My (Almost Solid) Collaborate 09 Schedule

With less than a week before Collaborate 09 in Orlando, I have been working on the schedule of sessions that I don't want to miss and trying to fit in as many as I can around meetings. Every year, I have the same issue. Do I attend sessions for things I'm working on now to see if I can better my current processes, or do I look for new features and future products? This is actually a good problem to have and is an indication of the level of content that will be available.

Meetings for Special Interest Groups and now the IOUG Board of Directors take about half of my time, but that leaves plenty of time for some great session content. I will be dipping into some of Quest' International's content this year also since I am back to supporting the PeopleSoft world. Besides PeopleSoft I am trying to balance my time between new topics and improvements to current projects I am working on.

I'm especially looking forward to the Darwin Awards for IT Security and New and Improved Features in 11g RMAN. There should be several things in both of these that I can use right away back at the office. Backup scripts without restore scripts??? Who would do that? I guess that will be one session I will have to check out and make sure my restore scripts are up to snuff. Of course, my own session, which happens to be the last technical session on Thursday will be of interest to anyone that supports PeopleSoft. We are implementing the PeopleSoft Management Pack for Grid Control and my presentation covers some of our headaches and successes.

Collaborate wouldn't be complete without catching up with all the people I have become friends with in the past and making some new ones. Talk about value for the money. My contacts from past conferences have saved me a ton of time and my company some cash in the process. If you think you might be missing out because you won't be in Orlando next week... you're right! You still have two days to get $200 off the on-site registration rate and discounted hotel rates. Make sure you don't find yourself stuck in a situation that you could have learned about by attending Collaborate 09!

And when Collaborate is over.... I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!

I plan on Tweeting from the conference and will hopefully find some time to write blog entry or two. I hope you follow along! Find me on Twitter... toddsheetz.