In a few weeks this years ODTUG Kscope conference will take placed in San Antonio, Texas, US.

Time to share my 5 favorite sessions at this awesome and inspiring conference.

By now it should be common knowledge that I attend conferences not only for the technical sessions and the exhibition, but most importantly to meet and talk to others. As I recently pointed out, it is very inspiring to meet others and get to know them. With that in mind, I present my top 5 sessions (not in any particular order):

APEX Open Mic Night

Monday from 8:00-10:00 pm the APEX community meets (usually with some cold beverages served) in Cibolo Canyon 5 to see what everyone has done with APEX in the past year. If you want, just enter the stage and you get 5 mins to show us some app, or plugin, or whatever you created recently and makes you proud. Everything is welcome, except slides. Don’t bring slides, just hook up your notebook and show us something. These two hours will be packed with many interesting things and will help you through the year to have inspiration for your day-to-day job.

Lunch and Learn

On Tuesday from 12:15 to 1:45pm grab your boxed lunch and come to Cibolo Canyon 5 to have a room packed with ACEs and APEX Dev team members (and other experts) to answer your questions. Thats important: bring your questions, there won’t be any lecture.

I’ll be the moderator, which basically means I’m running back and forth bringing the Mic to you, while all the others are seated at the panel and will do their best to answer your questions.

Poker Night

This is very unofficial and not organized by ODTUG, but happens every year at some evening in the Hotel bar. I don’t get a chance to attend each year, but when I do I usually loose some money, but get a chance to meet many new faces from all technologies and all places on this earth. At which other occasion an ESSBASE guy might sit next to an APEX guy, next to some DWH specialist?

Thursday Deep Dive

Thursday (that’s Hangover day after the party on Wednesday night) from 9:00-11:00 there will be a series of lightning talks from a group of well-known speakers. Another great chance to get a bunch of ideas and lots of insight in a very short time.

Happy Hour in Exhibit Hall

The conference team does a great job in keeping all attendees happy. In this particular session (actually its two sessions: on Monday 5:45-6:45pm and Tuesday same time) they also try to keep vendors (like us at FOEX) happy and serve free drinks and food in the exhibition hall. A great chance to mix and mingle, try out some games, talk to vendors without getting too serious, and much more. Don’t miss it! If we haven’t met until then, come up to our Booth (#316) and say hi to me and the team.

There is so much more I could recommend, like changing streams. Get out of your comfort zone and catch some session of a different technology. Like APEX guys coming to the DB sessions, or to DWH sessions.

See y’all soon!