Will the 13th be a lucky day

Nope, I am not becoming superstitious

Oh, I never walk on a crack, lest I crack my mother’s back (you have to see the pavement heaving in my town – I blame all those lovely trees), nor do I walk under ladders (having fallen off a tall one – yeah, that explains a lot, doesn’t it? – I know what is up will eventually come down, maybe on my head), and I never throw my hat on a hotel bed (when I am wearing one of my boonies, I am more likely to be near a sleeping pad and bag), so no, I am not becoming superstitious in my old age.  And 13 December is not Friday the 13th,  so really, what could possibly go wrong?  Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?

I am hoping for luck, however, because it will be required

Why?  Because I (I should say we, as in ODTUG) am going to participate in something new, innovative, quite possibly very rewarding, and also very possibly a bit of a stress-inducer.  What oh what oh what am I talking about?  Nothing other than the first ever ODTUG virtual experts panel.

Panel beating

I have participated in, and moderated a few Kscope panels (I leave it up to the reader to decide if yr. obdnt. srvnt. deserved to be up front – I have to say I sometimes wonder) and I know how much fun and yet informative they can be.  From a preparation perspective, all one needs to do is bring knowledge and experience, and a healthy desire to chime in – the rest is magic.  And from an audience perspective panels are an opportunity to get some (hopefully) knowledgeable opinion on technical matters from a variety of perspectives and experience.  Did I mention that moderating these things is like trying to herd autistic cats?  Fun all around.  

Kscope (like Christmas) comes but once a year, but the need and desire for panels happens the other 51 weeks.  What to do?  Enter a brainstorming IM session between John Booth and myself.  We were kicking around the idea of doing something like the show these two morons/idiots/geniuses/very funny guys do for the automotive world, but for EPM world when one of us (I know not which, but I suspect it was John) said, “Why can’t we do a panel?”  And thus the ODTUG virtual experts panel was born.  (If you follow the link, replace Chemical X with very strong coffee.)

Not just EPM

One thing to note – as John and I talked about this idea, we realized that to limit this just to EPM was silly.  You will note that two out of the four panelists are NOT from the EPM world at all, but the larger data integration and business intelligence communities.  I am particularly excited about this (and excited that we were able to go outside of the US and get people many, many, many hours ahead of the States to participate) because Oracle’s tools are crossing disciplines.  We chose Oracle Data Integrator because it is an exemplar of a tool that does just that.  Given ODI’s read-from-anywhere, write-to-anything nature, looking at ODI from an EPM perspective simply didn’t make sense.  And so we are not.

The vision

The way this is going to work is:

1. ODTUG is going to scour the world for the best practitioners in a given field.  In our first go round, focusing on ODI, we have Matthias Heilos, Gurcan Orhan, Mark Rittman, and (somehow) yr. obdnt. srvnt, up on the panel.
2. You, dear audience, will connect to ODTUG’s GoToWebinar session and listen to John kick off the panel.
3. You will listen to our witty yet wise banter and repartee and this dialog will spur ODI questions.
4. You will send questions to the ODTUG GoToWebinar administrator via G2W’s (I am not typing that out any more) chat feature.
5. The ODTUG G2W (hi, Lori Lorusso) admin will collate the questions and pass them to John and John will ask the panel the question.  Btw, this approach is because moderating a panel and running a webinar is akin to rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time.
6. Chaos/genius/a cacophony of panelist voices will ensue, and hopefully your question will be answered.
7. This will all be a great success (bar some inevitable minor logistical SNAFUs as we climb the learning curve, and yes we have rehearsed it beforehand, but there will be stress for we panelists, not you the audience) and you will see many more virtual panel webinars from ODTUG.  Did I mention this will be great?

Be a part of it

A panel differs from a presentation in its spontaneity and improvised content.  In other words, while this webinar will be recorded, it does not follow a set path and you most certainly can and will influence what we talk about.  But of course you have to be there to impact it.

Here’s the gen

What:  ODTUG Expert’s Panel Webinar - Oracle Data Integrator (ODI)
When:  13 December 2012, 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm Eastern (US) Standard Time
How:  https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/270041222

Join us, won’t you?