that later.

Dimitry Vilkov had to pull out a few weeks before OOW but promised us slides and a video. However when the video turned up it was over 9 minutes long and the whole idea was 5 minutes each! So I have included his slides and video in the download but bought in my secret back up speaker to do the In Memory on the day! Yes I got SQLMaria Maria Colgan to come speak, after all she comes from Ireland originally so defiantly an EMEA speaker.

I jiggled the agenda slightly so Maria could go earlier than planned as she had a keynote to get ready for, and then I moved the Impact on SaaS until just before Bjoern as actually the benefits are very similar technically. But you know me, not very technical so I talked about the business benefits and how actually Oracle's Apps strategy is behind a lot of the R&D in all the technology including the database.

These changes in 12c make running a cloud easier and cheaper and a better customer experience, which ultimately keeps the cost down. so as the world starts to adopt Cloud Applications 12c ensures Oracle are able to provide the best platform at any level.

But going back to the overall session, it was split over two timeslots each with 45 minutes. I thought it would take a while for switch-overs so did not think we would have much spare time, but I had underestimated their professionalism.

The crowd was building and we were almost full as we started.

I introduced the session and Milena and Ralf were my time keepers. Thanks to Graham Wood who lent us a 2nd projector so we could have the clock show up on the wall, unfortunately Graham couldn't attend the session and I spent 3 days carting it around trying to catch up with him, luckily it was light.

Jonathan went first (the podcast explains why) and finished on exactly 5 minutes, the bar was set. Then the others just got on with it and we had almost 20 minutes for Q&A after the first 6. I was worried about that but actually we could have had more, people were so engaged.

Then we had a lesson in Big Data, despite having told Oracle both in advance and on the day that both sessions were combined, everyone, yes everyone had to march out, queue up and be rescanned to enter the room for the 2nd half. Apparently they wouldn't have the data they need if we didn't.

Again after the 2nd half we had plenty of time for more Q&A and the event finished on a real high.

I have had so much feedback, people who want to do it again, so let us have your ideas as to what topic to do next.

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