Community and the “Hive Mind”

A really great thing about being part of the Oracle community is the networking and access to information it gives you. In my current job I have to do a number of things that are not really my forte. I know how to learn new stuff, but it’s always nice to get some feedback from people who know more than you. Over the last few years there have been a number of specific cases that spring to mind.

  • When I started getting involved in WebLogic administration I reached out to Simon Haslam, Jacco Landlust, Chris Muir and Marcus Eisele for some advice. I had RTFMed and I kind-of knew what I was doing, but I just wanted someone with more experience to validate my approach. Their feedback was, and still is, really valuable.
  • On the Nordic Tour a couple of years ago I spent some time speaking to Lonneke Dikmans about SOA. Our company were starting down the path of SOA and although I was not directly involved in the project, I wanted to know more about the issues we might encounter. Lonnikke was the perfect person for me to speak to.
  • As I started to take on more MySQL work, including some upgrades from early releases of 4.x to 5.6, I reached out to Ronald Bradford and Sheeri Cabral for advice. In some cases they confirmed what I already knew. In other cases they completely altered what I had planned.
  • Our company have recently signed a deal to move to Oracle Cloud Apps. I know almost nothing about them, but fortunately the ball-and-chain does. I’m not directly involved in our Oracle Cloud Apps migration project, but as I said before I like to know what problems may come my way during the process, and Debra is a great source of information.
  • Even when I’m dealing with database stuff, which I think I’m pretty good at, it’s always nice to have access to other opinions. The number of people I’ve had help from in the database world is to long to list. Just a few days ago I reached out to Richard Harrison about a problem I was having and in one email exchange he solved it for me. That probably saved me hours of messing about.

This is not about expecting help. This is not about trying to offload my responsibilities onto others. It’s mostly about getting a second opinion and the odd bit of advice. More importantly, the other people in the community need to know that you’ve got their back too. This has to be a two-way street!

Access to the community “Hive Mind” is a wonderful thing and will make your life so much easier! Get involved!

Cheers

Tim…