UKOUG 2009 - getting ready

I am writing this from Jury's hotel in Birmingham. This is the favourite hotel for the overseas speakers and this year I thought I would stay here. Last year I found myself having to walk the last few yards back to my hotel on my own, and this hotel is closest to the favourite speakers pub.

It is Saturday night and I have a bit of a routine. The Sunday before conference id very busy for the board, we have a board meeting, a volunteers meeting, and this year we also have a meeting to review the paper selection process. This all kicks off at 1pm and living in N Ireland the first flight on a Sunday would not get me here in time so I have to arrive Saturday. I don't actually mind that because it gives me time to settle in and to make the hotel my home for the week. There is a supermarket directly opposite and i bu a 2 litre bottle of water and a bunch of flowers. Then I cut the top of the bottle and use it as a vase.

I also iron everything and get fully unpacked, and although not for this blog, I have to make sure Stanley is settled. Then my favourite tradition, down to the German Frankfurt Market which comes to Birmingham every Christmas. Has the mandatory bratwurst, curry sauce and washed down with gluhwein.

SO I am happy. Ready for UKOUG which this year I am very excited about as we are bringing the first public demos of Fusion to the UK.

Four into One Does Not Go

It doesn't seem like a year since I posted about last year's paper selection day, but it is.

On average we have 4 papers submitted for each session available. Someone said to me this week they thought we didn't have enough submissions because we always extend the deadline. This is a myth the reason we extend it is people always leave it till the last minute, something happens and they miss the deadline, the office gets a lot of last minute phone calls.

Papers are judged by volunteers and I thought I did well to judge just less than 200, but Ronan beat me with over 400 on the last weekend. It is quite a difficult job as there are only 200 words allowed and you must make sure you don't fall into the teachers' mantra of 'could do better' for all of them.

Other things that drive me mad is where one individual has entered 20 plus papers and you know it will be other people presenting, it puts judges off, but one idea we will look at is to have another field in the entry for submitter so that this will be handled better.

Once we have the judging complete the office rank them, each year they tell us what the mark is if we simply take the top papers. The maximum score is 6 but people tend not to give a 6, and this year the magic number was 4.25, so many, many papers score well and yet fall short of this mark.

Also many papers above this figure also do not make the final cut, sometimes because there are too many high scoring for a particular stream, sometimes because there is a similar paper and sometimes because the stream leads want a specific theme to their stream.

Then there is the final check that people have not be given two sessions at the same time, some first timers are given a chance.

It is a hard working day but also fun with a real buzz as people barter for slots, rooms and papers. I don't want to repeat the post from last year but I did go into a bit more detail.

So as soon as the office have drawn up the final agenda people will hear if they have been selected. Please if you have not been lucky, do not give up, contact your SIG chairs and offer to speak there.

Update on The Conference Series

I finished the last posting by saying that Siebel was the 5th of 7 in our conference series, so what about the others?

The first event was Ireland and I was really sorry to have missed this, I live in Belfast and think of it as my local event, but before the date was set I had arranged to speak in Australia for the first joint Applications conference Insync09. Ronan Miles hosted this event and a new SIG was launced, Ireland BI

Second came the PeopleSoft conference and I actually presented, thanks to the ACE Program FMW kit.


Ronan and I both missed the Scottish and Hyperion and BI events as we were at ODTUG in the US, but we were with you all in spirit. I knew we would miss Scotland but the date for Hyperion and BI event as they had to change the date because of venue availability. We both hated missing these but in very busy calendar's were we have a day job and overseas committments it will always be difficult.

Then as in my last post came the Siebel event, JD Edwards is in November which I hope to attend and the the Tech & EBS event is in the traditional timeframe and location, ICC Birmingham 31 Nov - 2 Dec.

The reason for splitting up the conference was down to lack of space at the ICC, which meant we had already expanded to 5 days and then the fact that this caused some communities to feel lost and us being unable to meet not only their needs but to not give their Senior Oracle Executives the keynotes they deserved.

It has been and continues to be a lot of hard work not only for directors but more so for the office but we think it is working. What we want next year is for the numbers to grow, they are all much better than for each community last year at conference but there are still other users out there not taking advantage of our offering.

If you are interested in the final two events make sure you come along and look out for more information on the website.

Quick - don't miss your chance to be part of something big

UKOUG is the best conference in the world and what makes it so good is the content, the speakers. This year is even better we have 7 events covering the Oracle Community and we are currently looking for papers for the last two, the JD Edwards Event and the Technology & E Business Suite.


And if you want to attend these must attend events then we are 2 down 5 to go. Click on the picture above, read all about it and select the event for you.

UKOUG Conference Series - Update

Hard to believe after all the planning but the first of our conference series is over.

The Irish Conference took place last week and with 170+ was a great success.
We used a new venue which was very good and worked well and they gave us lots of support. Feedback from delegates was very positive and we had 3 spontaneous volunteers to assist with SIGs, etc.

SO what is next? Well it is the PeopleSoft conference and if you are a PeopleSoft user I urge you to attend. Feedback from past years is you want your own event and UKOUG have not only listened but acted.
I know that we are all under careful scrutiny of costs currently but if you have UKOUG membership there is no additional cost and the value of the conference is easy to justify. You will learn from your peers about what you can do with your systems today, network with people like yourself and understand more about Oracle's plans.

So I urge you to think hard about the event, look at the agenda and plan your visit. And if you are not a PeopleSoft user look at the other events in our conference series and see what we have in your area.

UKOUG Conference Series 2009 – One Conference, many events