Collaborate 12: A Week That Was…Conference Recap, Takeaways
Posted by Kashif Manzoor on May 24th, 2012
Collaborate 12 April 22-26 has concluded & overall, I really enjoyed the event, this was first time I joined Collaborate such a big event and in the city of Las Vegas….all set was stunning experiences. I will start off with a big thanks to all the organizers from OAUG , IOUG and Quest , with a special mention for OAUG who made sure I found the right accommodations, a good reception and oracle sessions and networking with the right folks.
The conference was arranged in Mandalay Bay, Convention Center, Las Vegas, it was a good venue having good
environment with ample space for breakout sessions and a praiseworthy to see Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay. OAUG Attendee Welcome Reception was arranged in Shark Reef Aquarium on Sunday evening .
The conference kicked off with a keynote from Captain Mark Kelly, Commander of the Space Shuttle Endeavour’s Final Mission on Leadership, Teamwork and Courage. It was good to listen non-oracle keynote, no tech mumbo jumbo and Captain presented his personal challenge of his life, which he faced when an assassination attempt was made on his wife, former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. His dedication to family and his wife’s road to recovery would captivate Mark Kelly. He expressed to all conference audiences how to accomplish their mission while maintaining the love and devotion to family that is the foundation of true success. Overall it was a great motivational speech.
The 2nd day (Monday 23rd Apr) of conference kicked off with a keynote from Oracle CIO & SVP Mark Sunday on “IT at Oracle: The Art of IT Transformation to Enable Business Growth.” His presentation stressed the importance of simplifying IT and how Oracle is implementing different parts of engineered system as a customer of Oracle Products. It was good to listen about all modules of e-business suite, databases and how they are managing the data centers. The rest of the session topics reflected Collaborate’s mixed nature as a melting pot of three different user groups (OAUG, IOUG and Quest). I have attended number of sessions from a big number of speakers on the agenda, who showed off a wide variety of expertise with specific sessions. Over all conference was heavily based on Fusion focused sessions with E-business suite R-12 to upgrade and lot of Oracle strategy/roadmap sessions.
During the evening there was a Welcome Reception in the Exhibitor Showcase area at 6pm, a large number of companies joined Collaborate to showcase their products and number of booths were having lot of fun activities, THEgame, Relaxation Lounge, OAUG Tattoo Parlour and many more….
On Wednesday Apr 25, there was a BACK TO 80s PARTY, a performance by The Spazmatics, with all the awesome sounds, styles and radical dance steps from the 1980s, The Spazmatics recapture all the best and the worst of the decade for an evening of pure energy and entertainment.
It was a great week with lot of fun, learning & networking with peer folks, and thanks to everyone for making Collaborate 12 a boundless event for me.
All in short, Collaborate 12 was a great show with a massive agenda and attendees eager to learn about the latest solutions in the Oracle technology, number of parallel sessions were good and there was a point to which session will be attended and which one we can miss out…. muddled
In the end, to rest my voice…… feels free to share thoughts on the conference?
