Sunday 20 May 2007

Does the average Oracle IT worker read Oracle blogs?

As I posted a few weeks ago, last week I had the privilege to present a 1 day hands on JDeveloper presentation to the Canberra Oracle User Group (ACTOUG). With just on 30 attendees I was very happy with the outcome, and I must thank the delegates and ACTOUG committee for efforts all round. Presenting just gets more and more fun everytime I do it, mostly because of the great enthusiasm and kind thanks I get from delegates at the end :)

One thing surprised me during the presentation though. I asked how many attendees regularly read Oracle blogs? The response, well, 1 or 2 of the attendees kind of put their hand up half heartedly. What the?

Now I know I'm preaching to the converted for anyone who reads this blog (because you obviously read blogs). But in the recent discussions about how (un)successful Oracle blogs have been in gaining respect and penetration in the IT market, this result shows me that there is another aspect to the whole discussion, in that the average Oracle IT worker isn't paying attention to the Oracle blogosphere. What a waste!

Does anybody have any opinion on such a premise that "the average Oracle IT worker doesn't read Oracle blogs?" .... and any ideas on how this could be turned around?

4 comments:

Paweł Barut said...

Based on statistics from my blog, 90% of traffic comes from search engines, almost all from google. Thats why it is so important to have good content on blog.
I think mostly bloggers read blogs regularly :). I would say that average IT worker do not read blog, unless it will appear in search results.
Paweł

Anonymous said...

I think a lot of people focus themselves on such short term targets such as project delivery that they don't actually make the time to "consult" the wider world.

Although short term goals are important I think it's important to spend a period of time each day communicating with the "wider" world so you can keep up with your peers and understand what's coming along next!

Obviously that's not always possible, but whenever it is I think people should make space for it.

Patrick Wolf said...

I think reading blogs it's the same as with reading new whitepapers/new release infos.

Not everybody is willing to learn/interested in something new.

a) He thinks he is already knowledgeable enough (expert).
b) Has enough knowledge to do is daily job and that's enough.
c) Had bad experience with mailing lists/forum -> no many rookies

Check back with your co-workers, how many are really reading blogs/whitepapers? Most do just there job...

That's bad, because I think there are a lot of good Oracle blogs out there and with the proper tool (RSS reader like Google Reader) gathering the information is so easy and comfortable.

Patrick

Manish said...

I am an intern at ORACLE India -Services Engg. group ,and have been following your blog for atleast the past 5 months ...(your tutorial on programmatic ADF tree component was excellent and great help).

To my utter despair,interns here are alloted projects and more or less left on their own .Their isn't really much of any kind of MENTORING as to how to go about Learning the new technologies and use them the way they are supposed to.

Probably that explains why supposedly an average ORACLE IT worker is not exposed to oracle blogs and does not use even the OTN much.

Never mind,Thanks for the excellent writeup's which made my life easier many times .Will keep visiting your blog.Keep writing :) :)

Manish