Alliance Conference 2012

This year the annual Peoplesoft/Oracle systems conference was once again held at the Gaylord hotel in Nashville, Tennessee.

It was the location of my first conference when I was working HR systems at Boise State University in 2005. This year of course I'm with the Sonoma group; Amanda, Jaime, Teresa and I went representing student and Meryl and Xiaodong went representing HR. The flights were crazy and our original flight out was cancelled; which made for an insane day Friday in the office. We scrambled to get alternate flights- but all worked out! The first day there was Sunday, and the io Consulting fun run. It's only a 5K, but it's something I look forward to every year. Amanda, Jaime and I did it this year. On the jog, I snapped this picture of the sun rising.

Then Jaime headed to a pre-conference workshop and Amanda and I headed to a plantation winery. It was amazing, the staff at the plantation dressed in clothes from the period and gave us a tour of the plantation. Almost all of the wines we tasted were very sweet and I really liked them! I really wanted to order some and bring them back home. Instead I shared the blackberry wine and another which I cannot recollect with my co-workers the last night we were there. Amanda and I snapped this picture while walking the grounds.

The conference itself went by way to quickly, but I made sure to take time to get pictures of the three major atriums inside the hotel. They are massive gardens which really cannot be captured in pictures, but I sure did try. You can see all my pictures of the trip on my photobucket.

For several years one of the premier events of the conference is the io consulting party. This year the party was held at the Grand Ole Opry- on the stage! It was a very nice event and we even had a special southern drink in our own custom io glasses. We all had a very nice time with all of the io customers and especially our Sonoma crew!

We also got a tour of backstage, behind the Grand Ole Opry. There were so many rooms, I was shocked! Here's one example, there must have been 25 more!