KScope12 session highlight No. 3

Introduction

It’s Wednesday, which means we (I am of course hoping that someone actually reads these posts – so here we are, you and I) are halfway through my week long blitz of ODUTG Kscope12 sessions.  I’m going to take a somewhat different take on sessions today and focus on a few of the more atypical sessions that I think are worth looking at.

Where oh where is my Organizational Psychology book?

A political beast

When I took that class, oh, forever ago, my callow youth prevented me from realizing that essentially, people are crazy (and I am including myself in this category), organizations are a reflection of the people that inhabit them, and that means there’s a whole body of study that looks at crazy organizations because heaven knows, those organizations need help.  Gary Crisci must have been paying more attention in class than I, because he has come up with a subject my OP professor would have given her eye teeth for.  This is a repeat (I think) from three years ago when I cleverly decided it would be awesome to work 90 hours in a week on a project AND be involved in multiple presentations AND give a presentation of my own.  I will not comment on what that says about my psychological state, then or now.  In any case, that level of insane busyness meant I missed this presentation and will try my darndest to get there this time.

Politics of Essbase
Gary Crisci, Morgan Stanley
When: Wednesday June 27, Session 15, 1:45 pm - 2:45 pm
Topic: EPM Business Content - Subtopic: EPM Business Content

Team building

Continuing the psychology theme, Martin D’Souza has a session on how to grow a development team so that developers aren’t at each other’s throats/they actually produce whatever they’re working on.  I’ve been on a lot of project teams – some were beyond awesome, most were okay, and a few were spectacularly dysfunctional.  I’d prefer to avoid the last category for, oh, the rest of my life, so if you’re in charge of putting together teams, please attend this session.  Although Martin comes at the issue from a APEX and PL/SQL perspective, the lessons he teaches should be applicable with slight modification to our narrow little world.

Building a Better Team
Martin D'Souza, ClariFit
When: Tuesday June 26, Session 8, 11:30 am - 12:30 pm
Topic: Application Express - Subtopic: Team Development, Testing, Debugging, Load Testing

Why would anyone want to do that?

Humor, as in a sense of

I believe the 28^th amendment to the US Constitution states that I have to hate him because I used to work for him, but I don’t, and he is an excellent speaker (so much so that his presentations are often SRO).  Who am I talking about?  Just the Kscope12 conference chairman, aka, Edward Roske who, in what I imagine will be a somewhat lounge in cheek approach, will outline the things you should NOT do in Essbase.  One note – I think some people are off put or puzzled by his dry sense of humor – if so, this presentation is probably not for you.  OTOH, if you have a pulse and a brain, you might find it entertaining and instructive.

Oracle Essbase Worst Practices - Lessons from a Moron
Edward Roske, interRel Consulting
When: Tuesday June 26, Session 9, 2:15 pm - 3:15 pm
Topic: Essbase - Subtopic: Essbase

Will there one day be a Dan’s Blog for Financial Reports hackers?

Dan Pressman always but always has a different take on tools.  Once you accept that FR reports are really XML objects, and that XML isn’t scary, changing them for fun and profit becomes a more than acceptable approach.  This session is a hacker’s dream (you are after all reading a blog all about hacking Essbase amongst other products so this shouldn’t scare you) and the fact that what Dan imparts is almost surely 100% unsupported by Oracle makes it that much better.  

Financial Reporting: I Didn't Know it Could Do THAT
Dan Pressman, nTuple, LLC
When: Wednesday June 27, Session 14, 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
Topic: Hyperion Applications - Subtopic: Reporting and Other Hyperion Apps

Once again, Kscope12 offers unique content

C’mon, think about it – where else are you going to find a mix of content like the above?  

Organizational Psychology – yes, Kscope12 attendees have brains, work in organizations (hey, even a one-man band like yr. obdnt. srvnt. has corporations as clients and I don’t exactly work alone in a Fortress of Solitude), and aren’t afraid to admit imperfection in this physical world.

Humor?  Oh, I’d say so.  I happily cannot find the video of me singing “Everybody Loves Somebody” but perhaps that is one of those coping mechanisms my brain has employed to keep the trauma at bay.  I am told it was…excruciating.  I can believe that although I am somewhat puzzled as I sound great when I sing it in the shower.  One of the imponderables of life, I suppose.

I hope you check out these presentations at the conference.  It’s just a short month away (gasp) and promises to be the best yet.  I can hardly wait.