If a man knows not…
If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.
— Seneca (Roman Philosopher)
The Data Warrior
Changing the world, one data model at a time. How can I help you?
Biggest Discount Ever: Oracle OpenWorld 2013
Hard to believe but it is already that time of year – time to register for Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco (September 22-26).
If you plan to go, you need to act this week to get the biggest early bird rates available.
Until July 19th you will get $500 off the full conference price.
**** BREAKING NEWS:
Oracle has extended to early bird discount until August 2nd! *****
If you are eligible for the government rate you can save a whopping $1000!
Wow.
To sign up now, just go here.
Justification?
What? You say your boss is not sold on the value of attending OOW2013.
Need some talking points? Well Oracle has prepared a template email for you to edit that should help you sell it.
Here are some of the points:
99.5% of Attendees Said Oracle OpenWorld Delivers On Their Objectives
Critical objectives like:
- Discovering new product and technology solutions
- Improving technical proficiency and knowledge
- Learning tips and tricks for currently installed products
- Understanding where the industry is headed
You probably already know that your investment of time and money in Oracle OpenWorld will pay for itself and then some. Need help convincing your manager? Download the justification e-mail, tailor it to fit your situation, then send it on for approval.
Get the email template here: Justification E-Mail | Oracle OpenWorld 2013.
As usual I will be there, so drop me a line if you plan to attend so we can try to meet up.
C’ya soon!
Kent
P.S. Of course I plan to do my morning Chi Gung each day while I am in San Francisco. Please plan to join me. Stay tuned for details.
Why four-day workweeks are best
In her book “White Collar Sweatshop,” author Jill Andresky Fraser writes about a culture of American workers being on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, even as salaries and benefits decrease. That’s because, despite the evidence, we’re programmed to believe that working longer and harder begets great achievement. But what if working less is the real key to success?
via Opinion: Why four-day workweeks are best – CNN.com.
In this article on CNN.com, Peggy Drexler wrote about the experiences of some companies (and the State of Utah) when they switched to a four day work week. For the most part, the experiences reported were very positive with benefits to the employees (happier at work) and the organization (increased productivity and better talent retention).
How could this be?
“They were using the extra day off to spend time with their families, do errands and take long weekends away, but also to schedule appointments they might otherwise have taken an afternoon off to attend,” Gina said. People ended up taking fewer vacations days, and sick days disappeared almost entirely.
The article reports that we have been talking about a 4-day work week since 1950!
Yet we, in America, typically work well over 40 hours a week. Some jobs (like production support DBAs) are effectively 24×7 jobs with no real breaks. And with the advent of secure VPN and now smart phones it seems to be getting worse.
Hopefully, that is just an impression I have and not what is really happening.
What do you think?
I for one, am all for everybody cutting back to four days at the office.
(BTW – Don’t forget to read the whole article).
Kent
P.S. Thanks to Jonathan Fields for tweeting this article.
P.P.S. Want more – check out my earlier rant on a this topic.
KScope13 Day Five: C’est Fini!
Yes, the last day of the conference arrived. Many folks got a bit of a slow start as they recovered from the prior evenings festivities (but that is true almost any day in the French Quarter!).
Morning Chi Gung was smaller but still a respectable turnout of 14 people. Some of my participants had already started their trek home, others just could not quite get up… c’est la vie.
Morning Chi Gung participants practicing a still stance meditation and breathing exercise.
The KScope Social Network
My first session on this final day was Charles Elliott from Rittman Mead, discussing how to do Social Network Analysis with Oracle Tools. He discussion centered around using R and a graphing tool called D2 (www.d3js.org).
Network analysis of KScope contributors and influencers across two tracks.
Charles had mined some data (from twitter I think) and then charted some of the connections to determine who were the major influencers related to KScope13 and several of our tracks. My name is up there, but I am a very small dot. You might be able to see in the picture a pretty big dot which is Gwen Shapira, who was not even at the conference this year!
Looks like very cool tech. Not sure where I would use it (yet).
Agile Case Study?
One session I was not too happy with was this one. It was titled as an agile implementation success story but it was (IMO) a veiled pitch for a free addin to SQL Developer.
The entire presentation was a statement of issues in trying to do version control of database objects. And they were all legitimate issues. But there was no case study of a specific project and how they tried to solve the problem. The solution was a product from the speaker’s company that they have developed as an add in to SQL Developer to allow you to control database object check in and check out at the database level.
Nice idea. Looks like it will work.
But, the product is not even available today! It will be release later this summer and is free for up to five users (then I assume it will cost $$).
My beef is that this should have been clearly labeled as a vendor presentation not as a “success” story.
More Crossover
For my last session I went to Stewart Bryson and Edward Roske’s presentation on Innovation in BI: Oracle Business Intelligence Against Essbase & Relational.
This was a great collaborative effort between these two guys who work for companies that might be considered competitors. I am pretty sure this is a KScope first (in many ways).
A KScope 1st: Stewart Bryson and Edward Roske do a joint presentation on using OBIEE against both Essbase and a relation data warehouse at the same time.
In the end, after some demonstrations of how to do this, they guys left us with a really nice comparison chart on when to use which tool and its relative effectiveness in solving specific problems.
Edward and Stewart came up with this nice chart trying to compare the two technologies on a number of features and functions.
Nice job guys!
C’est Fini
A relatively new KScope tradition is to hold a final closing general session. Here we say farewell to the event and the city with some slides and humorous videos from the week.
We also get to learn who the top five speakers were for the event (as ranked by session evaluations) and who the speaker of the year winner is.
This year the Best Speaker Award went to Edward (don’t call me Ed!) Roske from InterRel.
There was also an award for the best Kscope Ambassador (the one who helped with the most sessions). This went to Mark Becerra.
Congratulations to both!
Attendees at the KScope13 closing session with their KScope14 travel mugs
As a final note we got a great little video welcoming KScope14 to Seattle.
The even bigger news was that we already have sponsors for the 2014 event! Platinum, gold, and sliver level sponsors have already signed! Plus a boat load of exhibitors.
We must be doing something right that they have secured their spot a year in advance.
We have come a long way baby!
The website for Kscope14 is up and running. You can register, submit an abstract, and make your hotel reservation for next year.
So head on over there now while you are thinking of it! KScope14.com
One Last Shot
I can’t end this series without at least one picture of the great food here in New Orleans. I did eat well!
Ending the conference on a high note with blueberry upside down cake at celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse’s restaurant NOLA in the French Quarter.
See you in Seattle (if not sooner)!
Kent
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