OMG, an afternoon at the Oscars or a Florida user's group

October 29, 9:28 AMMiami Technology Careers ExaminerFrancine Adams

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Don Nestor, Informatica

I arrived at what could have been an afternoon at the Oscars and a Florida Informatica Users Group (IUG) Meeting broke out.  If I were rating the most fun and entertaining users’ group meeting I've attended this year, Florida IUG would have walked away with the following awards:

Best Location: The Bank Atlantic Center, on the Lexus Suite Level, overlooking the scenic Sawgrass Mills Center in Sunrise, Florida

Best Actor: Don Nestor, Informatica Solutions Architect, whose dry humor filled the room with hoopla and guffaws. He warmed the crowd with an integration developer's joke on how some can "code, load and explode" the system. When Don finished speaking I peeled myself off the floor, returned to my seat, smoothed out my slacks and recovered my lady like composure, Ahem.

Best Supporting Actor and Actress: Sherry Farace and Rene Medina,
co-chairs of the Informatica Florida User Group played the ultimate straight woman and man with their smooth professional coordination and facilitation of the meeting.

Rene Medina and Sherry Farace

Most Prolific Presenters: Hossein Fallahzadeh and Alessandra Rubeiro did a marvelous job of speaking very fast on a complex case study. Wow, they literally covered every minute detail in the slides and, cross my heart, did not stutter on a single word.

Best Buffet: MmmMmmm, I could hardly wolf down the grilled eggplant, pasta salad, wild rice, spring mix with italian dressing, rolls and butter, followed by awesome key lime pie, fruit salad and chocolate brownies. Man, what a fringe benefit.

Some 60 plus professionals, positioned at green covered tables, were attended by wait staff for the Bank Atlantic Center. With glasses clinking, surrounded by the friendliest camaraderie, my hand went up to order a cocktail until I remembered where I was.  Michael Jay Freer, Director for Tyco Safety Products, was deeply engrossed in the presentation at a table next to mine. I stealthily secured his attention. Michael says he attends these meetings to connect with former colleagues. Sure enough seated next to Michael was Brendan Cobb, Informatica Administrator, whom he worked with on a prior contract. By the meeting’s end I found a pretty healthy gathering of colleagues , all of whom had worked together on previous projects and took a ceremonial photo. This turned into a rousing mini reunion of ha has, hellos and handshakes.

  Durga Prasad Janapati, Prasad Gotluru, Abel Herrera, Michael Jay Freer, Rene Medina, Prabakar Ramalingam

The only requirement to attend the Florida IUG meetings is advance registration on Informatica's website. Informatica World 2009  will be hosted in June in Las Vegas, Nevada at a surprisingly reasonable cost.