Thursday, the day to fly home.

I started my day with a WIT breakfast and had a lot of fun during that. Next year we will most likely have a WIT lunch and maybe a bit more official one than this. Let’s see what Kellyn does…

Then I rushed to the panel where Connor, Tim Hall and a bunch of others were talking about SQL and PL/SQL and got complains from people not taking selfies with them 😀 So plenty of selfies in the following 5 min 😀

Then it was time to pack and check out from the hotel.

1:15 pm I attended That Jeff Smith’s sessions where he gave away some copies of my book and I had my red pen ready for signatures…

Then a lunch with a customer, and a milkshake with my Oracle Dad, Tim Hall. Tim was kind enough to carry my extremely heavy bag to the limousine that the kind people of the ACE Program had organized to take me to the airport. Thank you! Very much appreciated! And thank you Lufthansa for ignoring the fact my bag was kind of heavy 🙂 Great Customer service at the SFO airport!

I slept both my flight from SFO to MUC and MUC to HEL, stayed up for a couple of hours and slept the whole night. Two naps during the day and now I feel I am quite OK again.  Great week! Thank you everybody and see you next year again!

Wednesday started with an EMEA breakfast at Fairmont hotel and an interview. Then very briefly to meet Jean-Pierre Dijcks (thank you JP!) and off to the meeting with Mark Hurd. It is not unusual I meet him (we usually have a brief meeting during the OOW) but what made this meeting special was that firstly I gave him a copy of my book and secondly he tweeted about our meeting. How cool is that!

I am an Ambassador for EOUC (EMEA Oracle Users Group Community) and in that role I have this wonderful chance to meet Mark Hurd. Thank you, Mary Lou Dopart, for organizing these meetings!

After all this excitement it was time for a lunch with our local Oracle and one of our customers. Then meeting Wendy Rinaldi from Oracle Press and the super talented and wonderful Mike Dietrich. Thank you, Mike, for your help and advice!

And the guess what…parties again 🙂 First my favorite party: The Bloggers’ meetup organized by Pythian and OTN. I do not go to the big party (I am too old and tired to go there) so after the Bloggers’ meetup it was time for a quiet dinner with Jens Walbjorn from Oracle Denmark. Thank you, Jens! It was a very nice dinner!

Tuesday. First thing in the morning was attending the Publisher Seminar. Once again strict NDAs and plenty of interesting content. The best though was to meet personally all the people from McGraw-Hill, Oracle Press team. I am working on my second book and I enjoy it very much. If you have not seen my first book yet, here it is: http://www.amazon.com/Oracle-Developer-Modeler-Database-Mastery/dp/0071850090.

Then it was time to meet the APEX team for lunch. Thank you! It was a very nice lunch and once again I learnt a lot!

If you are wondering what I did during breaks I have in these reports, I went to either the user group kiosk to meet people there or the OTN lounge to meet people there 😉 The best during the OOW is meeting people!

Speaking about that, it was again time for receptions and meeting more people. Next the ODTUG meetup and then the Author Appreciation Event organized by Oracle Press team. Thank you! I had fun and a lot of food 🙂

The second day of OOW15 started with a Bay Swim organized by Chet, the Oraclenerd. Yes we did swim on the bay and yes, it was cold 😀

After the swim (and a warm shower) I went to the Oaktable World (OTW) to meet friends and to hear Kerry’s presentations about SQL Translations. And then it was time for a lunch with Maria Colgan. Thank you, Maria, it was so nice to see you and to have a chance to chat!

Everyday during the OOW was full of highlights. The highlight of Monday was the Devvy 2015 Awards. Devvy is the Oracle Database Developer Choice Award (https://community.oracle.com/community/database/awards) and was given this year the first time. And guess what: I won the Devvy on Database Design Category! Woo hoo! Thank you to everybody who voted and thank you for being active in the Oracle community! And thank you Oracle for having the Database Design Category as one of the categories! It is too often that database designers are forgotten. Thank you Steven, Laura and Todd! The database designing is important because of data quality and performance and the Oracle Community is all about sharing and caring. If you are not in the community yet, join now. Of course join the community.oracle.com but also find your local user group and join that too. User groups are the BEST!

After the awards it was time to head to receptions and parties: ODTUG, Friends of Pythian and Accenture…

Oracle Open World (OOW) started on Sun 25th. I started it with the traditional Bridge Run organized by the Oracle SQL Developer team. It is an event I would recommend everybody to attend: there is no better way to start a morning than a walk/run on the Golden Gate Bridge when the morning is still a bit crispy and scenery is breathtaking. After the Bridge Run it was time for a shower and getting ready for my presentations.

First I was presenting at the More Than Another 12 on Oracle Database 12c [UGF3190] (http://debrasoracle.blogspot.fi/2015/09/oow2015-back-by-popular-demand-more.html) which was first introduced in OOW14 and thanks to the great feedback from the audience organized again this year. I was talking about how to design 12c Databases using Oracle SQL Developer Data  Modeler. Thank you Debra Lilley and Ralf Kölling for organizing this! It was great fun!

