Oracle OpenWorld - My Tentative Hyperion Schedule

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I would be blogging throughout each day of Oracle OpenWorld 2008 (OOW, to her 40,000+ friends).  I've been looking at my schedule and it's, to put it mildly, ugly.  While there are those who knock OOW for being too much marketing with too little information, no one can ever say it's not busy.  For quick reference, here's the Oracle PDF mentioning all the EPM sessions and events they're aware of at OOW:

http://www.oracle.com/openworld/2008/focuson/enterprise-perfomance-managment-bi.pdf

For the most part, I can share my schedule with all of you.  There are a couple of private meetings (hey, what's a conference in San Francisco without a few private meetings?) but here's the bulk of my schedule (all times Pacific).  Yes, I know some of these events overlap, so I'll be darting back and forth in a few cases:

Sunday

• 10AM-4PM, Oracle ACE Director Product Briefing (Hilton Union Square, room 23/24).  This is where they share with all the Oracle ACE Directors the plans Oracle has for the upcoming year.  While I will blog what this event is like, I sadly can't comment on a lot of the actual information they'll be conveying here due to non-disclosure agreements.  I'll relay as much as I can without getting sued.  I have to leave the briefing early a little before 1PM to go to...
• 1-4:30PM, ODTUG Hyperion Symposium (Moscone West, room 3016).  There are actually 3 presentations on Hyperion during this period.  I'm delivering the first one from 1-2PM, "How Essbase Thinks."  It's going to be different than my usual "How Essbase Thinks" presentation because I'm going to do a lot of talking about the underpinnings of ASO (Aggregate Storage) in addition to the more traditional BSO (Block Storage).  Sean Bernhoit is giving a presentation from 2-3PM on how to pick which Hyperion reporting tool to use and then Mark Rittman is talking from 3:30-4:30PM about integrating OBIEE and Essbase.
• 2-4:15PM, OAUG Hyperion SIG (Moscone West, room 3022).  From 2-3:30PM, they're mostly going to be talking about the progress of integrating the regional HUG (Hyperion User Groups) into OAUG Hyperion SIG.  Since I'm the Essbase co-domain lead for their group, I'm feeling obligated to attend for at least part of the time.  I'm hoping that they're going to hold elections for board positions on the Hyperion SIG, but I'm not holding my breath.  At 3:30PM, Sean Bernhoit will be giving a presentation on best practices in EPM, and then the OAUG folks are coming down the hall to hang out with the ODTUG folks at...
• 4:30-5:30PM, John Kopcke on Oracle's EPM Vision (Moscone West, room 3016).  Kopcke, SVP of EPM for Oracle, will be talking on "Extending Operational Excellence to Management Excellence: Oracle’s Vision for EPM."  This presentation is being joint sponsored by ODTUG and OAUG which makes for a nice opportunity to get the two largest Hyperion user group communities together.  I'll probably say a few words first and then let Ed Delise (president of the OAUG Hyperion SIG) actually be the one to introduce Kopcke.
• 7:00-8:30PM, Oracle Titan Awards (Hilton Union Square, Grand Ballroom B).  Oracle will be giving away awards for "Partner of the Year" in 17 different categories.  We're nominated in a few of the categories (like Industry Solution and EPM Solution), but we have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.  These awards normally go to huge, multi-national conglomerates like Deloitte, IBM, and PWC with marketing departments larger than our entire company.  We'll show up on the off chance that Hell is having a really cold day, and as they say at the Oscars right after losing, "it's an honor just to be nominated."  Besides, there's free food and an open bar.
• 8:30-9:30PM, Welcome Reception (Howard Street Tent and Yerba Buena Gardens).  This actually starts a while earlier, but we'll be at the Titan Awards enjoying the previously mentioned free food and open bar until 8:30.  As soon as we can, however, we'll move over to the welcome reception for a totally different open bar and free food.

Monday

• 8:30-11AM, Charles Phillips Opening Keynote (Moscone North, Hall D).  According to the description, we'll be hearing about the following: "The power of Oracle's complete, open, and integrated product portfolio is bringing more value to enterprises than ever before. Oracle executives Charles Phillips and Chuck Rozwat provide fresh insight into Oracle's strategy and highlight the latest innovations in Oracle products in Monday's Oracle OpenWorld keynote."  I will use this time to catch up on my blogging from Sunday.
  
• 11:30AM-12:45PM, General Session: Applications (Moscone North, Hall D).  This is a chance to hear Ed Abbo talk about the future of Oracle applications.  I'm sitting through this one on the off-chance that they say something, anything, about the Hyperion applications.  I will most likely use this time for testing out the new Google Chrome browser.
• 1-2PM, Kopcke Presents Oracle's EPM System (Moscone West, room 2011).  John Kopcke will be giving an overview of Oracle EPM.  It's probably the same stuff I've seen hundreds of times before, but you never know.
• 2:30-3:45PM, General Session: Middleware (Moscone North, Hall D).  Thomas Kurian, Oracle's SVP of Fusion Middleware, will be giving an overview of the middleware product strategy.  Since technically, this is where Hyperion fits (Essbase, in particular), I'm hoping for some late-breaking Hyperion news.
• 5:30-8:30PM, Client Appreciation Party (Annabelle's @ 34 4th Str).  We're hosting a joint cocktail party with Star Analytics and Applied OLAP.  They're two partners of interRel and all three of us are hosting a joint reception for our current (and prospective clients).  If you're an interRel client (or you'd like to be!), send an e-mail to info(at)interrel.com and we'll send you an invitation to the party.  It'll be the most fun you've ever had and remained conscious (quote from the movie, Popeye, in case you're curious).  

