Collaborate 08 Hyperion Track - Sunday

I just got back from the Oracle ACE dinner at Panzano. It's a Northern Italian restaurant, and the vegetarian food was remarkably non-tasty. They had a fixed menu which offered a choice between steak and salmon. I asked for the vegetarian option, and the server brought me spaghetti with red sauce. It wasn't as good as Chef Boyardee. I did have a nice time mingling with the other Oracle ACE attendees at COLLABORATE.

Before I forget (since I forget it earlier), between the OAUG Hyperion SIG reception and the Oracle ACE dinner was an "OAUG Welcome Reception." I heard from someone that it was the fun highlight of the week. To put it politely, if this is the highpoint of the week, then this week is doomed.

Maybe my expectations were too high because I was comparing it to the Solutions opening night receptions? At Solutions, there was always copious food, live music, and an overabundance of alcohol. At this event, the food consisted of cheese, crackers, and grapes. Alcohol was limited to wine that Michael Manes told me costs $2 a bottle retail. The music was not live and barely audible which is actually a blessing in disguise since they were playing, I kid you not, elevator music. A fun time was not had by all.

I have just adjusted my expectations for the remainder of the week very much downward. They're subterranean at the moment.

Now, I'm now sitting here in my hotel room at the Hyatt Regency looking over my presentations for tomorrow. There's a Hyperion presentation at 8AM that I'm hoping to attend on the revised Hyperion roadmap. Assuming I finish reviewing my presentations in the next couple of hours, I should be in bed by 1AM.

Just as I was about to post this entry, I got a call from the irreplaceable Tracy McMullen, interRel Director of Special Projects. Tracy is supposed to deliver 9 presentations this week. Her call was to let me know that due to a delay on American Airlines, she was stranded in Dallas until Monday morning. Right now, she's supposed to land at 7:30AM on Monday. Her first presentation is not until 10AM on Monday, so I'm not going to panic. Yet. I'm not going to panic yet.

Now I'll never get to sleep.

The reception (with cheap liquor, I might add, even though I don't drink alcohol) was interesting. It started off about evenly split between partners and clients. By the end, I counted 4 remaining clients and over 30 partners. That's just crazy.

They held a raffle for attendees during the reception. The five consulting companies that sponsored the reception each bought a $50 gift card. I also donated a signed copy of each of my 3 books.

They decided to draw for one of my books first. The first winner was... Danielle White of interRel. She opted for a gift card instead. Some clients won copies of my book and they seemed generally appreciative. Gary from Vanguard in Pennsylvania actually won a $50 gift card and asked if he could please exchange it for one my $29.95 copies of Look Smarter Than You Are with Essbase: An End User's Guide. I think I'm blushing. Due to the huge quantity of interRel employees at the reception, interRel people one 3 of the 5 gift cards, but after the second of our employee's won, we decided to throw out any further interRel winners.

I'm going to run back to my room and change before heading over to a dinner for all the Oracle ACEs.

There's kind of a fun Q&A going on right now between the OAUG Hyperion SIG board members and the audience. Allow me to paraphrase as best I can.

How many members are there in the Hyperion SIG?
203.

How many would you like to have?
500-1000. The problem is that [the Hyperion SIG] can't directly ask people to join the SIG per the OAUG rules.

That seems like a strange rule. You also mentioned that OAUG limits how many can be on a webcast to 25. What actual advantages are there to the Hyperion SIG being a part of OAUG?
They're actually getting the software upgraded to handle more people and they let us post them on-line in the meantime so people can download them. Those are two advantages right there. [Editor's Note: I cry foul with that answer, because those aren't advantages to OAUG, but rather how they're going to solve some of their shortcomings.]

Are the Hyperion User Groups going way and if so, why isn't Hyperion SIG being touted as the replacement for them?
[Editor's Note: I can't do justice to the debate that occurred around this question. Suffice to say that no one has a good answer from OAUG Hyperion SIG and the entire room is confused about what the future state is.]

When will elections be held since the current board seems to have not been elected?
The bi-laws aren't finalized yet, but should be by Spring of 2009. We'll have elections for some of our 5 board members in 2009 at OpenWorld, but we'll need to stagger them. [Editor's Note: the current board and domain leads are very much dominated by partners. I see a credibility issue arising if they don't get a better balance of clients and partners on the board. I'm not sure this can wait until 2009.]

The meeting is now breaking up as the attendees wander clear across the convention center to a reception sponsored by 5 partners (most of whom don't even have booths at COLLABORATE 08, but I digress).

I just finished explaining how to find all the Hyperion presentations at the conference. There are 98, but since they're spread across so many different schedules, it's impossible to find a complete list. Kristin Newman introduced me by plugging all 3 of my books, which was very nice. After reviewing the layout of the convention and walking everyone through all 98 presentations in less than 15 minutes, I concluded with a slide about my 10 presentations. If you want copies of any of the 10 presentations, send an e-mail to info@interrel.com. Here's the complete list:

April 14

• 9:15 AM, Korbel 1A, How Essbase Thinks
• 1:00 PM, Korbel 1A, Hyperion Planning and Essbase at Pearson
• 2:15 PM, 113, Financial Reporting for Mere Mortals

April 15

• 11:00 AM, Korbel 1A, Essbase for Non-Financial Applications Advertising and Marketing Analysis
• 3:30 PM, Korbel 1A, Real World Optimization: Hyperion Essbase
• 4:45 PM, Korbel 1A, The Power of 64-bit Essbase

April 16

• 9:45 AM, Korbel 1A, Hyperion Calc Scripts for Mere Mortals
• 11:00 AM, 103, Ask an Essbase Guru
• 11:00 AM, 113, Tips, Tricks and Best Practices for Planning

April 17

• 11:00 AM, 201, Best Practices in Budgeting and Forecasting

There's an obvious conflict at 11AM on April 16 since I'm giving a Hyperion Planning tips and tricks presentation while simultaneously chairing an "Ask a Guru" panel. Something's got to change about that.

I'm now listening to Ray Payne who's the guy from OAUG that tries to convince people/groups to join OAUG. From the way he's talking, it seems that it's a foregone conclusion that the regional HUGs (Hyperion User Groups) are disbanding. That's probably a subject for a blog entry in and of itself.

Ray's main point about joining OAUG is that OAUG is big and bigger means "carries more weight with Oracle." He also mentioned something about a big knowledge base that OAUG is starting called the "OAUG Knowledge Factory." I was going to ask about the cost for a company to join OAUG, but Ray just concluded his presentation by not taking any questions. That's too bad because I heard that far from free (like the regional HUGs), it actually costs $395 to join OAUG and that's per year.

The guy next to me just saw me typing "$395/year" and corrected me. He says it's $595 per year (thanks, Guy Watching Over My Shoulder). Almost $600 per year for advocacy? There must be more advantages than he listed for all that money. Did I mention that the regional HUGs don't normally charge any dues whatsoever?