My second session was right after that with the title Managing the Changes in Database Structures [UGF6317]. Both the sessions were well attended and I want to take the oppontunity to once again thank you everybody who attended these sessions! EOUC rocks!

After the sessions it was time to run to the OTN booth for a group picture of Oracle ACEs. And then to the cloud…

There was a cloud built at the Buena Yerba Gardens. It was a ball pit made of white, plastic balls. We were invited to jump and swim in the “cloud”. My jump was shown live on Larry’s keynote 😀 That was great FUN!

Now it was time to head for dinners. Sunday is usually the busiest because it is the day for the ACE dinner AND the Finnish dinner. But since I am fast and also a good eater, it is no problem for me to attend them both 🙂 Thank you! The food was good and plenty and I had fun.

OTN and the ACE Program traditionally organizes a briefing for Oracle ACE Directors (ACED) just before the Oracle Open World (OOW). It is always under a very strict NDA and extremely interesting. This year it was held at the Oracle HQ on Oct 22-23.

I attended the briefing the second time. Last year I started the fan club for Thomas Kurian and the fan club is still on. He is extremely intelligent and I appreciate very much the fact he takes the time from his busy schedule to meet us just before the OOW, I am sure that is the busiest time for him. We heard a lot about different Oracle technologies from the best experts and of course we had time to talk to the other ACED as well. Great event and I cannot wait for next year!

Thank you Roland, Vikki and Jennifer for a great event! I am so happy and honored to be part of this wonderful group of Oracle experts!

I am at the San Francisco airport waiting for my flight to Munich. This OOW was the BEST OOW EVER! I had so much fun… I will write later more but just a quick report now…

On Thursday and Friday I attended the Oracle ACE Director briefing at the Oracle HQ.

On Sunday I was “presenting” in Larry’s keynote on the big screen. Yes, that’s me: the “lady in red” jumping to the “cloud”. That was FUN!

On Monday I got the Devvy award for Database Designing.

On Tuesday I attended the Publisher Seminar the first time (I am working on my second book 😉 but it is still kind of secret so do not tell anybody).

On Wednesday I met Mark Hurd. What makes it SUPER GREAT is that Mark tweeted about our meeting! Thank you Mark! I enjoyed the meeting and I really appreciate you listened what we had to say.

On Thursday I attended the WIT breakfast and signed books.

Great event. I met so many “old” friends, made so many new ones and I learnt a lot. I am so happy and excited. It definitely was worth all the traveling! See you next year again!

Now I am at the Ljubljana airport waiting for my flight home from the amazing tour of SIOUG 2015 and HrOUG 2015.

The HrOUG took place on a beautiful island on Croatian archipelago. I am so calmed by that environment, I simply love the sea.

I had two sessions in the conference and both were extremely well attended. And I especially enjoyed the questions and talking about Data Modeler after my sessions. Thank you for attending! And thank you for your kind feedback 🙂

The HrOUG is famous for its parties, food and drinks. And it did not let us down this time either 😀 Every evening (starting from Monday) there was a party until morning. We did have great fun!

Thank you for letting me attend and speak in this wonderful conference. I really must remember to come back to SIOUG and HrOUG every year!

Now I must run to my plane.

Cheers

Heli

After SIOUG we drove to Rovinj where the HrOUG 20th anniversary conference takes place. It will be held in a huge hotel on an island. The hotel is nice and the room is beautiful but the best was to see Vlado, the vice-president of HrOUG and the organizer of the event ! I have not seen him for a long time. He is wonderful and he always makes everybody feel very welcome. I was too tired after a long day to stay for the party (just dropped by) and therefore I did not have the chance to see Davor (the president of HrOUG) yet, but I am really looking forward to see him tomorrow. As Vlado told me, there will be a big party every night and there is no time to sleep 🙂 But whatever I need my beauty sleep now 😀 Tomorrow I will talk about Data Modeler and how you can compare designs and a database. I might tell a little about reverse engineering too…

I did not realize how much I have missed the HrOUG events! And here I am now, lucky me.

Good night for now,

Heli

It has been some years I was at the SIOUG conference last time and I was extremely glad I could make it this year. I really missed the wonderful SIOUG people! For some reason both SIOUG and HrOUG have always been close to my heart.

The 20th anniversary conference was held in a beautiful town of Portoroz. The conference was two days: Monday and Tuesday. On Monday evening we had a big party with speeches, belly dancers, band and much more. We saw photos from past years and people from those photos were given small gifts. The meal was delicious and the cake was beautiful.

My presentation about database designing using Data Modeler was the last sessions of the last day. I was a bit worried maybe there will not be much people. I worried for no reason: I think there were two seats empty in the whole room 🙂

Thank you so much for attending my session and I hope you enjoyed it and learnt something new. And thank you for making my teenaged son proud of his Mom with your kind comments 😉

Thank you Janez, Elizabeta, Joze, Urban and many more for making the conference such a great event and thank you for letting me come on such a short notice! You are doing a great job!

Cheers

Heli