Tuesday

• 11:30AM-12:30PM, BI Roadmap and Strategy (Moscone West, room 2022).  I'm hoping for the strategic direction on several of the OBIEE+ products.
• 12:30-1PM, Book Signing of "Look Smarter Than You Are with Essbase" (Moscone West, 2nd Floor Bookstore).  The kind people running the Oracle bookstore at OOW have decided to take pity on this poor, starving author by hosting a book signing for my two System 9 books.  Hopefully, there will be some people who want me to deface their brand-new copies of my books with my chicken-scratch scrawl I call a signature.  If not, I can surf the web on my new iPhone 3G while pretending I'm checking my calendar for the rest of the day.
• 1-2PM, What's New in Scorecard (Moscone West, room 3020).  Right now, Oracle makes 3 or 4 different scorecarding products.  I'm curious which one will be the strategic direction for Oracle going forward.
• 2-4:30PM, Thomas Kurian Keynote (Moscone North, Hall D).  This is the second major session in Hall D presented by Thomas Kurian.  Maybe this one will give us late breaking Fusion news if the one on Monday doesn't.  Maybe pigs will sprout wings and fly around Moscone North, Hall D.  You just never know.
• 5-6PM, Kopcke on Oracle OLAP vs. Essbase (Marriott, Salon 9).  Kopcke is going to tell all the people present when to use Oracle OLAP and when to use Essbase.  This should be fun.
• 6-8PM, OAUG Hyperion SIG Cocktail Reception (Grand Hyatt, Bay View Room).  This is a joint reception put on by OAUG Hyperion SIG, Oracle, and 8 Hyperion partners where there's sure to be free food and an open bar.  While it sounds like it might be interesting since it's the only official "Hyperion reception" at OOW, I will only be there for a few minutes, because I have to skedaddle over to...
• 6:30-8PM, Oracle Excellence Awards (Westin St. Francis, Oak Room).  While the Oracle Titan Awards are for partners, the Oracle Excellence Awards are for customers.  One of our biggest clients in the Northeastern United States is nominated, so we're showing up to cheer for them if they win.  If they don't, there's still free food and open bar (like every good event at OOW).

Wednesday

• 9-10AM, What's New in OBIEE Answers (Marriott, Golden Gate A2).  Answers looks like it might be the long-term replacement for Hyperion Web Analysis, so it's a good idea to find out the Answers roadmap.
• 1-2PM, Roske on Essbase Tuning: Optimizing Outlines (Moscone West, room 3024).  This is my presentation on how to optimize Essbase outlines.  Considering this is a fairly technical presentation and most of the OOW crowd is not that into technical presentations, I suspect that there will be plenty of available seating at this session.
• 2-4:30PM, Ellison Keynote (Moscone North, Hall D).  This is generally one of the more interesting sessions of the conference.  Larry's quite fun to listen to and he usually brings a few guests with him to keep things entertaining.
• 8PM-Midnight, Final Night Party (Treasure Island).  Supposedly, they're going to be recreating a world's fair on Treasure Island out in the middle of the bay.  There should be plenty of singing (UB40!), and - say it with me - free food and open bar.  I will have to get to bed early, though, because I have two presentations on Thursday.  Who schedules presentations on Thursday?  Masochists.

Thursday

• 11:30AM-12:30PM, What's New in Essbase (Marriott, Salon 12/13).  Al Marciante's heading up this one.  I expect that most of the information will have already been covered (and blogged here) during Kaleidoscope 2008, but you never know.
• 12-1PM, Roske and XTO on Smart View (Moscone West, room 3022).  I'm doing this presentation with XTO Energy and it should be much more suited to the OOW crowd than my last one.  It's about better ways to use Smart View and it includes some significant coverage of the new Smart View 11x features (of which there are many).
• 1:30-2:30PM, Roske on Tips & Tricks for Hyperion Planning (Moscone West, room 3024).  In this one, I'll be giving tips on better ways to use Hyperion Planning.  According to the schedule there are only 3 or 4 presentations on Hyperion at this time.  Why then are 2 of them about Hyperion Planning?  Bad planning, I say.
• 3-4PM, What's New in Web Analysis and Financial Reporting (Marriott, Salon 12/13).  This one should be interesting if for no other reason than because there are rumors floating around about the potential demise of Web Analysis and/or Financial Reporting.  Will they be telling us that's "What's New" is that XYZ product is about to leave this mortal coil?
• 4-whenever, Catch Up (hotel room).  I don't fly out until Friday morning, so if I fall behind during the week (which should only happen when my laptop battery dies or my brain battery runs low), this is my chance to catch up on my blogging and e-mail.  If I'm all caught up, I might get a couple of minutes of SanFran sight seeing in.  There's some big golden bridge around here somewhere, I'm sure.

If you're going to OOW and you're feeling really lazy, I guess you could join me at all the events above.  This saves you the trouble of having to come up with any original agenda of your own.  That said, there are probably lots of more interesting things than those above.  If you know of any, please feel free to comment on this post with your suggestions.  My schedule is at your command.