LAOUC 2025 - Tour Reflections as an Oracle ACE

The tour isn't complete yet, but my contribution is. I only had 2 weeks available, which meant just the first 4 legs. Mexico City, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala.

I have been involved in user group events for over 25 years and have heard most feedback before but on this tour I met many first time 'tour' speakers, local, Oracle and ACE participants and thought I would share my thoughts.

ACE Director Funding:

This isn't a negative, in ANY way, just clearing up a few myths:

I am incredibly fortunate to have funding from the Ace program for many events. For participating ACE Directors they pay for flights and hotel, for the night before and off any sessions I deliver. It doesn't cover any extras, and often not what I actually pay for these two categories, but you know in advance, and it is your choice to participate at that point. I am not complaining, it is a generous contribution, and has enabled me to speak all over the world and experience many unforgettable events, make real friends, and visit places I may not have visited otherwise.

Other ACEs are not funded by Oracle, they may be lucky and have employer funding, and in the past I have benefited from this, but many are contractors or their own small business and this is not only direct costs but also non billing days.

For the usergroups:

When the individual uaergroups that make up a tour, they determine the dates. If they want speakers to do multiple legs, especially if funded under the ACE program (ACE Directors only), then they need to be close together, but that also needs to be feasible.

We did Panama one day and flew onto Guatemala the same day. That makes the day incredibly long for the participants, and means the usergrpoup cannot host the speakers after the event if they want to.

The tour organisers need to set up a group chat, we used WhatsApp on this tour which is great, and doesn't cause issues for people from overseas. But it should be setup at planning stage, not just for the actual tour. It is really great to travel in small groups, share rides and know you aren't the only one on a flight. You don't all need to travel and stay together, people have favourite airlines and hotels, but by sharing information you get nice sociable travel packets.

I travelled with Alex Zaballa, I have done several LAOUC tours with Alex when he was an ACE Director but now he is at Oracle itself. He was also joined by two other speakers from Brazil,  Gilson Martins and Mario Barduchi. Alex and I became travel mentors to Gilson who was on his first tour. I hadn't met Gilson before in person but he did interview me for his GoldenTalks Women's Day video. Alex was our foodie and most of his restaurant picks were awesome but don't mention "spoon' in Costa Rica (not his best).

Hospitality is really appreciated, it gives the speakers a chance to meet with each other, especially those only at that event. ACEs should be encouraging local speakers to join the program and help those who are trying to progress to the higher levels. This is a great time to do that. Often there are Oracle Product Managers speaking and that gives a chance for new relationships to be formed.

It is helpful if the local event can recommend hotels, including corporate chains, and give an indication (real not optimistic) traffic times. Most foreigners rely on Uber and what we didn't factor for in Mexico was the time it takes to actually secure an Uber. We don't want to be late but equally don't want to unnecessarily give up any  sleep :)

At the locations we are not overly needy but we do need good AV systems with on sight people to help if there are problems. Internet is also a must, we want to demo systems and that requires connect ability.

Audience Expectation:

Often events are held in universities, but this doesn't always mean the audience is students. They may be local users and just in a university because they are cost effective. There may be a lot of students and there maybe a mixed audience. All variables are good but speakers need to know. We need to adapt our content for heavily student audiences.

Personally I love speaking to students, they want to know about careers that use the technology they are learning. Those universities like Mexico and Panama that are already linked to Oracle are a great opportunity to encourage them to do more. Access to Oracle learning is so much easier now with Livelabs so they can take up more learning and gain even more interest in Oracle which is what we all want.

One student in Panama came up to me later in the day and said she only came to my session as her boyfriend suggested it, but she liked the way I talked about Oracle and was really impressed and will look at it more. Speakers I've for comments like that.

Being part of a tour is such a privilege and real fun. I have made so many friends on tours where you really get to know people, and have stayed friends like I said on my 'extra's post.