Collaborate 2013 April 7-11, Denver

Believe it or not, Collaborate 2013 is here. It marks the 20th anniversary of the IOUG.  We talk a talk about  information lifecycle managrment (ILM) or full lifecycle of the project. Likewise, user groups such as IOUg have it's lifecycle of infancy, growth, diversification as so on. Oracle with its spree of acquisition and diversification of product portfolio, keeps the users groups on its feet as well. Groups like IOUG arrange Board meetings, typically at Collaborate, even before the main vent starts, to allow brainstorming and stay current with all the developments in the industry and the Oracle user landscape.

While Collaborate is great place to listen to the experiences from the fellow users, make best use of the other opportunities such as networking, providing feedback to the User groups, SIG's so that they can improve and meet the user expectations. You will find the IOUG Board of Directors and the SIG leaders in many of the IOUG events.. Feel free to provide your inputs and specially if you would like to volunteer. These are volunteer driven organizations.

IOUG has organized the below event, to provide additional value to its members:
IOUG’s 20^th Anniversary Strategic Leadership Program at COLLABORATE 13

I look forward to the busiest week for me every year and connect with friends, industry peers while I speak on topics like OBIEE, Engineered Systems, Big Data Analytics and Weblogic.

Oracle Data Scientist at BIWA Summit 2013, Outcome

We would like to thank everyone who participated in the Oracle Data Certificate Program at BIWA Summit Jan 9-10, 2013. Fourteen attendees registered to participate in this BIWA Certificate Program. Thirteen took the final Quiz and the below is the outcome...

Instructor Level Certificate  - Brendan Tierney

Oracle Data Scientist Certificate 
Don Ferguson, CherryRoad Technologies
Jorge Anicama, IBM (GBS)
Tim Vlamis, Vlamis Software Solutions
Vijayalakshmi Muthukrishnan, Motorola
Sicheng Liu, Deloitte Consulting
Avik Bhattacharya, Printpack Inc.
Ari Kaplan, Ariball
Paul Mitchell, Oracle

Honorary Oracle Data Scientist Certificate 
Mark Hornick, Oracle
Shyam Varan Nath, IBM
(the above helped with the organization of the Oracle Data Scientist
Curriculum and the Quiz)

Associate Level 
Suresh Anand, Sashatech LLC

Participation Certificate 
Ahmed Kopap
Ekine Akuiyibo
Khader Mohiuddin

We congratulate everyone for their effort. Thanks to Mark Hornick and Brendan for help with this process. Stay tuned for related offerings from BIWA SIG. Join the Linkedin Group for Oracle Data Scientist here.
Thanks
Shyam Varan Nath

Earn your BIWA Oracle Data Scientist Certificate at BIWA Summit Jan 9-10, 2013

BIWA Summit 2013 is just 2 days away! While you are there (and yes you can still register for the event), you can earn your BIWA Oracle Data Scientist Certificate. In order to do this, you will have to attend the following sessions on Jan 9 or 10 at the Summit:

1) Attend the talk by Brendan Tierney The Oracle Data Scientist   (this is mandatory to attend if you want to earn your certificate)

Then attend three of these sessions (minimum of one Hands-on-Lab):


Jan 9  at 2:30 PM
Karl Rexer, Tim Vlamis Hands-on Lab with Data Mining      (HoL)        OR
Chris Lynskey Oracle Endeca Information Discovery in Action

Jan 10 at 8:45 PM
Keynote: Vaishnavi Sashikanth Making Big Data Analytics Accessible

Jan 10 at 10:10 AM
Mark Hornick   Learn to use Oracle R Enterprise 1.3   (HoL)   OR
Sudip Majumder Industry Specific Data Warehousing & Analysis of Industry Specific Big Data

Jan 10 at 11:20 AM
Charlie Berger Fighting Fraud and Anomaly Detection Using Oracle Advanced Analytics

Jan 10 at 1:20 PM
Keynote Ari Kaplan: Sports Analytics in Action    (applied Data Science)

Jan 10 at 2:30 PM
Mark Hornick Oracle R Connector for Hadoop 2.0

Jan 10, 5 PM
Shyam Varan Nath In-database Advanced Analytics for Oracle BI Applications with Spend Classification

Take the online test here (70% needed to pass), and pick the sessions you attended to fulfill the above. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BiwaSummitDataScientistCertificate
For any questions contact ShyamVaran@Gmail.com or Brendan.Tierney@dit.ie
Enjoy our cross continental Oracle Data Scientist Program!

