Now that we’ve had time to sleep and rest our feet, it’s time to reflect on Kscope18. A few things stick out right off the bat — Disney, puppies, and (of course) our people.
This year had a real Buzz Lightyear “to infinity and beyond” feel to it — and not just because we were at Disney. Our team members made some huge strides (like becoming an Oracle ACE Associate), which we’ll brag about below. In this blog post, we’ll cover what we did, what we loved, and what we hope to see at Kscope19.
What We Did
We took Kscope18 to new heights this year with an even better booth, a bigger party, and more prizes than ever before. Not to mention, we had some amazing T-shirts for every Star Wars and superhero fan.
But, Kscope18 had us most excited about the accomplishments of our team.
Our New Oracle ACE Associate
Last year, US-Analytics acquired Rittman Mead America — we might’ve mentioned that already? It was the inspiration for our “Better Together: EPM and BI” theme this year. This acquisition didn’t just give us more BI expertise to expand our offerings — it added some incredibly talented team members to the US-Analytics family. One of those is Senior BI Architect Becky Wagner.
Becky was nominated for the Oracle ACE program by Oracle ACE Director Christian Berg back in December. During a dinner at Kscope18, Becky found out she made it into the program and became an Oracle ACE Associate.
Becky (who’s also the ODTUG BI Community Leader) is the second Oracle ACE Associate at US-Analytics, joining our VP of EPM, Brian Marshall.
“The program is about evangelizing Oracle in the community, right? Clearly, it’s long overdue for her, she’s been an active member for some time,” Brian said.
Within an hour of her ACE status being announced via social media, Becky was asked to present at two events to share her OAC knowledge. If you’re in the Chicago area, check out Becky’s session at the Chicago Oracle Users Group on Tuesday, June 26.
Becky’s excited to get more opportunities to show off her OAC chops, especially since she plans to work toward the Oracle ACE Director title. She’ll also be at OpenWorld in October, presenting on “Active Directory Integration and Single Sign-On for Oracle Analytics Cloud.”
Congrats, Becky!
ODTUG Leadership Program Graduate
This year, Architect and Team Leader Wendy Wilson went to her first Kscope — she was also one of five to be selected for ODTUG’s 2018 Leadership Program Class. This 8-month program began in 2013, focusing on things like…
- Leadership styles
- Women in technology
- Leading a user group
- Being an effective mentor
- Work/life balance
Graduates of the program (like Becky Wagner) go on to become integral, contributing members of the ODTUG community. You can learn more about Wendy’s experience at Kscope18 on her blog.
Informative Essbase and Planning Sessions
Brian Marshall, a veteran Kscope presenter, had two must-see sessions at Kscope18:
ASO and BSO and Hybrid! Oh My!
In this presentation, Brian walked Essbase users through ASO, BSO, and Hybrid modes, exploring the strengths and weaknesses of each. This session covered how to tune Hybrid applications using nontraditional block sizes, why ASO can’t always be replaced by Hybrid applications, and much more.
Couldn’t make it to the session? Download the presentation here.
Teaching On-Prem Planning Some PBCS Tricks
One of the things we learned at Kscope18 is that the new version of Hyperion Planning (scheduled to release early next year), will not include all the innovative functionality of PBCS, making Brian’s presentation particularly relevant.
This session included an overview of some of the features from PBCS you can (and can’t) add to Hyperion Planning. It’s the perfect presentation for organizations thinking about making the jump to the cloud but aren’t quite ready.
Couldn’t make it to the session? Download it here.
What We Loved
It truly was a great Kscope this year, but there are a few things that we particularly loved.
Disney Everywhere
First of all, being at Disney was really exciting for us, as well as many Kscope attendees. Our Disney location at the Swan and Dolphin went so well with our “Better Together” theme, we designed our booth with Disney characters.
The Welcome Reception was even more fun this year with attendees invited to dress up as their favorite Disney characters. With the Disney portfolio expanded to Marvel and Star Wars, this made for a huge variety of amazing costumes. Wendy and Becky coincidentally dressed up as Lilo and Stitch!
We also took it upon ourselves to design some nerdy and creative T-shirts that went really well with the Disney vibe. If you didn’t get a chance to grab a shirt this year, they’ll be just as cool if not more so at Kscope19 (I promise).
The Panels
Obviously, one of the biggest draws to Kscope is the extremely informative sessions – whether technical or general, you’re bound to learn something new. Another huge point of value is the panels that include experts there to answer your most general or specific questions.
This year, one of those panels was “Careers & the Changing Landscape for EPM/BI,” which included some insights from panel member and our new Oracle ACE, Becky Wagner. Some of the key takeaways from the panel include…
- Soft skills are teachable
- A college degree is not required
- Always keep trying to expand your skill set
If you didn’t make it to one of the panels this year, definitely keep them in mind for next year. It’s a great way to engage directly with community leaders. Though a recording will probably be available from ODTUG soon, you won’t have the same opportunity to ask questions and engage in the dialogue. But, if there is something you really want to ask, feel free to reach out to us.
The Best Part? Puppies!
What do puppies have to do with Kscope18? The geniuses at ODTUG put on an amazing puppy party during one of the happy hours this year. If you wanted to, you could sit in the puppy play pen the entire time playing with some adorable (and adoptable) pups.
And, we know, puppies don’t really have anything to do with knowledge sharing between Oracle users, but in the wise words of Brian Marshall, we’ll say this — “puppies are always the right answer.”
What We Want to See at Kscope19
Learning and knowledge sharing is probably what brought you out to Kscope18 and Kscopes past. But the best thing about Kscope is that it brings together a community of like-minded individuals. So, next year, we want to see even more interaction. Part of that will be us adding some games to our booth and even more involvement from our industry experts.
Here are a few more suggestions for what we’d like to see in Seattle next year…
- Even more technical sessions and customer success stories
- Keep the panels coming!
- This year, we witnessed a lip sync battle – it was fun, but not everyone could participate. Give us some community night events everyone can sign up for that night. Dare I say… karaoke?
