Unconference – Highlight of Oracle OpenWorld 2009

I’m about to embark on another overseas adventure, this one taking me right around the world. I’ll first visit the country of my birth, England, for a few weeks before making my way across the Atlantic Ocean to attend Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco.

This will be my second Oracle OpenWorld.  I already have a packed schedule with something planned each evening so it’s going to be a really busy period but hopefully a lot of fun as well. With 11g Release 2 and the new Sun OLTP Oracle Database Machine to investigate, I’ll try and target the more technical, less marketing hype presentations and discussion forums if I can.

However this year, I believe one of the real highlights of the whole conference will be the somewhat low key Oracle Unconference (note the photo in the link !!) that will be running for the 3rd time. Held on the 3rd floor of Moscone West, it’s basically a series of presentations that anyone interested in discussing or presenting a topic can just sign up and participate. It’s designed to be a far less “formal” or structured event than the usual conference presentations with more emphasis on discussions and interaction than Powerpoint slides and the such. That said, anyone can present on any topic in any manner they like and if it’s of interest will hopefully attract like interested folk.

With a whiteboard and laptop in hand, this year I’ll be presenting a Q & A session on Oracle Indexes on Tuesday 13 October at 10am where anyone can ask me whatever question relating to Oracle Indexes might be on their minds. If the Oracle questions run out, we can always discuss what David Bowie album is the most influential 🙂

This year, there is a truly excellent list of people who are also presenting at the Unconference including many Oracle ACE Directors and well renowned experts such as Cary Millsap, Greg Rahn, Alex Gorbachev, Kevin Closson, Chris Muir to name but a few, who will be covering a wealth of really interesting, technical based topics. It’s a fantastic opportunity to see these folks in a small, informal setting where you can actually ask questions and interact in discussions, rather than just be one of the crowd in a typical “big room” OOW presentation.

For those of you lucky enough to attend the conference, I would strongly recommended spending some of your precious time checking out the various presentations on offer at the Unconference.

Hope to meet some of you at Oracle OpenWorld in a couple of weeks !! If you see me wandering around or at the Unconference, please come or stop me and say hello.