Today’s entry is an interview with Cameron Lackpour, one of the newest ODTUG Board Members,passionate blogger, presenter, and also one of the newest Oracle ACEs. Cameron also won the Best New Speaker Award for presenting at Kaleidoscope 2009. Cameron’s expertise lies in the EPM technology stack. I’m sure you’ll enjoy this talk with Cameron. Cameron was also interviewed back in 2010 for this blog (see that post here).
Early Bird Registration deadline is March 25. Register now for the lowest possible cost for attending a conference that will inspire you (like it has inspired countless others, including Cameron).
On to the interview…
MR: What’s the best thing about Kscope conferences?
CL: “Wow, that’s a tough one because there are so many parts of the conference that I enjoy, so I’ll cheat and give you a three point answer.
The quality – Excellence breeds excellence. What do I mean by that? I was involved in helping sort through the abstracts for this year’s BI and EPM sessions. Many worthy abstracts were rejected, not because they weren’t good on their own, but because the quality of other abstracts was so high. That was undoubtedly frustrating to those who submitted and were rejected, and I hope they try again next year, but attendees will benefit from some truly outstanding sessions.
The passion – If you’re a primary presenter, your conference fee (not your lodging or transport) is waived. That’s a lot of money, and very welcome, but if you take that amount and divide it by the hours put into the presentation, it works out to U.S. minimum wage or less. That’s been my experience, and unless I’m atypically slow in presentation creation, I suspect it’s true for everyone. My point is, the presenters aren’t in it for the money or adulation (I am patiently waiting for the Cameron groupies but they have yet to materialize), but put in all a lot of hard work because they feel they have valuable information to share with the rest of the world; ODTUG Kscope is their platform.
The people – As you might guess from the passion part of this answer, the types of people you meet at Kscope are inspiring. I’ve never met so many people so willing to share their knowledge. It’s more than inspiring, it’s humbling. I try to act in the same spirit.”
MR: Who do you most look forward to seeing a presentation from at Kscope and why?
CL: “What, no easy questions? Okay, in general, I am against human cloning of humans because who knows, maybe I’m the clone in a The Island scenario, and then where would I be? Putting aside wild fantasy, I wish there were two or three or more of me, because then I could attend all of the BI & EPM sessions I want to see. There are the general favorites of course: Gary Crisci, Ron Moore, Steve Liebermensch, Tracy McMullen, Edward Roske, Glenn Schwartzberg, Tim Tow, andRudy Zucca. There are also some new (or maybe not so well known) presenters that have intriguing sessions: Joe Aultman, John Booth, Justin D’Onofiro, Tim German, Michael Heukels, Eldon Liu, Josie Manzano-Stettler, Kelli Stein, Jake Turrell, and Heather Wine. I think you see my point about too much great content and only one me.”
MR: Why Kscope and not somewhere else?
CL: “Finally, an easy one. Where else are you going to get the fantastic content married up to nice people who are wildly passionate about sharing knowledge? Nowhere else is where.”
MR: Have you ever been to Long Beach or visited the Queen Mary?
CL: “You can’t imagine my disappointment when I found out that the Queen Mary is not the ship sunk in Victoria Harbour (that would be RMS Queen Elizabeth and even that isn’t there anymore) and that consequently my name is probably not actually Bond, James Bond. No cleverly disguised secret headquarters of MI6? Sigh, I will just have to walk through corridors that aren’t crazilyaskew and party with my fellow geeks. We probably have a longer shelf life than the double O section anyway.
You can take from the above insane ramblings, that no, I’ve never been to Long Beach. But I look forward to it. 
”
MR: Your all time favorite Kscope moment is…
CL: “I’m not sure “favorite” is the right term, unless you can describe a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach during the first Hyperion Kaleidoscope conference in New Orleans as a favorite moment. I went into that conference thinking I knew what I was doing and left after the four days knowing I desperately needed to raise the technical level of my game. It’s been a race ever since and one I wouldn’t be in if it weren’t for Kscope.
Perhaps the realization of professional complacency isn’t a typical happy Kscope moment, but one I wouldn’t trade for anything else. That kind of reality check on what I was doing professionally was and is incredibly valuable. The Oracle EPM world is fast paced and changing all the time. I rely on Kscope to get me up to speed on the latest product developments, learn better ways to implement the products I know or want to know, and decide which products to focus on for the next few years. I can’t get that anywhere else.”
Thanks Cameron!
Cameron’s blog can be found here: http://camerons-blog-for-essbase-hackers.blogspot.com/
To meet Cameron, come to ODTUG Kscope in Long Beach, CA June 26-30 – Where the Cool Kids Are!
I welcome your thoughts and comments. Feel free to contact me at mriley@odtug.com at any time. If you have anything you’d like to share about your Kscope experience, you can post a comment to this blog, or send me an e-mail at the above address.
