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June 16, 2005
Getting the most out a conference can be daunting.....
Without making this sound like an attendance log, I did drop in to several sessions at OAUG 2005 to sample security, compliance, best practices and general Oracle product sessions ( which I mentioned yesterday's blog ).
The Sarbanes-Oxley Idea Exchange session was very lively and hosted by Kim Autreyan OAUG board member and a great facilitator. The dialogue roamed the length and breadth of the debate from the interpretation of Sarbanes-Oxley through access controls to file retention. It was the opinion of many that these types of forum discussions really help users to share concerns and information.
I also attended a great session on Process Automation hosted by fellow Canadians Marianne Rait and Peter Gee of Ryerson University (gotta plug the home team occasionally!). They demonstrated that a serious effort to handle a piece of paper only once can be achieved using the right imaging and workflow software - in this case 170 Systems integrated into Oracle Applications - and be able to save storage space by destroying the originals (depending on the local/federal laws, of course). Such a project is not without its challenges, and while getting executive buy-in is important, they stressed the importance of communicating to and listening at all levels in the organization and at every step in the project to ensure that the community knows what to expect and when. If you missed the session, the presentation will be on the OAUG Conference site shortly.
Lastly, a session on E-Commerce to Application Integration hosted by SiteStuff was a panel discussion that ended up as a demo of Oracle's new BPEL middleware product, which Basheer of SOA Software really showed off. The visual designer walks you through the steps needed to complete a basic flow between two systems, with sufficient flexibility to handle a wide variety of integration scenarios.
There were many tracks, so an OAUG conference attendee had plenty to choose from.
Also, a visit to the exhibit floor included Oracle's demo areas, as well as visits with Sabrix, Vertex, and also attending on Virtual Trader, and Applimation demos.
Oh, yes, there was the obligatory evening event. The evening's entertaininment was top notch, as usual, but what do you do when you are in Texas? Play Texas Holdem, of course, and ride bulls, get your picture on top of bull, or rope a bull (maybe too much bull?).
Traveling the so-called friendly skies is getting a little harder each year.....
Arriving and Leaving Dallas is like getting a toothache, the memory lives on longer than the event. Hated the airport, the weather, and the urban sprawl. I found myself at 3 am looking for a mis-directed hotel address ...thanks a bunch - NOT - Travelocity ... and thanks to a very helpful front desk person at Bedford Suites in lovely Irving for her incredible service to not one but two forlorn travellers to get us sorted and re-directed to our respective hotels.
Flying out of DFW was part of the toothache experience, like who was the smart ass who figured out that a two foot long roller counter on the security gate was enough time to get all your valuables into those pesky rubber bins less than 8 feet from the security gate? And when are the airlines going to catch up with Jet Blue at Oakland airport .... free WiFi, please and thank you, is the only way to go for add-hoc web access!
Posted by alexfiteni at June 16, 2005 10:12 PM
Comments
Nice to see someone blogging about this. There doesn't seem to have been much coverage on this to date within the blogosphere. Hopefully for the UK conference at the end of this year there will be a better blogging effort.
I'm interested to know where this blog is going and what your objectives are. i.e. are you going to be doing regular postings on Oracle - if so I'll add you to my reader.
Posted by: Richard Byrom at June 17, 2005 1:46 AM
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