Related Links

- Mark Rittman reviews my Collaborate ‘06 talk

http://tahiti.oracle.com - Oracle’s online documentation library

http://www.osborne.com - Osborne/McGraw-Hill home page

http://www.fsoug.org - First State Oracle Users Group

http://www.ioug.org - Independent Oracle Users Group

http://www.marrow.org - Register.

http://www.teamintraining.org - Two marathons and two half-marathons in the bag. Join in.

http://www.hti.umich.edu - The Humanities Text Initiative

http://www.lcsde.org - LCS Delaware.

A couple of older links now that Oracle Magazine has broken the links to its archives (for now):

http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/03-nov/o63editorschoice.html

Kevin Loney, last year's Consultant of the Year, continues to consult and write. "I consult at client sites, usually on performance evaluation and tuning initiatives," he says. "My next two book titles will be the Oracle Database 10g Complete Reference and Oracle Database 10g DBA Handbook." When asked what he's done this past year, he mentions his technical research projects along with some non-technical achievements: "I've enrolled in the National Marrow Donor Registry. And I've expanded my repertoire of five-ball juggling skills, proving that you can, in fact, teach an old dog new tricks."

The award article (Nov 2002 issue of Oracle Magazine):

Consultant of the Year
Kevin M. Loney

Now that technology is so intertwined with business, "the greatest challenge is how you can effectively transfer knowledge," says Kevin Loney ... "I don't think that we can any longer have DBAs you throw the work over to."

Loney's approach is to write technology books that are painstaking in their clarity. So far, he's written five books covering a range of Oracle topics. He also teaches. "I encourage people in the area of professional altruism, such as writing papers and books," he says. This is not surprising, given that Loney started his career—after getting an engineering degree—as a technical writer, before moving into Oracle consulting in 1987.

Loney focuses on Oracle technology because of its flexibility. "You can make the same SQL statement four or five ways and find the one that works best for your situation," he says. In many ways, he adds, the technology has gotten easier because "the tools are more intelligent than in 1987."

But consulting isn't just about technology; it's about being able to effectively communicate it, and that requires a people-oriented mindset. "I like having the ability to help a lot of different people," says Loney, who's also active with his family and congregation. He recalls September 11, 2001 when from his Wilmington, Delaware office he saw on TV a hijacked plane plowing into the offices of one of his recent clients. "I realized that they had personnel loss and that their computer systems were damaged," he recalls. "I was able to pull in consultants from Chicago ... and help bring their system back up. It was nice to be one of the good guys."

Oracle Magazine is pleased to name this effective communicator and technologist Consultant of the Year.

kevinloney.com

Put the pieces together.