UKOUG Apps17 & Tech17

The Splash Business Intelligence Experience: My First, but My 24^th!

By Rishabh Miglani and Graham Spicer

As per recent years EiS and SplashBI sponsored the UK Oracle User Group Apps17 Conference in Birmingham.  We were also one of more than 50 exhibitors and we gave two presentations:

• Is Your Enterprise Reporting & Analytics Integrated – Oracle EBS, PSFT, JDE, Cloud HCM, SFDC?, and

• BI & Data Clarity in Today’s Complex, Disparate Enterprise.

Manning our stand this year were Hellen Eadie, Rishabh Miglani and Graham Spicer.  This blog is brief write up of the thoughts of Rishabh – it was his first UKOUG Conference and Exhibition – and Graham, who was attending his 24^th consecutive event.

Rishabh: Yo!

Graham: Hi,

Wassup guys? I’m writing this blog to share with you my amazing experience I had attending UKOUG17 this year, my first year!

Wassup? First year? My 24th!

Sunday

So, I excitedly traveled to Birmingham for the first time to be a part of one of the most heard of and historical events so far in the world of Oracle! Started off with an amazing view of the symphony hall! Just wow!

I rather boringly had to drive 178 miles to Birmingham again with an over-excited kid sitting in the car.  Symphony Hall – wow? Now, Taj-Mahal yes, Brighton Pavillion maybe.

Day 1 – Monday

I was exhibiting at UKOUG for the first time so was excited to meet all new big hotshot people from big Players of the industry.

Big hotshots? These are people I have known for 25 years or more, I can think of better descriptions

It’s a 3 Day event with an amazing client list and full of opportunities. Started with a slow move but we (me, first timer and 24th timer) were up for a presentation at 11 talking about enterprise reporting from disparate systems.

We got lot of people who wanted to actually talk about their problems with Oracle and a lot of things they wanted to do but were not currently given the flexibility to do so.

It feels great to have met one of our own clients sitting in disguise at the back and letting him know more about us at the same time.

Our presentation did a huge bubble burst for the attendees and when old-timer told them about how unknowingly you could be breaching Oracle’s User license agreements in the first place, that was a huge turning point for a lot of them and we actually had one attendee collaborate the theory because they had been through that horrific thing.

A good lively audience for our first presentation on Monday – Is Your Enterprise Reporting & Analytics Integrated – Oracle EBS, PSFT, JDE, Cloud HCM, SFDC?  Some great questions and it obviously provoked interest because everyone bar one came to our stand later to talk more.

Day 1 of exhibiting was encouraging with many Universities coming to talk to us and learn more about SplashBI and understanding the product and how we have revolutionized the data industry in our previous projects specifically for universities.

The exhibition traffic was a bit slow but the norm for a Monday at UKOUG.

 Being my very first conference I was excited to get things in place and ready to join the community drinks on the first night. Having to get to talk to clients over drink and help understand their aspirations of what they actually want to do.

First time for a long time that community drinks weren’t held in the exhibition hall – a few murmurings amongst exhibitors and sponsors but that was all to change at the end of Tuesday.

The first day ended with a silent note with us walking to our rooms early as well. Hoping for our activities for day 2 to go really energized and get on with our A Team on the stand doing all the hard work.

Early night after a lovely Thai meal – Tuesday morning always busy and I was presenting at 9 am.

Day2 – Tuesday

Real Energy! Real Work here we come!

Oh boy if only you knew!

Getting ready we were up for another of our masterpiece works about BI and data clarity!

Yes, we had a very good number of people talking about all the data but no one was satisfied with their data strategies. So, we decided to give them a perspective to get them out of the “Local Maximum” that 70% of Companies working on a BI strategy are stuck with and the majority of them didn’t seem to realize they are stuck at that point. A real-world mirror was put in front of them with our thoughts on data clarity and what you could do with your data, but of course many are still not able to do that.

Tuesday’s presentation – BI & Data Clarity in Today’s Complex, Disparate Enterprise.  Again, another good, patient audience – patient because we couldn’t get the AV to work for at least 10 minutes.  Not so interactive as Monday but some good questions and again quite a few came to visit on the stand later.

Back on our stand we had a huge demand after the presentations and, of course, our golf putting game was a huge success and fun at UKOUG17. A huge crowd wanted to get that £50.

As usual our “putt for cash” on the stand was really successful, attracting a lot of delegates to the stand, including a lot that we meet each and every year!   A lot of people asking where the loud Mexican was?

We had a party to attend at the end of day and we walked in the Exhibition hall at 6 30! Wow! Who could have guessed that UKOUG could be this cool! Just wow! They had turned the entire place into a huge gaming arcade and night club with live band, drinks, pinball, Pacman and not only that but there was a casino to have fun in.

For the first time that I know of the party evening was to be held in the exhibition hall, not sure what my initial thoughts were but it was a HUGE success and reminded me of the old days when we had the huge sponsored gala dinners and parties.

We also started our golf, making it so interesting that many fans started asking us that they wanted to play golf all night J.

As there was already so many extra-curricular activities going on we got the putter and some cash out for the punters.

Amazing night! I didn’t expect it to be the best thing I had to do in the entire conference. Made many friends and that was the best networking exercise ideas, UKOUG could have come up with.

Yes, we went back this time late to our beds.

Amazing, a word I heard a lot in the car on the way up and back – but I have to say it was the best UKOUG social in many a year!

Day 3 – Wednesday

Now we were sad that the conference was about to finish but excited to meet all of our new networked fans of SplashBI who we met last night in the cool party and at golf.

Last day, hooray! Not that I don’t enjoy it but the Wednesday morning tends to drag in the exhibition hall.

Started off with a good amount of public sector organizations coming to our stand, the amount of work we have done for organizations in the public sector was a testament of what we do back for the society as well.

However, to my AMAZEment, quite a lot of traffic in the hall and again we got the putter and cash out.  Also, as nearly always happens probably our best lead of the event came as we were about to start clearing up – never do understand those exhibitors that leave early?  How many goals get scored in the last 5 minutes of a football match?

We have had some great moments meeting new clients and organizations and the best thing is that we have been able to give them a better perspective to work on their data. With Data clarity comes more questions and responsibility to solve them.

Will any of the delegates remember what we were telling them?  I hope so.  It was a very enjoyable and fruitful 3 days which will hopefully lead to business over the coming months.

 Thank you to all of the staff at UKOUG and everyone involved in the Apps17, Tech17 and JDE17 organising committees for a great three days – now looking forward to Liverpool.  What an AMAZING drive from Brighton that will be next year! Still he will get to the see the shrine of football – Anfield!

And, I have to admit, the boy done good

Authors:
Rishabh Miglani
Graham Spicer
If you want to know more about SplashBI, take a look here: www.splashbi.com