Oracle Open World (OOW) is one of the biggest conferences on the software business and probably the most spectacular in San Francisco every year.
I had the chance to visit it over the last years and I’ll be sharing my experience on how to get the most out of your visit.
Watching Larry Ellison’s keynote is something that you cannot miss. There are two keynotes, one on Monday and another on Wednesday. Even though it is performed at a huge room, it is better to show up at least 30 minutes before. The room will be packed and even many people will be standing up at the back. Remember the words “…next slide please…”.
So you already have two session that cannot miss. Now it is time to start reviewing the “schedule builder” which is within the OOW website and you can search the sessions by title, subject, tag and many options. Oh! by the way, you need an oracle id to get into this builder but it takes a few minutes to register.
In my experience, I have so many topics that I’m interested in that I have several sessions at the same time. The issue is that with the scheduler builder, you cannot add two sessions at the same time, so my recommendation is to add them into your personal calendar. Why is that? it is because if you don’t think that the topic or the session has the level (high or low) you can run to the other session… there are multiple maps but if you don’t have a GPS -I’m kidding- get familiar with the names of the buildings, hotels, etc so you can get the shortest path to the room.
Over the years with the acquisitions from Oracle, the conference became bigger and bigger and the Moscone Center became small. So Oracle is renting multiple hotel rooms around the area so you can find sessions that are presented at different hotel rooms in the Moscone Center area.
You’re going to find multiple sessions on strategy and roadmap, and that’s one of the main goals of this conference. But if you research you will be able to get some hands-on sessions and deep dive on multiple tools or applications.
The conference starts on Sunday and goes until Thursday. During these days for the first time there will be shows on pubs and on Wednesday at the appreciation event Pearl Jam will be performing for the attendees.
Every day, there’s lunch served at the main tent and that is a good opportunity to network with peers. The exhibitor’s hall is a great way to meet different vendors which are part of the Oracle ecosystem.
If you’re attending you can meet me at IT Convergence’s booth or at some of my presentations.
https://blogs.oracle.com/otn/entry/oracle_ace_sessions_at_oracle
See you there and enjoy OOW 2012!