Re: IOUG and Quest Oracle Community - Merger

I'm just going to say it: If conferences and user groups aren't meeting your expectations, look in the mirror and make sure you're investing some time in them. For all the years I was conference director for RMOUG, we consistently received an average of abstracts that matched the percentage for each track of attendees. I know, I collected all the data from the conference evaluations and built out trends and analysis to verify we were doing right by our membership. The people who most often complained about the content were also the ones who answered the question about volunteering or speaking with a solid, "NO." Be part of the solution, not part of the problem for user groups and the overwhelming challenge of user group conferences.

If you don't like the focus of a conference that once met your needs, please check yourself first:
-Are you volunteering to review abstracts? Help with registration? Conference tasks?

-Are you part of the board and helping to direct the track focus?
-Have you submitted an abstract or been a speaker/panelist?
-Have you submitted content in your area of specialty?

Conferences and users groups are make up of what people put into them. If you want IOUG/Quest to flourish on the DBA side, you need to invest in it and make it happen.
RMOUG, GLOC and NoCOUG, along with board members in recent years at Collaborate via IOUG, like Ray Smith, Seth Miller, Mark Farnham, Alex Gorbachev, Michelle Malcher and others have put in the time to have consistent/great DBA conferences. If you couldn't find the content when you attended, seriously peeps- you weren't looking very hard. If you want to have better DBA conferences in the future- invest, volunteer, speak and attend- or in other words, COLLABORATE.

*Kellyn Pot'Vin-Gorman*
DBAKevlar Blog <http://dbakevlar.com>
President Denver SQL Server User Group <http://denversql.org/> about.me/dbakevlar

On Tue, Jul 9, 2019 at 9:39 AM Seth Miller <sethmiller.sm_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> I can't speak to the perception of Collaborate being less DBA focused but
> I can assure you that, although the IOUG name is going away, IOUG as a DBA
> focused Oracle user group is not going anywhere. In fact, just this past
> week all former IOUG members received their Quest website credentials and a
> number of town halls will take place to help with the transition.
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 8, 2019 at 3:43 PM Rumpi Gravenstein <rgravens_at_gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> +1 for both RMOUG and GLOC. See https://gloc.neooug.org/ for this
>> year's GLOC sessions.
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 8, 2019 at 4:14 PM Tim Gorman <tim.evdbt_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> RMOUG in February always has a good lineup of talks by and for DBAs;
>>> same with GLOC in May.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/8/19 13:15, Leroy Kemnitz wrote:
>>>
>>> I am ‘giving up’ on conferences for DBAs. I agree that Collaborate is
>>> less and less for DBAs – I attended the conference for many years and
>>> enjoyed it in the past.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org <oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org>
>>> <oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> *On Behalf Of *Tyfanie Wineriter
>>> *Sent:* Monday, July 8, 2019 2:07 PM
>>> *To:* oracle-l-freelist <oracle-l_at_freelists.org>
>>> <oracle-l_at_freelists.org>
>>> *Subject:* RE: IOUG and Quest Oracle Community - Merger
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Out of curiosity, now that Quest swallowed IOUG, and Collaborate is
>>> significantly less DBA-Focused (I agree with Jeff, it was already becoming
>>> less and less for DBAs), what conferences are DBAs going to instead? Is
>>> there a good DBA-Focused conference, besides OpenWorld?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I wanted to do a “MySQL For the Oracle RAC DBA” presentation, since
>>> that’s what I was looking for at the last Collaborate. :D
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ~ Tyfanie Wineriter ~
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Database Administrator
>>>
>>> University of Oregon
>>>
>>> 1212 University of Oregon
>>>
>>> Eugene, OR 97402-1212
>>>
>>> (541) 346-1366
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org <oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org> *On
>>> Behalf Of *Jeff Chirco
>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, March 5, 2019 5:06 PM
>>> *To:* Alfredo Abate <alfredo.abate_at_gmail.com>
>>> *Cc:* oracle-l-freelist <oracle-l_at_freelists.org>
>>> *Subject:* Re: IOUG and Quest Oracle Community - Merger
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> To be honest was not a fan but also doesn't matter too much as this was
>>> the first year I decided to not renew my membership. I wasn't finding any
>>> value in the membership, the webinars seemed to be less and less, I stopped
>>> reading the Select Journal when it moved to an electronic format (just
>>> personal preference), and the website had a lack of community involvement.
>>> I've attended Collaborate 3 times, and as a DBA in a company that does not
>>> have any Oracle "Apps" nor have any plans to use Oracle Cloud the
>>> conference was providing less of a value. It seemed the DBA related
>>> sessions were less and less and mostly focused on the Cloud. Which I get as
>>> that is Oracle's push, but just not for our company until maybe one day we
>>> are forced. Also I always felt overwhelmed by the disproportion amount of
>>> "apps" people from Quest and OAUG versus the DBA's from IOUG. Was harder to
>>> find good conversations. I was kind of hoping IOUG would go the other way
>>> and own its own from the conference perspective. If I attend another
>>> conference it will probably be RMOUG or ODTUG as those just seem to make
>>> more sense for what we focus on. But I've meet some great people through
>>> IOUG and it could actually be better under Quest. Just my two cents. I'll
>>> continue to keep and eye on it as it goes.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Jeff
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 8:57 AM Alfredo Abate <alfredo.abate_at_gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> In case you haven't heard, the IOUG is now part of the Quest Oracle
>>> Community.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> https://questoraclecommunity.org/better-together
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Alfredo
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Rumpi Gravenstein
>>
>

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