Countdown to BIWA Summit 2013, Jan 9-10, 2013 near San Francisco, CA

First of all Happy Holidays! Here is how to make your 2013 great!, kick off your year by attending BIWA Summit Jan 9-10, 2013 by registering here.

The BIWA Summit is now less than 4 weeks away! This is an in-person BI /  DW related event organized by IOUG's BIWA SIG. Check out the variety and depth of the topics covered in this event here. There is a broad range of topics from Business Intelligence (OBIEE, BI Publisher), Data Warehousing, Advanced Analytics including the Big Data and the Hyperion EPM including coverage of Essbase. Some uses cases of Engineered systems for BI/DW will be covered as well. My talk is on use of Advanced Analytics within the packaged BI... in other words use of Oracle Data Mining using Spend Classification with Procurement and Spend Analytics ( OBIA stack)...

What else makes BIWA Summit unique?  It's an event that is 100% decided to Business Analytics, i.e. how to gain competitive advantage using data and insights from data. As the speakers who are going to share these in-sights and product / implementation experiences are the top industry wizards... Mark Rittman, Dan Vlamis are just some of the savvy speakers on these topics. A sizable number of speakers will be from overseas...

Watch out the Oracle Data Scientist related education and your chance to earn a BIWA Certificate for Oracle Data Scientist!  We will share more details soon... Meanwhile you can complete the IOUG (DBTA) survey on Big Data to share your thoughts on how is your role likely to change over next 2-5 years as an Oracle Technologist. Let me know if you need the details on how to access this IOUG's Big Data survey.

BIWA Summit Jan 9-10, 2013 - Sessions Announced

The BIWA Summit speaker line-up has been announced. Check here for the complete list. Here is the list of the four solid keynote speakers:

• Balaji Yelamnchili
• Tom Kyte
• Vaishnavi Sashikanth and
• Ari Kaplan (a noted Sports Analyst of Major League Baseball fame)

The sessions are divided in the following Tracks:

• BI  (OBIEE, Visualization, Mobile BI, BIP etc.)
• DW (Data Warehousing, Data Integration and Spatial Intelligence
• Big Data with Analytics (Concepts of Hadoop, Oracle Big Data Appliance)
• Advanced Analytics (Oracle Data Mining, Oracle R Enterprise, Spend Classification etc.) and
• Enterprise Performance Management (Essbase, Hyperion Planning/HFM Infrastructure etc.) 
• Hands-on Labs on topics like OBIEE, Exalytics, BIP, OLAP, ODM, ORE, Essbase etc.

See the detailed list of sessions here http://www.biwasummit.com/schedule/sessions

These sessions will be over two days on Jan 9-10. If you have not registered yet, click here to confirm your seat today.

"What to Expect When you are Expecting" to Attend BIWA Summit Jan 9-10, 2013!

This post will give you a sneak peak in to the content that you should expect at BIWA Summit Jan 9-10, 2013 at Hotel Sofitel, Redwood City, CA. This place is within walking distance from Oracle Head Quarters and the cylinder (DB) shaped buildings.

The BIWA Summit kicks off with the Welcome reception on Tue night at Hotel Sofitel. Next morning, Tom Kyte will kick-off the event with his keynote. Expect a total of 4 BI and related Keynotes, about 8 Hands-on Labs and several sessions spanning tracks like BI, DW, Big Data, Advanced Analytics and EPM. There is also a sub-track on Spatial Analytics.

