User group conferences are a great way to learn old and new technologies - you can never know everything. What I enjoy about speaking at these conferences is that I get to attend other sessions and learn something new 😃.
I missed the first few sessions as I was on a sev 1 web ex with oracle support over the conference WiFi, and was funny seeing Philippe also on a similar call. Work continues no matter where you are 😱. Once that was over I was mingling with everyone, I went to Mike's talk on 'Upgrading database to 12.2' - nice to see they are making upgrades easier. 😉.
After lunch it was my talk on the DataSync tool with a live demo - it was the first time with this new talk but went Ok.
Later I went to Christian's talk on 'Oracle Analytics and EPM' - it was interesting - I think he is a secret accountant 😉.
As the day came to a close, it was time for the social event. This is where we had some nibbles, drinks and jokes as well as chocolate tasting and some gin that Heli had brought with her.
Once the social was over some of the speakers were out for the customary dinner together :). We went to a nice restaurant called the Rustic Stone.
Once everyone was seated, Brendan stood up and announced he had a special announcement and it was a promotion. The Ace Program had promoted me to 'Oracle Ace Director'.
It had been a long day but a day that I will never forget and surrounded by great friends to share this moment😃 . This new way of announcing promotions is a nice touch.
I couldn't attend the 2nd day as I had to be at the Oracle Dublin offices - working with development on resolving some work issues that needed attention and presenting about 'Analytics and Data in the cloud' to some of the staff.
In the end, an awesome conference and hope to return again...