2017OOW - UKOUG & User Groups in General

UKOUG was represented at #OOW17 in force. As explained in a recent news article we were sending both Paul Fitton our President and James Jeynes our Executive Director.

Both Paul and  James were new to #OOW17 and I am sure they were surprised at the sheer scale of it all. They both had very full agendas and I know they wanted to see lots of sessions between meetings, but I haven't caught up with them post UKOUG and am not sure how recovered they are yet!

Paul did a daily blog which is one excellent insight into his week and well worth the read.

Sun - blog.fittons.co.uk/oow17-day-1/ Mon - blog.fittons.co.uk/oow17-day-2/ Tue - blog.fittons.co.uk/oow17-day-3/ Wed - blog.fittons.co.uk/oow17-day-4/

I did see them both at the User Group luncheon on Monday and then again Monday evening at the UKOUG Meetup. This was an initiative Brendan Tierney ran with and apart from being in the darkest pub in all San Francisco it was a great idea and one we need to do again, a quick chance for us all to say hallo.

Whilst Paul and James attended on behalf of UKOUG, Brendan and I were at #OOW17 as part of the ACE Program and Fiona Martin was there in her role with her employer. I didn't stay long, I had somewhere else to go but I did just remember to get a photograph of the 5 directors all together (Ed our Finance Director wasn't at OOW; he was at home looking after the money).

Also at #OOW17 was Kerry Stuart, our Head of Sales who was very busy making new contacts for conference, both long term exhibitor leads and for delegates to this year's conferences. All except me took turns on the user group stands while I as traditional facilitated the EOUC Short Talks.

I did have a chance to represent us at a User Group Focus group where Oracle were looking for feedback on some initiatives. 

We have all come back with actions, information, questions and ideas; plenty to keep us all busy. And of course all those #OOW17 messages to ensure we have covered in the conference agendas.

I heard one great story from Jeremy Ashley, GVP of User Experience who told us how over several UKOUG conferences he had meet with people from one Public Sector organisations and was now working much closer with them. This is what user groups are about, influencing Oracle. What Jeremy's team does will benefit all users.

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