One thing I really enjoy about the SQL Server community is its vibrancy. I’ll give you details on the SQL Server community’s explosive growth in a moment, but let’s start by comparing Microsoft SQL Server’s user community with those of other significant database platforms. [READ MORE]
My session is entitled Leadership and Team Management Skills for the Database Professional. If you’ve ever attended my 1-hr professional development session at the PASS Summit, which has scored highest in the professional development track, then you’ve seen a preview of what we’ll be covering over the course of the full day.
During the session I will discuss how most IT leaders earned their promotions based on technical competency, not on leadership or managerial skills. Technical leaders rarely advance into leadership positions with the complex mix of social and soft skills that best facilitate their success and the success of their teams. Successful IT leaders require a combination of:
Earning the respect of your team
A deep understand of effectively motivating technology professionals
Specific skills to lead database professionals competently that broadly fall into the categories of:
Coaching team members to effectively meet goals and deadlines
Facilitating change and navigating organizational disruptions
Promoting communication within the team and with management
Keeping teams and projects on task and within scope
Dealing with difficult team members
Practicing good team time management techniques
I have three main goals for the session.
1.Developing skills which promote an understanding of your own personal motivations and what motivates the IT professionals on your team.
2. Developing skills which enable you and your team to meet goals set by management.
3. Developing the specific skills needed to lead a team of technologists.
As a way of recognizing and thanking it’s contributors, SQLServerPedia is holding annual awards for the best blog posts syndicated on the site from November 2009 – October 2010.
Editors Iain Kick (blog | twitter), Jeremiah Peschka (blog | twitter), and myself have scoured SQLServerPedia.com to find the most informative and useful posts across a wide range of categories that were posted over the last year.
Voting opens today (November 1st) and closes November 8th. Winners will be announced by e-mail, on the site and at the Quest hosted cocktail party at The Tap House Grill, Tuesday, Nov. 9, at 8 p.m. PT. If you are attending PASS, please come along and enjoy a drink. It will be a great opportunity for me to meet you in person. Winners will receive a badge to place on their blog site and a statue award for your desk/car/top of your house!
Cheers!
-Kev
I won it myself!
P.S. Current or former Quest and ISV employees are exempt from the contest.
An expert roundtable discussion hosted by SQL Server Expert Kevin Kline and featuring speakers from Microsoft, EMC, Avanade, HP and Quest Software.
With the release of SQL Server 2005 and its focus on Business Intelligence, SQL Server professionals are faced with unprecedented amounts of data to manage. How are you dealing with the flood of data?
At the PASS Community Summit 2006, experts from Quest Software joined forces with a variety of other SQL Server industry experts for a panel discussion around the implications of managing large volumes of business critical data on SQL Server and recommendations for ensuring availability and performance in your environment.
Some areas explored:
- Storage strategies
- Issues around moving to Storage Area Networks (SAN)
- Performance on SAN
- BI growth and multi-terabyte data stores
- Server scale out and consolidation
- Real world implementation and management challenges
Video chat with Brent Ozar and SQL Server MVPs Kevin Kline, Hilary Cotter and Geoff Hiten to talk about how SQL Server 2008 addresses DBA challenges and pain points. In this webcast, we cover features like Transparent Data Encryption, spatial data, and other new things that really differentiate SQL Server 2008 from 2005.
Good grief, there’s a lot of travel in my immediate future. <sigh … deep breath> It’ll be exhausting and it’ll be hard to lose so much time with the family. But if I’m able to avoid travel mishaps, it’ll be fun.
The Gateway to the West
Meet Me In St. Louis
I’ll be speaking in St. Louis, MO on Tuesday, September 14th for their mid-day meeting. The details, as I have them, are:
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 1-4pm
Location: Microsoft St. Louis Office, Three City Place Drive, Suite 1100, St. Louis, MO 63141 http://www.microsoft.com/about/companyinformation/usaoffices/northcentral/stlouis.mspx
Parking is in the garage behind / next to the building. There is an entrance to the building from the 2nd floor in the garage. Additional details and instructions on how to log in
Speaker: Kevin Kline, Quest Software
Topic: SQL Server Internals and Architecture
Speaker: Kevin Kline, Quest Software
Topic: SQL Statement Tuning with Query Optimizer Strategies
I’ll be giving away free t-shirts, posters, an eBook or three, and backrubs (super-models, only).
