Re: Active Oracle user group in Raleigh, North Carolina area?

From: dnrg <dananrg@xxxxxxxxx>
To: oracle-l <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2012 04:30:18 -0700 (PDT)
Thanks again for the replies (online and off) to my question about forming a 
new Oracle User Group in the Raleigh, NC / RTP area. So far two folks have 
expressed interest in assisting. Through one I learned about the forthcoming 
East Coast Oracle Users Conference in Raleigh (Oct 17th to Oct 18th). Tom Kyte 
is keynoting and given a pre-conf workshop on Oct 16th. Sounds great.Trying to 
get attendance approved by my employer. This would be great place to organize a 
new local group.
If others not associated in a governance role with the Burleson group will be 
attending, please contact me offline if you're interesting in helping architect 
a new local group. It would help to have organizers with equally good measures 
of humility, humor, and selflessness. The meetings could be as frequent as 
monthly extended afternoon lunch and learns or as infrequent as quartlerly 
(seems to me a good minimum "face time" frequency). I work in Raleigh but not 
RTP, so I can't personally sneak away from a lunch-and-learn. Or perhaps a 
monthly "Oracle In the 'Pub'" gathering after hours in RTP would be a good way 
to get started. Some combination of these sound good to me. I personally would 
want members to vote for all officers. Not a situation where a President or 
Board appoints all officers. Frankly, I'd like to see a minimum of hierarchy 
and zero power posturing. Doesn't have to be complete chaos. But democracy and 
self-organization can work.

@Mark B: I like your evening dinner idea. Thanks for all your suggestions. I'm 
skeptical of a single big annual meeting. Why? Invariably some members will 
have business or personal issues to attend to. Some would say "too bad for 
them." But who knows what the circumstances are that would prevent a person 
from attending One Big Meeting--family issues, etc. Two annual Big meetings 
would be better. Because the odds of any one member not being able to attend 
would presumably be halved.

> Larger groups can afford to break down into specialized groups (SIGs), while 
> with a smaller group,
> you may need a larger functional cross-section to have a group large enough 
> to work.  I say, start
> small.  One Oracle user group, that covers everything and everybody (core 
> database, eBS, Peoplesoft,
> etc), and if you've got a large enough turnout, you can always sub-divide 
> later."

That seems reasonable. I was a founder of NCSDUG - the North Carolina Spatial 
Database Users Group several years back (in practice, a user-driven Esri ArcSDE 
User Group. I named it generically to leave open the possibility of other 
vendors getting involved).

Our kickoff was a day-long event on a Friday at a lovely meeting space in the 
Greensboro Public Library. Think we got around 130 attendees on our first 
event. I structured it this way: the first event was in a large common room 
that would be of interest to both Esri ArcSDE Administrators and others 
interested in ArcSDE technology. Afterwards, folks separated into two tracks: 
one for ArcSDE admins (moderate and advanced) and a second for those who were 
more novice. At the end of the day, both groups reconvened in the same room and 
we had two round table events.

I tried to organize subsequent NCSDUG events as adjuncts to GIS conferences--in 
part because it was a huge effort to do the first event. Had many sleepless 
nights trying to get it right and offer maximal value to attendees. Had lots of 
help but it was tough. If I'm going to impose on peoples' time, even if it's a 
free event, I want folks to have the best experience possible. But we never 
achieved the success I wanted at these tagalong events. We did get Dan Geringer 
from the Oracle Spatial group at our second event and that was interesting. The 
group is now defunct. So I'm ready for a new, Oracle-specific group. Again, 
only because the OUG on record for the Raleigh/RTP area has been active for 
over a year (abandonment?).

> One in the US and one international, come to mind: RMOUG and UKOUG.

Thanks for that. RMOUG sounds terrific. I'll also havea look at UKOUG. Couldn't 
find the dates for the next RMOUG. It's something I'd consider flying out for 
to see what a healthy, active, and successful local OUG looks like.

> Taking on the organization of a user group can be a daunting task.  First, 
> get your committee
> together.  You'll need a strong central group to rally everyone else.  Find a 
> good venue.
> Perhaps a local community college.  Try a one-day, full day, conference.  See 
> if you can get a
> "headliner" to come in, to help kick off your group.  (A Tom Kyte, Cary 
> Millsap, Jonathan Lewis,
> etc).  That will be a big draw.  I'm guessing there are many potential 
> attendees that don't 
> participate in mailing lists like Oracle-L, or read much in the way of blogs, 
> etc.  So, I think 
> you'll need to network as much as possible with others at other companies, 
> try to get the word out. 
> Getting the initial communications out there, will be difficult.  Once you 
> get rolling, you can
> maintain a mailing list.  Getting it initially populated will be tricky.
> Good luck!

Thanks again Mark. I know starting a UG can be utterly exhausting. My first 
task in forming NCSDUG was to create an online survey to:

1) Gauge interest in the group / first event
2) Solicit and vet speakers
3) Find a meeting space
4) Build a mailing list of interested members
5) Find other volunteers

The survey worked better than I could have imagined and met all 5 objectives. 
Took many people to do our first NCSDUG event. But folks loved it.

@Carol - Thanks so much for the OUG references.

@Kellyn - Thanks also for your input. Good stuff.

Best,

Dana Nibby
--
//www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
Re: Active Oracle user group in Raleigh, North Carolina area?

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