Calling All Oracle BI Experts : An Oracle BI Forum in 2009?
December 10th, 2008 by 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.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Sounds very interesting!
It’s always good to hear about new ideas.
December 10th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
i’d be interested, so please keep me informed
December 10th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Fantastic!
Please keep me informed.
December 10th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Yep, I’ll be up for it.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Definitely interested. Pls let me know how it evolved.
December 11th, 2008 at 12:38 am
We’ll be there.
December 11th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Great idea, keep me posted.
December 11th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Hi everyone,
Thanks for the support, this is all really encouraging. I’ve had about 10 people write to me privately and say they are interested, so it looks like it might be viable, interest-wise. What I’ll be doing over the next couple of weeks is checking out some venues, running the numbers and see if we can make it work. I’ll add everyone who’s expressed interest to a private mailing list and keep everyone informed as we go along.
If you’d be interested in submitting a paper, or selecting the papers that get submitted, let me know. Also I’d be keen to hear if you think we should just focus on OBIEE or broaden the subject area a bit, and whether we should run it during the week or over the weekend.
best regards
Mark
December 15th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Great idea, I would be very interested.
As for more detailed questions:
(1) would prefer to keep focus on OBIEE and maybe ODI;
(2) any time of week is fine, however friday would be excellent.
December 17th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Greetings I’m new here
And it looks like a interesting forum, so just wanted to say hello! :):):)
And looking forward to participating.
Going on vacation for a few days, so i’ll be back
December 26th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Great idea, I would be very interested since focus on OBIEE is not so common.
Since we’re also using Hyperion Planning, I’m also interested in Essbase and Planning … but I think it’s better to focus on OBIEE.
Please let me know how it will evolve.
Regards.
January 8th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Hi Mark
Its a great idea. I will be intrested to help in choosing papers on OBIEE topic.
Renga
January 27th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Its good idea. But pls includes others too.
So we can have general ppl from different walks of the BI ( I am talking abt the open source guys).
Now a days open source BI solution is also in market.
February 12th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Hi Mark, I definitely want to contribute to this initiative. I offer to cover subjects like advanced modeling; understanding the query engine, mobile analytics, in-depth deployment architectures; performance tuning checklist (from DW to OBIEE); the role of OBIEE in Marketing etc etc.
Please keep me informed about this initiative.
Thanks
Gerard
February 12th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Hi Gerard
Good to hear from you. We’re actually closing the call for papers tomorrow, could you pull an abstract together in the next day or so? We’re light on any performance tuning, BI Server internals, “heavily technical” server-side content – I’m planning on writing a BI Server internals one in collaboration with Oracle, if you’re interested in helping, or have a similar type of topic that would be of interest, that’d be great.
Similarly, anything on BI Apps performance tuning – ETL or queries – would be great.
best regards
Mark