OTN Yathra 2014 - Horns - Not Just My Paranoia

I have mentioned many times in this series of posts that Indian Traffic and especially the use of horns is becoming my nemesis. I have been very open about it at the sessions and had the audiences laughing with me at what is recognised by all Indians as a national identifier.

It isn't just me, even Tim has commented on how much the noise has been a factor on this tour and his total lack of sleep in Hyderabad..

On arrival in Bangalore I was told they even have No Honking Mondays although everyone says it is very ineffective.

When looking at the internet for a suitable link I also found this irreverent and made up article which captures the mood exactly.

When shopping I was asked what souvenir I would want from India, and a car horn would be the most appropriate.

So I am laughing, I love India



 

OTN Yathra 2014 - Bangalore

For our penultimate event we moved South to Bangalore. The drive to the airport was horrendous, for once the road was clear but our driver decided that meant he could drive at 120km/h even when taking bends, I have laughed at my inability to accept this traffic but on this occasion I was actually in tears, thanks to Tim and Hans for keeping me sane (just).

The flight was uneventful except it was a very hard landing at Bangalore airport in a small propeller plane.

The journey to the hotel was pretty much the best journey we have had, a new modern highway, a very good car and driver from our hotel; however he then asked us if we were doing any shopping and we told him we planned to go into the city the next evening, he said there was now a new branch of that shop (general souvenirs) on this side of town and it would be better if we went that evening. We knew it was a scam, but what the hell, eyes wide open we went into the new shop (about 50 years old) and haggled our way through to a decent price (remember I am being assertive on this trip). The roads to this new shop were not roads but tracks, and interestingly despite an area to park we found our taxi hemmed in as we left the shop and he had to go in to get the other driver to move his car, if I was cynical I could suggest the situation was manipulated for him to go in and get his cut. I share this story because I found it quite amusing, but it is not characteristic of the people we have met, the politeness we have come across in India has been lovely.

Anyway we stayed at the Marriott which is a wonderful hotel and has a beautiful pool, I like to swim in hotel pools but so far had not managed it. The pool had a water feature which drowned out traffic noise. The water was much colder than I expected but it was lovely.





Originally I was not staying for Bangalore and Chennai but things changed, I have sessions in Chennai but there were none available for Bangalore, the local AIOUG team had managed to source several local speakers, which is so important for user groups. I did still however go along to support.

At the start of each event we talk about the importance of OTN, The ACE Program and User Group membership, and when it was my turn I said I was not speaking but was available all day if anyone wanted to talk Apps. It was brilliant, I had people come to me during most sessions to ask questions, most were about the tech stack but a few were from people who follow my blog etc, and were surprised to find me at this event as it had obviously not be advertised. I felt great, and worthy of my place on the tour.

Hans left us after this event, and today Tim and I travel to the last venue Chennai, were they tell us the food is most spicy and the weather the hottest.



 

OTN Yathra 2014 - Hyderabad

This was the 5th of the 7th events on Yathra and the one I was looking forward to most, as it had a dedicated Applications track.

Hyderabad is the home of Oracle Applications development in India, and most global partners who have offices in India, do so here. Oracle HQ in Redwood Shores is known for its Canadian Geese who patrol the campus but here in Hyderabad it is ducks that rule.

There were also a lot of attendees from end users including GE who sent a big team to learn from AIOUG. I was meant to have 3 sessions and started with Mobile in Fusion Applications and then the next speaker had cancelled so I got an extra hour. We looked at the design principles and had a really good discussion on the best practices for modern applications, the Simplified UI in the latest release of Fusion Applications and how people practically co-exist.

At lunch time I had the honour of meeting with Murali Subramanian GVP responsible for both CRM on Demand and Applications Development in India. Murali was our keynote speaker at UKOUG in 2006 and we bump into each other at Open World most years so making time to meet up whilst at his office made sense. We had a great discussion on how user group members see the Oracle Applications Strategy. Oracle look to user groups for feedback and UKOUG count this influence as one of their most important services.

In the afternoon, I did my BI & EPM presentation and following on from Hans Forbrich and his presentation on how to use Cloud Control with Applications, I finished off with my favourite Consolidation to the Cloud presentation; a comparism of Enterprise consolidation and the benefits to my personal adoption of a smartphone.

This was my favourite stop on the tour, I had a large, engaged and eager to learn audience and I got to talk all day about my favourite subject.

 

OTN Yathra 2014 - Pune

For a Sunday the turnout was not bad, again I talked about both BI and Mobile in Fusion Applications, and whilst I did not have the biggest audiences, I had people who were really interested.

Again it was a an Oracle Financial Services building and we were well looked after.

I have morphed my sessions a bit, people wanted to go back to the basics of Fusion Applications, drill into the design principles and understand how Oracle have approached this. The sessions have become much more interactive and I am in my element, able to explain to people how the technology is being used. I may not be technical but articulating its benefits is my niche.

One more night in Pune which included pearl shopping and it was off to Hyderabad, but Raj left us at this point and it was sad to see him go, you make such good friends on these tours.
 

