Arrived for the UKOUG Conference
Well I've finally arrived in my hotel room in Birmingham for the UKOUG Conference, no jet lag or long flights for me this time as of course this conference is on home turf. The good old British transport system almost got it's revenge though, with a replacement bus service up from Brighton to Three Bridges, but I managed to get to the ICC in time for the UKOUG SIG Volunteers meeting and then over to All Bar One for the volunteers drinks and nibbles. I didn't stay for too long, there was a chance for good chat with Peter Robson, Andrew Clarke, Jonathan Lewis, Chris Dunscombe and Paul Hancock, then over to the hotel to get a shirt ironed and the demos set up for tomorrow's sessions.
This year at the UKOUG conference is a bit different for me, as it's the first time that I've come on behalf of our new company; in the past, I've been part of a delegation from a larger partner and spent most of my time doing stand duty, I didn't really get to go to any of the talks except my own. This year, I'm able to attend the conference proper, and whilst hopefully we'll meet some potential customers, make a few contacts and perhaps talk about some potential projects, I'm much more here to take part in the conference rather than man the stand. That said, as there are potential customers around it's suit and tie rather than chinos and shirt, at least for tomorrow when I'm taking part in five (count 'em) sessions...
The first is a session chairing one where I'm introducing the BI keynote - luckily I know the two people involved so it should be fairly relaxed. Then it's off to the ICC cafe with Mike Durran to rehearse the demo I'm doing during the Discoverer roadmap talk, then more or less straight after I'm doing two sessions of my own, one on OWB Best Practices (the slides are here) and one on OBIEE and Oracle Fusion Middleware (slides are here) followed by the BI Panel around 6pm. Shortly after that, it's back to the hotel to change and then over to Brindley Place for the blogger meetup - my official "most of my duties are over" moment when I can relax a bit and unwind.
This year, for the first time, I'm not staying in the Hyatt Hotel, which is attached by a walkway to the ICC. The Hyatt is the "hotel of choice" for vendors and partners and is pretty much the swishest hotel in the area, for me though it's got mixed memories as for many years, I had a real sleep problem on the first night which meant on some occasions I didn't get any sleep at all and spent the first day more or less out of action. It wasn't the hotel, it was more my own "first night nerves" which I've got over now through doing so many talks and seminars, but the Hyatt in my mind always brings back those memories and this time, I'm staying in the Jurys Inn just down the road, half the price and with most of the techies staying in. I'll have to do a posting soon about budget hotels and business travel in general, but for me Jurys Inn is the best of the bunch and I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep (although I can see Borkur coming up on Skype as just having logged in, so I suspect one last trip to the bar might be on the cards...)
Anyway, that's it for now. I've just got to get my VM up and running, with OBIEE, Oracle AS10g EE and the rest of the tools up and configured, and then (if Borkur doesn't call) there's time for a quick bath and another chapter of the Fake Steve Jobs book - I'm on the bit now where FSJ and Larry are getting baked and going out on Rat Patrol in Larry's Hummer, how appropriate for an Oracle conference. Peace out.