2016 DBAKevlar Year in Review
How was 2016 for me?
It was a surprisingly busy year- blogging, speaking, working and doing.
I posted just under 100 posts to my blog this year. After I changed jobs, the “3 per week” quickly declined to “4 per month” after I was inundated with new challenges and the Delphix learning curve. That will change for 2017, along with some new initiatives that are in the works, so stay tuned.
For 2016, the most popular posts and pages for my website followed a similar trend from the last year. My emulator for RPI is still a popular item and I have almost as many questions on RPI as I do WIT- Raspberry Pi is everywhere and you’ll see a regained momentum from me with some smart home upgrades.
My readers for 2016 came from just about every country. There were only a few that weren’t represented, but the largest numbers were from the expected:
I also write from time to time on Linked in. Linked in has become the home for my Women in Technology posts and its lead me to receive around 30 messages a week from women looking for guidance, sharing their stories or just reaching out. I appreciate the support and the value its provided to those in the industry.
RMOUG Conference Director- No Escape!
The 2016 conference was a great success for RMOUG, but much of it was due to budget cuts and changes that were made as we went along and addressed trends. I’ve been collecting the data from evaluations and it really does show why companies are so interested in the value their data can provide them. I use what I gather each year to make intelligent decisions about where RMOUG should take the conference direction each year- what works, what doesn’t and when someone throws an idea out there, you can either decide to look into it or have the data to prove that you shouldn’t allocate resources to an endeavor.
A New Job
I wasn’t into the Oracle cloud like a lot of other folks. It just wasn’t that interesting to me and felt that Oracle, as much as they were putting into their cloud investment, deserved someone who was behind it. I’d come to Oracle to learn everything I could about Oracle and Enterprise Manager and an on-premise solution as it was, it wasn’t in the company focus. When Kyle and I spoke about an opportunity to step into a revamped version of his position at Delphix, a company that I knew a great deal about and admired, it was a no-brainer. I started with this great, little company in June and there are some invigorating initiatives that I look forward to becoming part of for 2017!
2 Awards
In February, I was awarded RMOUG’s Lifetime achievement award. I kind of thought this would mean I could ride off in the sunset as the conference director, but as my position ended at Oracle, which had been a significant fight to keep me managing the conference as an Oracle employee, (transitioning me to a non-voting member to keep within the by-laws) not many were surprised to see me take on a sixth year of managing the conference.
In April I was humbly awarded the Ken Jacobs award from IOUG. This is an award I’m very proud of, as Oracle employee’s are the only ones eligible and I was awarded it in just the two years I was employed at the red O.
3 Makers Events
I haven’t had much time for my Raspberry Pi projects the last number of months, but it doesn’t mean I don’t still love them. I gained some recognition as 2nd ranking in the world for RPI klout score back in July, which took me by surprise. I love adding a lot of IOT stories into my content and it had caught the attention of social media engines. Reading and content is one thing, but it was even more important to do- I had a blast being part of the impressive Colorado’s Maker Faire at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science earlier in 2016. I also was part of two smaller makers faires in Colorado, allowing me to discuss inexpensive opportunities for STEM education for schools using Raspberry Pis, Python coding and 4M kits.
Speaking Engagements
Even though I took a number of months off to focus on Delphix initiatives, I still spoke at 12 events and organized two, (Training Days and RMOUG’s QEW.)
February: RMOUG– Denver, CO, (Director and speaker)
March: HotSos– Dallas, CO, (Keynote)
April: IOUG Collaborate– Las Vegas, NV
May: GLOC– Cleveland, OH, NoCOUG– San Jose, CA
June: KSCOPE– Chicago, IL
July: RMOUG Quarterly Education Workshop– Denver, CO, (Organizer)
September: Oracle Open World/Oak Table World– San Francisco, CA
October: UNYOUG– Buffalo, NY, Rocky Mountain DataCon & Denver Testing Summit– Denver, CO
November: MOUS– Detroit, MI, (Keynote) ECO– Raleigh, NC
New Meetup Initiatives and Growth
I took over the Denver/Boulder Girl Geek Dinners meetup last April. The community had almost 650 members at the time and although it wasn’t as big as the Girls Develop It or Women Who Code, I was adamant about keeping it alive. Come the new year and thanks to some fantastic co-organizers assisting me, (along with community events in the technical arena) we’re now on our way to 1100 members for the Denver/Boulder area.
The Coming Year
I’m pretty much bursting with anticipation due to all that is on my plate for the coming year. I know the right hand side bar is a clear indication that I’ll be speaking more, meaning more travel and a lot of new content. With some awesome new opportunities from Delphix and the organizations I’m part of, I look forward to a great 2017!
