Calling All Oracle BI Experts : An Oracle BI Forum in 2009?

Mark Rittman -

So here's an idea. We're thinking about organizing a mini-conference next year, modeled on events like the Hotsos Symposium or the Miracle Database Forum, but focusing on Oracle Business Intelligence, potentially just OBIEE. The idea here is that, at general user group events, you tend to only get "introduction to ..." sessions aimed at beginners, mainly because the general audience at large conferences tend to be just starting out on tools such as OBIEE, Essbase, OWB and so on. What I'm looking to do is to run a short event where we aim the material at experienced developers who are looking to learn something new, things that aren't in the manuals, particularly around internals and performance optimization.

The idea would be this:

  • The audience would be the sorts of people who read and write Oracle BI blogs, technical architects, people charged with leading the development of Oracle BI systems
  • We'd invite speakers from around Europe, extend the offer to the USA if people are interested
  • Rittman Mead would sponsor it, but other than that it would be a general public event
  • There would be a single stream, with twelve sessions over two days
  • There would be lots of networking opportunities
  • The focus would be technical
  • Each paper submitted must be new, and must "push the envelope" in terms of Oracle BI
  • Potentially the focus would be on OBIEE, perhaps extend to Essbase and OWB/ODI
  • The focus is on education, not "how wonderful are we" partner-style sessions

For example, typical papers might be on OBIEE performance optimization; Oracle BI Server internals; how the Oracle BI Server generates MDX; Extending OWB using Experts; that sort of thing. The audience that we'd be aiming at is typically the readers of this blog and blogs such as John Minkjan's, people looking to find out things that aren't in the manuals.

We'd run the event around April or May next year, potentially in Brighton which is a very nice seaside town on the English south coast. We'd make up to, say, 50 tickets available, with speakers getting in free and a maximum of one slot per speaker. We'd assemble a small paper selection committee and only select genuinely "ground breaking" papers. We'd keep the numbers small so that opportunities for networking are much better, the idea being that if you came along you'd get to know all the people in EMEA who are really passionate about Oracle BI technology.

So how does this differ from general user group events, or events like BIWA? Well it's not too dissimilar to BIWA actually, except of course we're holding it in Europe and BIWA runs in the USA. But specifically, we're deliberately targeting experts and hands-on developers as the audience, and therefore we can make the material much more in-depth, something which will work well for a tightly-focused group of people but tends to only get a very small audience at general user group events. We'd also lay on some social events, a meal on the evening in-between days, and as it's in Brighton there'd be a lot to do around the days as well.

So would anyone be interested? I've already canvassed opinion amongst a group of bloggers and people I know in the EMEA Oracle BI industry, I suspect we'd get a couple of Oracle speakers as well. If you're interested, add a comment or drop me an email, and I'll keep you informed if we decide to progress.