Planboard
Today's image is a plan board. This is of course to promote the Planboard DBA symposium. A relatively small-scale, Dutch event by "planboard". The small scale of the event makes for excellent knowledge transfer (I expect many questions that I cannot answer...) and good networking.
Kuddos to Planboard for this initiative, and my gratitude to those who have convinced their budget-holders that these events are Valuable. Believe me, they are! And they are cheaper then training too.
It is something the UKOUG has noted as well. Small and targeted events, Special Interest Groups if you like, often are the most valuable meeting.
I'd be tempted to report on a discussion I had with two DBA's over lunch at the Scottisch DBMS SIG. They might just have solved a nagging listener-connection problem from a good discussion with Joel Goodman and a few others.
And that is the kind of value you get from SIGs and Symposia.
1 comment:
Many UKOUG meetings are getting low attendance at the moment, some events are being cancelled or postponed and it is something those of us involved in organising events have been talking about. The Big events, like the UNIX and DBMS SIGs appear unaffected as they are usually over-subscribed and now it is more that everyone who wants to get gets to do so.
Asking around, it is the same story – travel budgets have been slashed, chargeable time has to take absolute precedence and the more amorphous “everyone must be seen to be working hard”. Those of us who have been through hard times before know that being made to look busy when you are not is pretty demoralising.
I see things like the SIG meetings as free training and opportunities to exchange knowledge and keep up/make new contacts. I think that in tough times, free training and expanded contacts are things you cannot afford to miss out on, rather than cannot afford to go to!
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