SQL Bits, On the Cheap
SQL Bits in the City of York Minster Cathedral
I’ve tweeted previously about the SQL Bits conference in York on September 30th – October 2nd, but this is my first blog post about it. Now is the time to settle your plans to attend. And while you’re settling those plans, take advantage of Quest Software’s 20% discount on the Thursday and Friday sessions requiring payment. Just be sure to use the code QST20 when you register.
The Saturday is free for everyone. Note – I said FREE. So if you’re struggling to convince your boss of the value of the time off and cost required to attend these events, then at least plan to attend Saturday. But as you can see here, the prices are quite low compared to most other conferences of similar quality.
I firmly believe the standard for speakers and content at SQLBits is second to none in the UK. I’ll be a wallflower in comparison to other friends of mine also speaking at the event, such as Brent Ozar, a MCM SQL Server and former colleague now working with SQLSkills, Buck Woody, the well-known “Real World DBA” and senior technical specialist from Microsoft, as well as many other SQL Server MVPs, authors, and speakers, such as the event organizer, Simon Sabin, and Quest Software SQL Server expert and editor-in-chief of SQLServerPedia, Iain Kick. Some sessions I’m looking forward to include:
Monitoring and Tuning Parallel Query Execution – Part II – R Meyyappan
Where the bl**dy h*** are you? (Spatial Data Visualisation) - Rob Farley (all the way from Adelaide, Australia)
Introduction to Performance Analysis and Tuning – Simon Sabin
Oracle for SQL Server DBAs – Gavin Payne
Lies, Damned Lies And Statistics. Making The Most Out of SQL Server Statistics – Maciej Pilecki
Extreme scaling with SQL Azure – Martin Schmidt
Automating SSIS – Andre Kamman
Attendance will definitely enhance your skills and ability to do your job. The added bonus is that York is a lovely place to visit with a beautiful and storied cathedral, so I highly recommend the event for all SQL Server professionals.
Prior to SQLBits, I’ll be presenting in London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Stockholm. I hope you can attend an event closer to you if you cannot make it to York!
And Just to Make Sure I’m Thoroughly Frozen…
I prefer to think that the city will look like this with nary a flake of snow in sight
While I usually have a policy against visiting places cold enough to die between the front door and the mailbox, I’ll be stopping in at SQL Saturday 58 in Minnesota for a SQL Saturday taking place on Friday (not a typo), October 29th, the day after my birthday. I’ll be 21 years old and, since I’m now of legal drinking age, you should by me a drink. The event organizer, as well as my friend and fellow MVP, Jason Strate, just has to be different by holding the event on a Friday, eh? Track the event on twitter using the hash tag #sqlsat58.
Toad for SQL Server Wins Best of TechEd 2010 in the Database Development Category
Toad and I go way back. I first started with Toad as a user on the Oracle DBMS back in the early 1990′s. When I started at Quest Software back on January 2nd of 2002, one of the first products I tackled as a SQL Server product architect was Toad. How do we make this very popular Oracle product one that users in the SQL Server world will love too? And this challenge was made that much harder by the fact that Microsoft SQL Server ships with fantastic tools right there in the box. I haven’t worked directly on Toad for many years now, but the tool marches on with new features and capabilities that push the envelop with each new release.
L to R: Jason Hall, Qsft head of SC's; David Gugick, director of Architecture; and me
Want to try Toad for SQL Server for free?
The 5.0 version of Toad for SQL Server that we showed at TechEd is the latest beta, available at ToadWorld.com (build 387 at the time of this writing). It can coexist with Toad for SQL Server version 4.6, if you’re already using it. The beta is quite stable and has a bevy of new features, including:
SQL Azure support for most modules including data compare and schema compare, including comparing regular SQL Servers to SQL Azure and back, also with Firewall management (under Server Security properties panel).
Much improved code completion that’s faster and allows for column selection, multi-table selection, with tooltips for parameters. Don’t forget, all of these features work on SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008, and 2008 R2.
Updated Schema Compare with better exposed snapshots.
Group Execute enhancements that include database-level selection so you can execute across databases, an option to only show selected servers/databases, option to merge results (or not), improved merging, etc.
New Idle Connection Timeout – to close connections after a period of inactivity.
Result Set Pinning.
Improved Trace support with features like Import Trace File to Table and Open in Profiler capabilities.
New Debug Trace – traces all activity occurring inside of Toad, including storing all variable info in a replayable file.
Twitter Integration (under the View – Collaboration panel) with Yammer integration coming in a future beta release.
