My EOUC 2011 Trip Report (Prague)

When Oracle asked me to join the EOUC (European Oracle User Group Committee) task force, I didn't think twice. Having quality time with other User Group leaders during two days is really very valuable... when done right!!

The Ingredients

Oracle decided to organize the 2011 EOUC meeting in Prague, a truly beautiful city. When you combine this with a great venue (Radison SAS hotel), fast (free) wireless, the main ingredients are available for a successful collaborative User Group leaders gathering.

The un-conference sessions were already warmly welcomed during IOUC in January, so pushing the task force to consider introducing more un-conference and lighting talks wasn't too difficult. Oracle even complimented these with a 90 min. open discussion slot which the user group leaders could drive during the 2nd day.

I must congratulate the team from Mary Lou Dopart for being open & agile enough to allow these changes. Compared to last years EOUC event in Brussels (which was mainly Oracle and some select group of community leaders talking, with the only interactions being the Q&A part after each talk) the EOUC gathering has transformed into a real Community driven experience!

Twitter at #EOUC

Because Oracle legal didn't allow us to record the sessions, it was clear that the JUG leaders would find other ways to share the experience and content... welcome to the social network!

using #EOUC tag as Stephan asked, (he may throw coffee at me if I don't)

FYI - The blue boxes are EOUC related tweets

"Many of my Oracle User Group members don't know what twitter or facebook is!" said one of the more senior German OUG leaders... hmmmmm.

Probably as a result the "How to use social media?" un-conference topic got the most votes and the first EOUC twitter handles were created soon after. Shows again the many differences between the Oracle and Java user groups, but soon we noticed other leaders joining our example.

I love Java leaders, their 'newness' to the Oracle world means we discus more openly things that matter #EOUC - UKOUG Chairman

The Dharma initiative moment

Sure we still had two classical talks which were driven by Oracle (but hey, they were paying for the venue, food and hotel rooms). One talk was about the Oracle marketing plans for the next year, which was interesting. Even if the PPT slide deck had a broken theme and many unacceptable spelling errors were included.

You could see how much the audience was engaged during a presentation based on the number of tweets! Such a twitter highlight was when someone from Oracle talked about "Support & Cloud Computing". During this talk a video was shown, triggering the following tweet by Martijn:

View on YouTube

Oh, too funny! this video is like a 1950's public service announcement, "in case of nuclear bomb, duck and cover!" #dearohdear

Followed shortly by a tweet by Paris:

reminded me the introduction videos of the dharma initiative in Lost #eouc

That's the only thing I remembered from that Oracle talk :o)

Lightning Talks

We had a one hour slot for 12 lightning talks (4 minutes per talk and 1 minute to switch speaker) and our whiteboard had in no time a full schedule. The Oracle User Groups didn't really know what to expect so only half of the slots were taken.

The available 240 seconds were filled by passionate JUG leaders covering topics ranging from "How to scale glassfish?", bitcoin, "How to setup a successful JUG?" and general JUG updates from Greece, UK, Egypt and Poland etc. Really too bad these lightning talks can't be relived on Youtube!

During the lightning talks Martijn also received an email that the London JUG JCP Expert Group nomination got accepted, next to SouJava... wauw! Hopefully these two JUGs will be able to also act as JUG proxies towards the JCP. Exciting times.

Rock Star visits EOUC

Based on the brief visit by Antonio (Paris JUG), I can only conclude that having long hair (and maybe being an author of a successful Java EE 6 book) has really made him a highly demanded speaker at many JUG sessions and conferences. First speaking at the Cologne JUG on Monday evening, then visiting the EOUC, speaking in the evening at the Prague JUG followed by a night train to talk at GeeCon (Poland) is pure Rock & Roll. The only problem is, that 99,9% of his groupies have Y-chromosomes :o)

Discovering Prague

On Tuesday evening Oracle arranged a very nice sight seeing tour of Prague. It started with a joy ride in an old tram taking us to the castle, from that point our guide informed us about many interesting historic buildings and related stories. While enjoying the panoramic views we continued to exchange JUG related topics, Java gossip and much more.

If you've never visited Prague before I highly recommend you add this city to your ToDo list!

Stanley meets Android picture pending

Stanley makes new friends

One of my personal highlights was of course meeting again my dear friend Stanley. He had gone through a rough period because of several close encounters with a tank and also a gun. But after introducing Stanley to Duke at the IOUC and now his new friend "Android", I really hope Stanley has found comfort that he's not alone in this brutal world!?

The Red Card

Another improvement I suggested during the several EOUC task force conference calls was the usage of colored feedback cards. You take green, orange and red colored cards and use them for instantaneously feedback. Tom Scheirens was our EOUC host and he seamlessly moved from welcome us back to collecting some colored feedback, great job!

Java SE 7

On the 2nd day we had an open discussion slot reserved for both the Java and Oracle User Groups. Nichole Scott first debriefed us about the Java SE 7 distributed launch event which will take place on July 7th. JUGs will receive funding (so we can offer some drinks and food during a reception), evangelists and/or a launch kit.

What (software) tools do JUG's use?

The second part of our open discussion slot was used to gather information about what online tools, software services etc are used by the JUG leaders. This interesting list is available on Google Docs and will eventually find its way on Java.net through Nichole.

In summary

After another nice lunch (courtesy of Oracle) it was time to head back to Brussels with lots of new ideas & friends in my Java luggage!

It's really nice to see that Oracle is open for the input of the JUG leaders on the I/EOUC organization. And in addition I'm also really pleased that the JUG leaders have down graded the EOUC dress code from business casual to street wear, good stuff!

Note to self - must buy a t shirt if I want to be cool with the java guys at the next #EOUC (UKOUG Chairman)

Stephan Janssen signing off.