OTN Yathra 2014 - The Journey to Pune

Mumbai was a Saturday and it is quite normal for people in India to give up Saturday to learn if the subject is correct, but in order to ensure as many cities as possible were included in OTN Yathra, Pune was held on a Sunday, the very next day after Mumbai.

The distance is 96 miles, which does not seem a long way, and too short for a flight, so we drove in a convoy of 4 taxis, straight from the event at Mumbai. You will have gathered by now I was not looking forward to the journey but not just because it was by road but also because Tim Hall has me paranoid about Mosquitos.

I have said before corporate travel agents give you travel advice that tends to err on terrifying, and for India a lot is about the health risks. Tim and I both looked to the Great British National Health Service for advice and Malaria was the top problem. My other vaccinations were up to date but poor Tim had to have a few in his trip preparations. 

So according to Tim's research we were in real trouble in Hyderabad and during this road journey, add this paranoia to my driving fears and it is amazing Tim and Raj agreed to be my companions. I owe these two a lot, and later in the tour Hans as my way of dealing with the my fear was to talk non stop and this journey was 4 hours plus!!

Tim and I were covered in Mosquito propellant and must have stunk, Raj commented but graciously put up with us. We had one stop at which I stayed in the taxi (with all doors locked, and practiced my breathing techniques).

We arrived at our hotel but needed dinner, it was very late and I although I simply needed to relax and hopefully sleep when I got to my room there appeared to be a pop concert or something happening outside. The hotel backs onto an enormous sports complex, The Balewadi. Anyway the noise was loud, the stage had some kind of laser light show and I was not too hopeful of getting any sleep.

Turns out it was a wedding (do I feel bad), and actually once the ceremony was over about 1am the noise was fine. I did then wish I could just creep out and gate-crash, it would have been lovely to have experienced this. The proceedings were also on large screens and I was able to take photos from my hotel window. Best wishes to them, whoever they are.

 

OTN Yathra 2014 - Mumbai

Both my mother and my grandmother were born in Bombay, or rather Mumbai as it is known today, so I was very excited about visiting this city. However let me be honest, I saw nothing except traffic, as in most cities we arrived in the dark, presented the next day, and then it was time to move on, in fact in Mumbai we only had a single night in the hotel.

 

When Oracle bought iFlex they acquired many beautiful buildings in India which are now Oracle Financial Services India and they generously allowed AIOUG access to their buildings for two of the events. I really do have to thank Vijay Sehgal from Oracle Financial Services, who not only was a local speaker but that made all the arrangements for us and was so helpful. Mumbai was on a Saturday and it was great to see that people felt Yathra worth giving up their valuable free time to attend.

My talks had small audiences but that is often the case for applications, but those I did really enjoyed it. Raj and I had discovered my Mobile and Fusion Apps talk dove tailed nicely with his APEX mobile, and that helped give more flow to our talks.

The only problem with Mumbai was that when it was all over we were going by car to Pune, a long drive, in the dark, and in traffic...........
 

OTN Yathra 2014 - Sharda University Noida

Having missed the first stop of the Yathra, my first event was at Sharda University. Sharda is the goddess of enlightenment and it was a big university with a large engineering faculty. We met with the various Deans who wanted to see how being party of OTN could help students with their search for jobs in the future, and we talked about OTN being for individuals and how the AIOUG could help the university as an organisation.

They had a lamp lighting ceremony which is traditional for a special event and we were treated as very honoured guests, but it was me who was honoured, honoured to address young people who want to enter this profession and wanted to learn from us. We all had to taper our presentations to the audience who didn't have as much exposure to Oracle as our normal audiences do, but that was fine, we do this a lot, and with a lot of coaxing we did get questions from them.

 The dean addressed the audience and said that the university was an oracle user as they have PeopleSoft campus solutions, although they do have a few issues and suffer from a lack of expertise in India. I talked to them about being members of HEUG and reach out to other institutions around the globe.

I spoke about BI in Fusion Apps and about Mobile Design Patterns based on the User Experience research done for Fusion Apps. I am giving these two talks at each of the events I am speaking at on this tour.

Lunch was wonderful, I love spicy food and the idea of curry three times a day is my idea of heaven.

In my first session there was a lot of talking happening but it was just before a very late lunch, I did ask if the problem was they didn't understand and they assured me they did but not much appeared to change.

At the start of my second session it seemed to me that everyone was talking the background noise was high, and I was also slightly irked that I was asked to cut short my session as although we all kept to time the event kicked off late because of traffic issues; however once it was explained that most students had a bus to catch to accommodation and the driver was only willing to delay this 15 minutes I appreciated the need. So I started with an assertive request for them to be quiet and to be fair they did, not one person talked, however the background noise did not completely disappear and within a few minutes I had to apologise, it appears we could hear the lecture theatre next door.

Anyway we ended with an open discussion and I felt everyone had a good day, I certainly got asked good questions both from the floor an afterwards which is my litmus test.  The dean gave us some gifts which was very generous, but we had travel the next day so were unable to take the flowers they gave us during the opening ceremony. I gave them to girls in the audience and asked only that they enjoy the flowers.

One thing that happened to me was during my session a gentleman came on stage with a tray of tea cups and offered me one..........mid sentence. wow did that throw me for a bit.