OOW14 is now done for me. Sitting at the airport and waiting for my flight to depart.

Yesterday I attended the Bloggers’ meetup very briefly and then joined an early dinner with some friends. I decided not to attend the party since I was very tired, had a lot of work to do, needed to pack and last but not least had three sessions to present on Thursday. On Thursday I had a breakfast with a friend at 7.30 and then I checked out from my hotel and walked to Moscone. I had my first presentation at 9.30 and then I had some user groups meetings. The next session was at 12.00 and the last one at 1.15 pm. I want to thank everybody who attended my sessions during the OOW! I really hope you learned something new and that you enjoyed.

After my sessions I walked to the hotel to have some drinks and snacks with friends before heading to the airport.

Thank you ACE Program! I had fun and I can say without hesitation: this was the best OOW ever!

Safe travels to all and hope to see you soon again!

I think this has been my busiest OOW ever. I did not have had time to tweet, blog or anything. Now I took a short break before the Bloggers’ Meetup to do it.

I have not had time for sessions, I have had so much social to do. On Saturday I had a breakfast with some Finns and then joined the Finnish group to vineyards. My first time. That was just amazing. Beautiful scenery, lovely wines and food, and fantastic company.

I started my Sunday with the Bridge Run organized by That Jeff Smith. Because Debra Lilley was so excited we started our walk already at 7.30 and finished about the time the runners started. The Bridge was fantastic. We saw the sun rise and we enjoyed the lovely weather and lovely scenery. Excellent start for a day and for a conference. I visited the user group pavillion several times during the day to say hi to my friends, I met lots of people, attended the ACE dinner and the Finnish dinner.

On Monday we started with breakfast at 6.30 and then the Bay Swim by Oraclenerd Chet (unfortunately he was not there:(, Chet we missed you!) at 7.30. After that we needed some hot coffee:) I once again met lot of people, had luch with a dear friend, polished slides for my session on Tuesday, attended 4-5 parties and went to bed early.

On Tuesday I started with the IOUC Support Committee Meeting at 7.30. Then met some people and gave my first session at 10.45 for a full room. Thank you all who attended! Then we had the traditional ladies’ lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, some preparations for the presentations, lots of meeting people and 4-5 parties again. But early to bed again.

Today is Wednesday and I met a friend for breakfast at 7.30, then prepared our demo with That Jeff Smith, attended the Sustainability Innovation Awards session (I have been one of the judges for many years), attended a birthday party lunch, got my book signed by Brendan, had some birthday cake and now preparing for the bloggers’ meetup. On my way soon…

I am in San Francisco now. I arrived on Wednesday afternoon and had a lovely family dinner with my Oracle family: my amazing and lovely Mom (Debra Lilley), my Dad Tim Hall who has a huge fan club (on tours my Mom keeps the line in order when people wants to get his autographs) and my ever-young and legendary grandfather Graham Wood (I call him Gram). I am so proud of my family and hope to have many, many family dinners with them in the future.

On Thursday my first two day Oracle ACE Director briefing started. If you want to hear it in short: wow! Biggest plus: Thomas Kurian. Biggest minus: not hearing enough Maria Colgan.

The ACED briefing was exactly what I expected but also much more than that. As a rookie I am still not quite aware what I am allowed to say and what not so I do not talk about details at all. I only tell you that cool things are coming and I am very convinced that Oracle knows what they are doing so keep on betting Oracle.

On Thursday we heard about Oracle Development Tools, all kinds of clouds, middleware, WebCenter, BPM, WLS, Coherence, Exalogic, OAUX, SOA and finally Thomas Kurian came in…
It was all interesting and I learned very much. The OAUX team was as amazing as can be and I was thinking this cannot get better…but it did. Before I say more I tell you I started Thomas Kurian fan club and it is already quite populated…
Thomas Kurian entered the room. He smiled and said hi to all. The whole entrance was quiet, polite and very modest. In that point I was already curious. I have seen his keynotes and presentations but I have never met him in this kind of event. Thomas started his presentation. Without slides, without notes. The way he told the whole story of Oracle products and product families now and in couple of years was facinating. He moved on logically, clear and peacefully giving us all the impression he knows everything about Oracle product, all of them. Because nobody really can people were asking him tough, deep technical questions, and he replied them all with pleasant voice and knowledge that made me speachless. He was not in a hurry. He had all the time in the world to answer every question people had. Larry, I hope you realize what a jewel you have!
So because of Thomas I cannot say much more about Thursday: I am still without words.

On Friday I was looking forward to the update in database and especially Maria Colgan. Unfortunately she was too busy and could not stay more than a few minutes (people were asking questions to keep her there longer). I understand that she was busy right before the OOW so I am not complaining;) but Maria just happens to be one of my favourite persons so I would have liked to hear more…
We heard about MySQL, met Bob Evans (chief communication officer), learnd about BI platform, APEX, Linux, virtualization and Steven Feuerstein’s inspiring YesSQL message. Stay tuned, this will be interesting!
I think the hightlight of the second day was Dan McClary explainig us Big Data and everything around that. He did a great job! I should have written about Data Modeler on my blog when 4.0.3 came out, I realized it on the briefing. Data Modeler supports (among others) Hive and people did not know that (external table of type Hive)!
I always think that if I know something everybody knows it. Not a very good feature for an expert:(

This experience was fantastic and I will remember it for a long time! Thank you OTN, the ACE Program and the organizing team!