The last quarter of the year is usually my busiest due to the fantastic PASS Summit and SQLBits events. The fall looks a little different … BECAUSE IT WILL BE EVEN BUSIER! Here’s a rundown of where I’ll be this fall through mid-October:
BASTA! SQLCON.NET
September 26 to 29; Mainz, Germany
This big developer and admin conference runs from September 26 to 29 in Mainz, Germany. I’ll be delivering at least one session and hobnobbing with Quest customers, friends, and in a very weird twist, my oldest daughter Emily, who will be in the Rhineland at the exact same time on a graduation present I’d been planning for her since graduation in June.
SQLBits – Query Across the Mercy
September 29 to October 1; Liverpool, United Kingdom
One of my favorite conferences of the year! The organizers are great. The speakers are great! The attendees are great!! The venues are great!!! The lunches are … um … adequate. I’m doing all an new session on SQL Injection attack, this time with LOTS of demos kindly written by an attendee at one of my sessions in Cologne. He like the session so much, he decided to build demos to go along with it. (Thanks again, Volker!)
And if you’ve attended before, you know how much fun our now traditional IT Horror Stories and IT Bingo Trivia sessions are. Make plans to attend these standing-room only sessions, before the fire marshal kicks us all out of the room for overfilling it.
The PASS Summit
Seriously. This is the one. If you can attend only one SQL Server training and community event in a given year, this is the one. Over 150 sessions and pre-conference seminars. Most everyone who is on the list of “who’s who” in the world of SQL Server and Microsoft-related data management and development will be in attendance. And a large number of the Microsoft R&D team that builds, documents, and supports SQL Server will also be there.
If you haven’t paid attention to the new social media, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Just as email was a game-changer in the 1980s and the internet revolutionized society in the 1990s, social media is making a huge impact on the way people work and interact today. Personally, I was skeptical about social networking until some good friends persuaded me to give it a trial run. It seemed like a great way to dither away some valuable time, but I didn’t see the business value in the whole proposition until I tried it. [READ MORE]
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!
January 1st, 2010 marked a very special day for me. It was the first time in the past ten years in which I had no official PASS responsibility at the HQ level. (I’m still serving in the local PASS chapter here in Nashville, along with the awesomeness that is DrSQL (blog | twitter) and the whackness that is Joe Webb (blog | twitter). We also have the irreplaceable Shelton Dickson and Roberto Lopez helping us out). I also intend to stay active as a speaker for PASS. I spoke at the PASS 2009 Summit, earning a top presenter spot in the Professional Development track, and plan to speak there in the future. And I’m also already booked for some upcoming Virtual Chapter meetings as well as local PASS chapters and SQL Saturdays.
10 Years on the Job Takes Its Toll
I have to admit that I’ve been surprised by the number of friends and acquaintances who’ve asked if I’ll miss it. Isn’t it obvious? Ten years of long hours with zero pay and a heavy burden on family time don’t rest easily on your shoulders. I’m sure that PASS’ first two presidents, Pam Smith and Guy Brown, can corroborate my story – except that they’ve taken a solemn oath never to speak words that includes the letters S, Q, and L in a single sentence. That makes it really hard to ask their opinion on much of anything these days. The heinous nervous twitch that spasmodically attacks their left and right eye, respectively, whenever they hear the words “Micro” or “Soft” uttered in the same conversation is also telling…
All joking aside, I’m honestly very happy to leave PASS in the hands of the next generation of leaders. For more a much more in-depth discussion about my years on the PASS board of directors, check out Brian Moran’s interview for SQL Server Magazine here. The enthusiasm and passion demonstrated by the young turks on the board of directors will keep the organization in stead for many years to come. I’m also very pleased with the new emphasis on community-connectedness (thank you Twitter!) and openness (thank you bloggers!) sweeping the community. It’s already produced much goodness within PASS, which I expect to see multiplied many times over in the future.
A PARTING BOW
I was amazed and surprised when, during the keynote of Day 3, Bill Graziano called me on to the stage along with el presidente Wayne Snyder. PASS did an online postings in a few locations. The PASS Volunteers page spotlights my award under the PASSion Awards section. Then, on the PASSion Award page, the award is the top featured article. This write-up includes a link to the interview with Brian that I mentioned earlier. Funny story – I’d been working in the PASS ready room on Day 2 of the Summit, feverishly trying to improve my slide decks. At the exact same time, Bill and the staff were also feverishly working on their slide deck a mere two seats away – of the presentation to come on Day 3!
I had hair when I started this job. Just sayin'...
Normally, I don’t care very much about how my slides look and would’ve caught Bill red handed in his sly surprise. But today was different because I’d seen two ominous portents of doom – a ferret consorting with a chicken (on Cartoon Network) and a woolly caterpillar crossing the threshold of the Sheraton Hotel and Convention Center lobby. My keen senses as an Oracle DBA kicked off an internal alarm that even 14 years of SQL Serverness could not suppress – eminent disaster at the hands of the demo gods was nigh. So once I got to the PASS ready room, I equipped myself with several diet Mountain Dews, my favorite MP3 tunes via massive ear-buds, and a bag of mixed nuts. Yes – I never knew, not even for a second, that they were talking about me. Several hours later, as if waking from a daze, I realized that I didn’t have any slide decks with demos. Clearly, Graziano had stronger juju than I. Next time, I’ll directly divine the future using turtledove entrails – as all good Oracle DBAs are trained to do – rather than rely on those pathetic woolly caterpillars like MS-Access developers recommend. [All elements of the preceding story concerning divination are a blatant lie.] But I digress…
At the Day 3 keynote, Bill and Wayne surprised me by calling me to the stage and presenting me with the biggest award I’d ever personally seen. I was gobsmacked. On top of that, the attendees gave me a standing ovation for receiving the “Lifetime Passion Award” (no relation to Lifetime “TV for Women”). Again, I was taken aback. Wayne had, evidently, intended on giving me the mic to say a few words. But because he was a bit choked up, he left the stage a bit earlier than he meant and never handed the mic to me. Good thing too – I would’ve blubbered like a baby.
A Special Word of Thanks
Honestly, I can’t thank you enough for your kindness as a community. I never got into PASS for any form of praise or profit. To have a hand in the making of something bigger than me which reflected my own values was all I ever hoped to achieve. And thank you again to all the bloggers who had a kind word about the award as well:
Brian Egler at Network World also mentioned it here.
This year was also a great year for photoslikethese. If you know of any other mentions about the award that day back in November 2009, please post a comment here.
It’s my pleasure to report that Andy Warren has asked me to participate in the SQL Saturday Advisory Council. I’m really excited by the fantastic learning opportunities presented by the SQL Saturday system of events that Andy and company have established. They’ve taken great pains to set up a system of high-quality events that are free or very low cost to attendees. In addition, they’re leading SQL Saturday altruistically and transparently, as indicated by their blog. I’ve spoken at the Atlanta SQL Saturday and hope to speak at more in the future. In fact, the leadership of my local SQL Server user group where I’m active are trying to get one started ourselves. If you haven’t already taken a look at SQL Saturdays, you really should take a look, as either an attendee or as a speaker. I’m honored to be invited to participate with this team of servant-leaders and hope to actively contribute to the growth of the SQL Server community at a grassroots level.
