Monday 13 November 2017

How close is UKOUG 2017?


I said in my last post I’m just off to Asia Pac and actually I return to the UK on the morning of super Sunday

What I label as UKOUG2017 is actually our three conferences co-located in Birmingham.

  • Tech2017 which starts with Super Sunday something has been running for a number of years now and it’s really great to see people who give up all of the weekend to come and learn more.
  • Apps2017 which is what I’m leading this year 
  • JDE2017 All things JDE

I’m going to say it again, please don’t just look at the streams that are titled with your area, as there is so much more content that maybe of value to you. Just last week, Neil Chandler, Tech2017 lead, and I went to a Data Visualisation Meetup. I'm Apps, Neil is Database, and yet we both learnt things that could be relevant to what we deliver. 

In the apps world I was very interested in the new trends that I heard about at Open World, chatbots and blockchain being two that I see a real opportunity for in the applications; despite being labelled a luddite by the UX team. I’m really pleased to say that we have Oracle speaking on both of those topics and chatbots actually appears in several different presentations. We have content on GDPR and on Support,  two subject topics which are very important to all users regardless of what specific applications you are running.

In the tech conference we have lots of first time speakers, who are being mentored, even on stage by experienced speakers. Thanks to Alex Nuijten for the idea.

I’m particularly proud of what we doing with the WIT session and now on my biggest worry is that this is a limited number of places and you need to sign up in the mobile app but I’m really excited about what we doing there. I posted just after open world about wanting to change the title to Welcome in IT and I think your find that the content we've got definitely does says welcome.

This year we have an external marketing company working with us, and they have worked with community keynotes and leads to create a series of blogs. They are a great insight to what is coming and here is the first one they did for me.

I love this event, there is so much that people can learn. I know how busy I’m going to be but and I hope that I will get to a number of sessions and the ones that I really don't want to miss I’ve managed to volunteer as the session chair.

I also know just how much work that goes into this event from the committees who work tirelessly to make sure we get the best content, to the office who provide project management and cross the 'T's and dot the 'I's. They are currently working their socks off to make sure that we get the best possible conferences

If you haven’t yet registered then please do especially those of you that are members don’t waste your allocation, make sure that you’re there. We have some great offers on membership itself, so make sure you register or contact Darren for the right option for you.

Still don't believe me? We look at these great videos from Connor McDonald and Brendan Tierney.

This is my last year on the board so please come say hello and if I’m asleep in some corner, it’s because I'm just come back from Australia; wake me up, I don't want to miss all the fun.






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