You can also see a lot more details about the tool here. And my long-standing offer still stands. If you want to try Toad for SQL Server or its brethren (such as Toad for Data Analysts, Toad Data Modeler, or Benchmark Factory), drop me an email and I’ll get a long-term license key straight over to you.
But wait, there’s more!
There are so many great resources for you to tap into. And best of all, they’re all free! Check these out:
In this white paper, renowned Oracle PL/SQL expert and fellow O’Reilly author Steven Feuerstein provides dev managers with guidance on how to help developers write the best software possible.
Live Product Demo:Toad® Data Modeler
Date: Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Time: 11:00 a.m. PT / 2:00 p.m. ET
Let me be direct with you. I love SQL Saturday. If it were a woman, I’d marry it. (Avoiding all extraneous thoughts of what my real wife would say, etc etc).
Check out this fun Flickr Feed from the recent SQL Saturday in Chicago or these picks by Jorge Segara (blog | twitter) to see the sort of fun that’s in store. But who can argue with a day of free SQL Server training and a chance to network with great presenters and a wide swath of your peers?
Keynotes are more fun when the put-downs fly!
I’ve tried to support SQL Saturday as much as I can since Andy Warren (blog | twitter) launched the program a couple years back and have spoken at several. You might say to yourself, “Self, Kevin works for a vendor. Don’t they want him to speak at as many SQL Saturdays as is humanly possible?” Well, Mr. Self, you’d be mistaken. You see there’s a keyword in the name that might reveal why my employer doesn’t provide unlimited enthusiasm for me to speak … it’s the SATURDAY part of the whole thing. Yes, of course, my employer wants me there. But they also recognize that Saturdays are my own and that, if I spend a day or two there on the weekend (including the travel time), then that’s a sacrifice of my own choice. I would still need to be at work and on task bright and early on Monday morning. Not that they’d make me, it’s just that my job is the sort that work is never simply skipped, it is only ever deferred. So if I took a comp day, which they’d gladly provide, I’d still have to finish the work somehow, someway. All of this goes to say that I really, really love SQL Saturday, the community vibe that it creates, the volunteers who drive it, the folks who attend. So I’m happy to give up a few days throughout the year to support it.
Come to Nashville in August!
Guitar, Cowboy Boots, Cowboy Hat, and Tight Denim NOT Required
My good friends Joe Webb (blog | twitter) and Louis Davidson (blog | twitter) have been angling to host a SQL Saturday here in Nashville for quite a while. As co-leaders of the local PASS chapter in middle Tennessee, it made a lot of sense to host an event like this. I wasn’t at all resistant to the idea, I just didn’t want to do the work myself. However, they did a great job of getting the ball rolling and even took on the majority of work themselves. Together with other volunteers in our local chapter – Shelton Dickson, Roberto Lopez, and Christina Leo – we’ve all set to work to host SQL Saturday #51.
The event will be hosted on Saturday, August 21st at the shiny new facility of Nashville State Community College located at 120 White Bridge Rd. Nashville, TN 37209:
If you’d like to attend, check out all the details here. Joe Webb and Christina Leo get all the credit for logistics.
If you’d like to speak, read the details in our call for speakers here. Louis Davidson is running the program selection process.
If you’d like to sponsor, sign up on-line here. This one is my responsibility.
It’s free to register, there is a $10 fee if you want us to provide lunch. And remember, seats always fill up fast!
If you’re going to attend and you have a twitter account, be sure to tweet using #sqlsat51!
New Orleans Morial Convention Center
900 Convention Center Boulevard
New Orleans, LA USA
I'll be there with bells on! Look for me at the Ask-the-Experts lounge or the Quest Software exhibit.
CONFERENCE AGENDA
Wondering if you should go? It’s all about the education. So check for the most current and detailed conference agenda at https://northamerica.msteched.com.
Can’t make it in person? There’s still good things in store for you! Tech·Ed Online offers on-demand technical sessions recorded at our Worldwide Tech·Ed events that explore all aspects of current and soon-to-release Microsoft technologies, tools, platforms and services. View TechTalks, Panel Discussions, and Breakout sessions delivered by industry experts and leaders, engage with community influencers on Tech·Ed Blogs, and share your onsite Tech·Ed experience on the photo page.
PASS is looking forward to having you join us all for this exceptional event. Please contact us at 24hrs@sqlpass.org with any questions. You can also find lots of general details at http://www.sqlpass.org/24hours/2010/.
