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In the last two months, I had the pleasure to speak at four different conferences. Each of them was unique in its own way, and all of them were definitely worth to attend. Of course, it is not possible to write down all impressions in one blog post, but at least I try to write a short personal review of these four events.

Because this is a technical blog, I start with a short “management summary” 🙂

 
SQL> SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT conferences)
  2       , COUNT(presentations)
  3       , COUNT(DISTINCT presentations)
  4    FROM my_conference_diary
  5   WHERE month IN (‘May 2019’, ‘June 2019’);
 
COUNT(DISTINCTCONFERENCES) COUNT(PRESENTATIONS) COUNT(DISTINCTPRESENTATIONS)
————————– ——————– —————————-
                        4                    6                            3
 
SQL> SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT impressions)
  2    FROM my_conference_diary
  3   WHERE month IN (‘May 2019’, ‘June 2019’);
 
ORA-01652: unable to extend temp segment by 128 in tablespace TEMP
 

 

At the four conferences I attended in May and June, I was able to present six sessions about three different topics:

Of course, presenting own sessions is one important reason to go to a conference (and the reason my employer Trivadis paid the travel costs – thanks a lot!). But there are several other reasons why attending a conference is worthwhile: Listening to other interesting presentations, meeting colleagues from all over the world, interesting discussions and of course having fun – and sometimes a beer or two…

AOUG Anwenderkonferenz 2019, Vienna/Austria

In addition to the regular one-day conference, AOUG (Austrian Oracle User Group) has organized this year a “hands-on day” with labs and live demo sessions. When I submitted my abstract about incremental statistics, I expected to provide a presentation with a little live demo at the end. Instead, my session was accepted as a “live demo, no slide” presentation. Oops, that means to prepare a completely new presentation! I once again realized that creating a good demo script is a lot of work, so this presentation was a challenge for me.

The user conference with the slogan “Vienna calling. Technical but fun!” was technical and fun. Bowling at the Vienna Prater, excellent food and good beers in the nice city of Vienna were the fun part of the conference. Some impressions of the AOUG conference you can find in the official AOUG photo gallery.

Aoug2019
Dinner before the AOUG 2019 conference in Vienna (photo: Sabine Heimsath)

SOUG Day May 2019, Olten/Switzerland

Usually, SOUG (Swiss Oracle User Group) organizes several half-day events per year, called “SOUG Days”. The SOUG Day in May was a slightly bigger event: One full day with key note and 30 presentations in 5 parallel tracks. Really cool! Trivadis was represented with 5 sessions, I was able to give my “horror SQL” presentation about SQL performance tuning. One funny detail about user group conferences in Switzerland: It is quite uncommon for me to present a session about Oracle features in Swiss German dialect. Some impressions of the SOUG Day are available on the SOUG web site.

Soug2019
Trivadis delegation at SOUG Day in Olten (photo: Konrad Häfeli)

BGOUG Spring Conference 2019, Borovets/Bulgaria

I have never been to Bulgaria before, and the conferences of BGOUG (Bulgarian Oracle User Group) were not on my focus yet. Until I was invited last November by BGOUG as a speaker for their spring conference. Of course, I took that chance! So, I had the pleasure to present two sessions on the BGOUG Spring Conference 2019 in Borovets.

The Bulgarian Oracle User Group organizes two conferences every year. The spring conference always takes place in Borovets, a nice ski resort in the Rila mountains in southwestern Bulgaria. Of course, there is no snow there in June – but instead a highly endowed team of international speakers. I was very proud to be invited to this conference, and it was a pleasure to meet many members of the Oracle community. The BGOUG photo album gives a little insight about the fun we had in Bulgaria.

Bgoug2019
One of my sessions at BGOUG Spring Conference in Borovets (photo: BGOUG)

ODTUG Kscope19, Seattle/USA

One of the best conferences for Oracle developers is the Kscope conference, organized by ODTUG (Oracle Developer Tools User Group). The Kscope19 conference took place in Seattle. For me it was the second time at Kscope, and this year a had even more luck than last year: One submitted session was accepted, a second one on the waiting list. Short before the conference (when I was in Borovets), I got an e-mail that my second presentation is accepted, too. Additionally, I was invited to the Database Expert Panel session, the Oracle ACE Briefing and the Oracle ACE Dinner. And of course, I joined the Community Service Day on Saturday before the conference. Definitely a full schedule for me this year!

Nevertheless I still had enough time to attend many interesting presentations at Kscope19, to chat with colleagues and other conference attendees, visit some interesting places in Seattle and taste several craft beers in the city.

I already was on my way home, just enjoying a last craft beer in Seattle, when I read on Twitter that my Trivadis colleague Kim Berg Hansen won the best speaker award for the database track. Congratulations, Kim!

Kscope19
Concentrated participants on my “horror SQL” session at Kscope19 in Seattle (photo: Gerald Venzl)