It’s Friday, and I have just returned from the East Coast Oracle Users Conference.  I must say that this regional conference comes packed with content.  There were approximately 60 sessions over the two days, and at least 15 presenters were Oracle ACE Associates, ACEs, or ACE Directors.  Tuesday’s Keynote session led by Kerry Osborne of Enkitec focused on Creative Problem Solving.  I was able to ask Kerry after his presentation how do you get your users/customers to understand that the “I want it NOW” expectation and methodical problem solving don’t work.  Simple answer is to tell them they will have to wait.  If only it were.  However, I get it.  We need to educate our customers on the business model used to provide solutions, but then we need to deliver.  Nothing like waiting for something, and it’s not right when you get it. On Wednesday Floyd Teter from Sierra-Cedar shared with us his take on “Simple is the New Cool”.  Another great presentation and some really great takeaways:

• When you build “simple” it drives acceptance
• Simplistic vs Simplicity: Easy for US vs Easy for THEM

In the meantime and in between time, I had the opportunity to attend some great sessions focusing on the Oracle E-Business Suite.  Kicked off Tuesday’s sessions this way:

1. Elke Phelps, Oracle Corporation – Creating a Maintenance Strategy for Oracle E-Business Suite
2. Michael Brown, BlueStar – 11.5.10 to 12.2.3: A Technical Perspective.  This is the first time I have heard him present, and this guy has a great deal of knowledge when it comes to EBS
3. Elke Phelps, Oracle Corporation – Ten Things You Can Do Today to Prepare for Oracle E-Business Suite 12.2.

One of the reasons ECO is a such a good conference is that the groups are small enough that you can really get your questions dissected and answered.  There was another participant basically in the same boat as I am.  EBS 11.5.10.2 running Discoverer for reporting and trying to figure it all out.  I was able to share with her what we are doing exploring and listen in on what other are doing to jump these hurdles.

The evening was completed with an evening Reception with live music by Jason Adamo and networking with some colleagues from Enkitec.

Wednesday picked back up with a treat 🙂

1. Donald Burleson, Burleson Consulting – Customizing SQL Workloads with Intelligent Indexing
2. Me, City of Atlanta – Replacing Cron Jobs with the Concurrent Manager
3. Bill Dunham, OATC, Inc – Insightful EBS Purging Strategies
4. Michael Barone, OATC, Inc – E-Business 11i/12 Street Smarts: Performance Monitoring.

Bottom line, you get a great conference, and it’s right around the corner.  I look forward to participating next year.  For those of you reading this but did not attend, check out their link here: East Coast Oracle Users Group.

And as always good to see: Jeff Smith, Scott Spendolini, Bobby Curtis, Cameron Lackpour, Sarah Zumbrum, Kyle Hailey, Floyd Teter, Kerry Osborne, Elke Phelps, EiS, Polaris, Bill Dunham and the OATC, Inc. crew, Insight Software, and all the others that I have failed to mention by name.

Enjoy.