Putting the You In User Groups: UTOUG Training Days 2024

Putting the You In User Groups: UTOUG Training Days 2024

Gary Gordhamer, Managing Principal Consultant, Viscosity NA

Jim Czuprynski, Chief StoryTeller, Zero Defect Computing, Inc.

We both recently attended and spoke at the Utah Oracle User Group (UTOUG) Training Day event that took place in Salt Lake City Utah on March 21st and 22nd.  This was an outstanding event and the volunteers and conference committee of UTOUG did an outstanding job bringing together dozens of excellent presenters, many of them (like us) Oracle ACEs. 

Finding time to learn, meet our fellow IT specialists, or even have a few moments to plan what the future holds is almost impossible.  The benefits of attending a well-planned in-person event is one of the best ways to meet all these needs. 

In case you doubt that, here’s the list of most in-demand skills for 2024, according to LinkedIn. The top three “soft” skills are Communication, Customer Service, and Leadership.

Still not convinced? In 2023, LinkedIn listed the most in-demand “hard skills” -   things that are not common across most jobs – and the top three on the list were Software Development, SQL, and Finance. 

We both agree that UTOUG Training Days hit every one of these items - on both lists. Whether you might have been utterly new to IT, or a seasoned professional looking to learn new skills while strengthening others, this event compressed all of that into a short two-day event.  If you’re feeling a bit of “Fear of Missing Out” (FOMO), well, that’s our point. And if you’re a manager and you feel like your team missed out, well, that’s good too. – that’s your call to action.

A couple of unique items that UTOUG included in their event: bringing students from nearby regional colleges into the conference, funding scholarships for students, and finishing with a ski day on Saturday for those interested to keep the community atmosphere.  These are critical components to building the next generation of IT professionals and helping employers build their teams.   Again, managers: If you are struggling to find the right talent, maybe you need to invest one or two days into looking where the talent actually is as opposed to casting wide nets into the ocean of the internet.

Day One: Leaders Are Made … and They Are Magnetic

Our first day kicked off with an amazing keynote by Elena Marquetti-Ali about magnetic leadership.  A little tidbit from the session: 85% of managers have no leadership training! So that means everyone who attended Training Days now has more training than 85% of the leaders out there.  This speaks directly to two of the most in-demand skills.  Her “magnetic” 30 minute discussion was covered in a single slide.  Impactful and direct, for those of us armchair speakers, this was a sight to behold beyond the great content.  

Following the keynote was  25 deep technical sessions over five time slots that covered everything from SQL, Cloud, Machine Learning, and even team building.  Breakfast and lunch were included, and we had 15 minutes between each session to spend time meeting our fellow attendees and find out about their takeaways or key challenges.  Hmmm … problem-solving, communication, teamwork, and research … it seems we just hit a few more of those key skills the folks at LinkedIn already identified as crucial to success.

You may ask yourself, how good could these sessions be?  Well they were presented by 31 great people from three different continents.  How great?  Well at least 20 of them are recognized by Oracle corporation as Oracle ACEs for their knowledge and outreach in technical field.  Meanwhile all the topics and speakers were selected through a volunteers review process.  That means users help drive the content, and the content is created by the some of the best.  Have a topic that needs deep technical dive and more outreach or training?  Let the user group know!

Day Two: Humans 25, AI 1

Day Two started with breakfast and another gathering time for all the attendees to learn from each other, followed by another 25 deep technical sessions covering performance tuning, mentoring, operations, and even a great discussion about how even in the face of ever-more-powerful Artificial Intelligence, humans are still irreplaceable. 

In our combined opinion, this was a wonderful conference that hit all the requirements of learning, community, skill building and putting you the IT professional first. Thanks to all the leaders in the UTOUG, especially their conference committee members, for building an amazingly well-rounded event!  

And for those of you who really hoped to attend, but missed it for any number of reasons: Be sure to remember to watch out for this UTOUG event in 2025, don’t forget to look for other regional events nearby, and be sure to tell your local user group what you want to see.

Jim - Gary