Jumping into the Unconference

By Jake • September 3rd, 2008 • View Comments

The Unconference at OpenWorld continues to fill up; Tuesdays advance slot are all full, and Wednesday is quickly filling up too.

I noticed Raimonds added a session last week called “Using Ruby on Rails with legacy Oracle databases” on Thursday at 10 AM. If you’re still at the conference on Thursday, I highly recommend checking out his session.

Assuming the content is similar to what he showed Rich and me at RailsConf back in May, you’re going to want to see it. He’s got some great examples of Rails web apps running on Oracle apps. Very cool stuff.

Bex also reminded me of his “Communication for Geeks” session on Wednesday at 11 AM. He gave this session earlier in the year at Minnebar (i.e. BarCamp Minnesota), and I’m curious about the content.

Dan teased another possible unconference session via Twitter on how to give good presentations. I’d attend that; the guy’s all over OpenWorld this year so his game better be polished. I don’t see an advanced signup, so maybe it’ll be a day of thing.

So, I’ve decided to jump into the unconference mix. Hey, all the cool kids are doing it. I thought about rebroadcasting my content from our session on Monday, Norris-style, but as I mentioned before, I want to bring some humor to the party.

I’m not fully settled on a topic or a title, but for now, I’m going with “Are you insulting me? Essential geek-speak, FTW!”. I’m hoping Matt will copresent. Anyone else want to get a piece of this action?

My slot is Wednesday, 4 PM in Overlook II. Not that there are lots of choices, but I like the late afternoon slot because it should transition nicely into any evening activities. Plus, after a day of serious learning and information gathering, everyone should be ready for a dose of humor.

Once I get some slides ready, I’ll be blogging those to get thoughts and feedback in advance. Crowdsourcing, FTW!

Thoughts? Suggestions? Complaints? Sound off in the comments.


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  • Maybe we should try and crowd source this with a follow up blog entry and ask the world what geekspeak they're confused about so we're sure we answer all the burning questions. I'm sure many of us assume people know what we're talking about and we'd never think about covering it.

    (This is actually a ploy to create less work for the presentation)
  • I plan to crowdsource the content, and some questions in advance. I think we'll get more geeks in the room than people who have questions, but that's a risk in the Unconference.

    Blogging the session post-mortem is a good idea too, as a reference point.
  • WTF! GTFO, I completely forgot about your email. I'll have to confirm or deny next week, I'm still working on writing my 2 presentations that I already have and I'm working on an app I want to finish in time for the big dance. I'll be there one way or another, just don't know what I can do to help with content ATM.
  • No worries, I assume you'll be there to heckle anyway, so why not formalize the role.
  • Jake,

    I can insult people with British slang and they don't realize the extent of the insult at all, although the popularity of BBC America is making it more tricky to get away with.
  • I pretty much assume any British slang I don't understand is an insult.
  • probably a good default assumption :)
  • I started a thread on the wiki page - http://wiki.oracle.com/thread/1825559/IMHO%2C+T...

    Will check out Chris' link. It looks like several of us have been inspired to present this year. (Or is it "un-present"?)
  • It'll be fun, like an unofficial meeting place for those of us who congregate online. I'll probably share my slides when I get them ready.
  • Glad to help, but I won't be able to make it due to our presentation at 2:30 on Monday. We'll bump into each other at the Unconference though.
  • I knew you loved Matt more. ...bet he didn't feed the homeless with you. :)

    Seriously, I'm excited about your unconference session and plan to make it there. In the meantime, I'll look up "FTW" so I feel at least a little prepared. I'm still hopeful that I can pull together a session on tips for a good presentation, but that's after I finish writing the sessions I'm already obligated to give!

    See you guys there...possibly at the Blogger Meetup if not sooner.
  • I love you all equally, but this year's iteration is looking a bit like NorrisWorld. So, I thought I'd spread the wealth a bit.
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