OTN TechBlog

Mike Olson tells me that a formal Jim Gray Tribute is planned for May 31, in Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley Campus.

If you know anything about database technology (or enterprise computing really), you know that Jim Gray, a Turing Award laureate, was a giant in his field. I never knew him personally, but everyone I know who did also calls him a gracious human being.

It's appropriate that the tribute program includes a technical session - speakers include Mike Stonebraker, Gordon Bell, and Bruce Lindsay, among others.

A new milestone on the ongoing journey to make Oracle OpenWorld 2008 (tag openworld08) more community-oriented is now in the rear-view mirror: 35 slots have been reserved for user-suggested sessions, and you can pitch your own and vote on others at Oracle Mix:



The top vote-getters will be added to the agenda. (Of course, if you don't make the cut, you can always present at the Oracle OpenWorld Unconference.)

You can read more about this feature, as well as how to get your "I'm attending Oracle OpenWorld" profile badge, in this post by AppsLab Jake. And, oh yeah, registration is open!

Update: Just learned that a FAQ [wiki.oracle.com] is available about this process.

Yeah, I'll be at CommunityOne/RedmonkOne on Monday and JavaOne Tuesday/Wednesday. Much of the time I'll be at Oracle's booth (#524 - BEA right next door), so do stop by to say "ola".

OTN is sponsoring a movie night, as is traditional, on Wednesday (Iron Man - what else - @ The Metreon); the first 500 people to complete a pretty brief survey will get a ticket. We'll be raffling 5 posters while we're there, too.

Hope to see you there.

Update (May 8): A good time was had by all; thanks for coming!

After all this time you may have wondered who the OTN Team "is"; well, here we are captured in pixels:



From left to right: me, Lillian Buziak (ACE Program), Victoria Lira (ACE Program), Mark Panozzo (Downloads and Software Services), Andrew Carr (Community Marketing, but has since moved on to run the Oracle.com Web Analytics team), Lawrence Leung (Content Management), and Todd Trichler (Chief Installfest Officer).

I'm also happy to say that this team will soon be joined by two ex-BEAers - Bob Rhubart and Linda Bronson - who will be designing and fulfilling a new "Architect" focus in the community. Marina Gil-Santamaria, formerly of Empirix, will also be joining us to build out content and community for QA testing. It only gets better from here!

Update (11:59am): I'm compelled to add that there are many, many other members of the virtual team not pictured here. OTN is like Hollywood: people from different orgs come together for projects, disband when those projects are complete, and then re-form in different combinations for the next project.

The key to professional success in such an environment, as Stephen Spielberg observed in the flick-industry context, is to "be in the room."

I was pleased to speak with PR blogger John Cass recently about this blog; the results can be seen here. John thinks I'm being too hard on myself!