Here are the keynotes:

Day 1 Tom Kyte - What's new from Oracle in BI and Data Warehousing
          Balaji Yelamanchili - Fast and Furious : A Sneak Peak into the Future of Oracle BI

Day 2 Vaishnavi Sashikanth - Making Big Data Analytics Accessible
           Ari Kaplan - Sports Analytics in Action

The featured talks include:

Mark Rittman, Rittman Mead - Big Data at the Speed of Thought - OBIEE, Endeca and R on Exalytics
Richard Solari, Deloitte - RIP to the Data Warehouse -  Born is the New Analytic Warehouse
Kevin McGinley Accenture - Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management: The Un-Scorecard Manual
Robert C Stackowiak, Oracle - Is it the Right Time for a Big Data Project?

...and more to come...

Make the Most of BIWA Summit Jan 9-10, 2013

The BIWA Summit Jan 9-10, 2013 registration opened last week. Take a look at the BIWA Summit website here. Registration starts at $299 for IOUG members ($349 for non-members). To make the most of the event, plan to stay at Hotel Sofitel where the event will take place. This will allow you to take full advantage of the off-hour events and networking with Professionals from North America and other countries like UK, Belgium and so on...

Here I would like to quote a few pointers from Tom Singer's article recently published in a magazine. Tom is a "Network Catalyst" who I met in a CIO event a few years ago... His 10 Tips to maximize the Conference-Networking experience go as follows:

1) Create a Plan - Have a game-plan ahead of time about what kind of people you want to meet and get to know. If for e.g. I am working on an OLAP project, I would perhaps like to meet experts like Dan Vlamis, who is one of the top experts. I may look for some customers who recently implemented OLAP. Likewise, meeting OLAP like like Bud Endress, would be high on my list.

2) Bring plenty of Business cards - I am no longer 29 and my memory is no longer that sharp! Exchanging business cards is a an easy way to remember who all we met and how to get back to them. I often take small notes on the back of the card to remind the context of the conversation. Most important, people are sometimes humble and may not tell their designation. Often, I look at the card and  I  am amazed that I may be talking to a VP of a mid-sized company or a Director of Development at Oracle. Likewise, if you are talking to an end user/functional user, you may tailor your level of conversation to business terms.

3) Do not just focus on meeting Celebrities / Keynote speakers - The Keynote speakers / Celebrities may get a lot of people who just shake hand and hand over the card without giving them a chance to really remember the meeting. However, some conferences will allow you to setup one-on-one meetings with the Execs ahead of time or with an on-site sign-up sheet. Focus on meeting others as well, who may spend more time talking informally with you.

4) Talk to People Sitting Next to you -  You might make best friend with the person sitting next to you, during lunch, birds-of-a-feature lunch table, or in the hotel lobby who has the similar conference badge as you. If you came early to a presentation, say hello to the person sitting next to you to strike a conversation.

5) Don't hide behind the Blakberry, iPhone or iPad - As Tom Singer says, when you look at your BB in a public place, you automatically wear a name tag "I am too busy to talk to you!"    If you need to check emails, take break away from the crowd, and do that in privacy not right next to the coffee table.

6) When to Linkin when Not - A two minute conversation or card exchange should not automatically result in Linkedin invite.. unless you explicitly told the person you would...best to follow up such meetings with a casual email after the Summit and then ask if ok to "connect socially."

7) Read their Stuff - You might have met a prolific blogger (aka Mark Rittman), read it and learn about them, after meeting.. simple google may reveal a lot about people these days.

8) Introduce Others - I often find myself introducing people to others that may be of interest to them. For e.g. a person comes to me and tells me they are in process of deciding whether they should move to Exadata X3 from V2 right away or later... I would introduce this person to Abe Tong from Facebook who can narrate his personal experiences in doing the same.

9) Follow-up -  If you take all the cards and throw it in a bag that you will accidentally discovered 2 yrs down the road, that is no good!   Follow up after the event, is important, whether by email, phone call or a hand written note.

10) Do more than others expect from you - I like this tip the most... ask yourself "What do I bring to the table?"    When you make a new friend, try to bring more to the relationship than you expect from the other person and that may create a lasting impression!

If you havn't yet registered for BIWA Summit, waste no time and click here.