On OpenWorld and Adoption Cycles

By Jake • September 21st, 2010 • 5 Comments

I always have trouble keeping up with blogging and reading during OpenWorld, and this year is no different.

Aside from our yearly session, my main goals at the conference are to reconnect with people I see infrequently and meet new people. Again, this year has been no different.

So far, I’ve had the pleasure to meet Chet (@oraclenerd) and Dennis Howlett (@dahowlett), as well as a slew of IOUG people and many others whose Twitter handles and blogs I don’t know offhand.

Yesterday, I also got to meet Harald Behnke, whose Cloud Office session was awesome; they’re doing some very cool stuff, and we’re excited to collaborate with them. Check out the video:

I also enjoy watching the adoption of consumer web darlings evolve from year to year. For example, in 2007, a few of us were using Twitter to communicate and broadcast content during the show, but now, it’s a mainstream tool, just check the #oow10 hashtag if you don’t believe me.

Even with all the tweets, #oow10 still can’t crack Twitter’s trending topics list. Big surprise there.

A couple years ago, I noted the lack of Macs at OpenWorld; not so anymore, as Macs probably account for every 3rd or 4th laptop, based on my scientific study. Also, more people than I expected are rocking iPads, and they’re not developers. The iPad seems to be a viable replacement for a laptop, a fact echoed by Best Buy last week.

Last year, Rich (@rmanalan), Paul (@ppedrazzi) and I were among the few using foursquare. Playing foursquare at conferences shows a lot of value to people who otherwise would want nothing to do with it.

This year, there are a lot more people playing. In fact, checking into the Oracle OpenWorld 2010 venue will probably earn you the Swarm badge.

My conclusion? Adoption times are getting shorter every year. This is great news for teams like ours because it doesn’t take as long for the ah-ha moment.

One thing is bugging me though. I don’t have an early adopter toy to test for next year.

Anyway, food for thought.


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  • John Sim

    Awesome! Love the design – Have to say great work on this web app! :)

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    Oh, the video isn’t our work, it’s Harald’s Cloud Office team. Are you at OOW? If so, you can cruise by our session to see our stuff. Hope you can make it, Marriott, Golden Gate C2 in 34 minutes. Be there.

  • John Sim

    I wish; just have too much going on here :( .. Next year will be my year at OOW.
    A few others are going and there’s a small presentation – should cover some of the stuff we are working on here – Balfour Beatty Tues 12:30 content management – spaces collaboration.

    Harald’s Cloud Office team have done a great job; do you know if its developed with ADF or integrated with UCM.. Or am I dreaming; this would be awesome..

    So next job.. Internal integration for you and your team to Spaces and UCM if it`s not :D

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    Bummer. Hope to meet you next year. Keep your eyes on Harald’s blog for the answers to your questions. I know them, but I’m not telling :)