Pirates of PASS: Curse of the Elections Process

November 5, 2010 by 1 Comment

Cross posted from Jorge Segarra's blog The last few weeks we’ve watched the drama unfold in regards to the PASS BOD elections. We’ve seen people attack criticize the NomCom, the board, PASS itself, the process and the decision of feeding of Gremlins after midnight. Thankfully the fireworks have died down and we can take a look at everything that has happened and make strides to move forward in a positive (and more importantly) constructive manner. Given that, I’ve been asked by my good friend Kevin Kline (Blog | Twitter) to respond to the following: Many in the community seem to think … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ethics, Governance, Opinion, PASS Tagged With: , ,

Carol McGury Speaks Out on Not-For-Profit Governance

November 5, 2010 by Leave a Comment

I'd asked my friend and a form ED of PASS to add her thoughts about the governance process for not-for-profit organizations.  Carol is one of the industry's top professionals, serving as the chief operating officer for many years at some of the largest IT and non-IT professional associations.  I always look forward to her insight.  She writes... As an Executive Director for another user group community, I can offer up a few thoughts as it relates to Nominating Committee best practices. I’ve been working with technology and various vendors for over 20 years, and I’ve seen the community … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Governance, Opinion, PASS, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: ,

Cool Green Technology

November 4, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Every little bit helps when it comes to alternative energy.  Experts are telling us that most alternative energy sources can, by themselves, replace only around 10% of our current carbon-based energy sources.  That means we need to do several different things, each providing 8% to 10% of our power needs, which will produce a sizable replacement of fossil fuels in aggregate.  This is a cool technology for apartment dwellers in big cities.  I could see this going down well in Vancouver, BC where every high-rise seems to be bristling with balconies.The details on the technology are located at … [Read more...]

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Video: SQL Performance Optimization

November 4, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Gain insight into best practices for SQL Server optimization and ways to alleviate many root causes that can impact performance of your SQL Server database. Kevin also will discuss how to manage for planned and unplanned changes, speed time to implementation of your applications and ensure that your databases are running as they should. You will learn how to: * Identify the root cause of bottlenecks that hinder performance of your SQL Server environment * Diagnose and fix T-SQL errors in development before code goes into production * Learn new best practices for project planning and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Challenges, Databases, Performance, Presentations, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks, Video Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

RSA Animate – Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

November 3, 2010 by Leave a Comment

It's amazing how RSAnimations turns complex concepts into simple and fun.Here's just one example: … [Read more...]

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DBTA: The Big Keep Getting Bigger

November 2, 2010 by Leave a Comment

In this season of recession and financial meltdowns, a common question seems to be, "How big is ‘too big to fail'?" Titans of the financial industry made big bets with lots of risk and, when they didn't pan out, American society overall has to pay the price.  But, that aside, the very scale of our financial system, by just about every metric, has reached amazing heights, be that number of financial transactions per second, number of traders, number of funds traded, amount of money changing hands—you name it. [READ MORE] … [Read more...]

Filed Under: BigData, Challenges, Databases, DBTA, Hardware, IO, Opinion, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Strategies, Trends Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

SQLRally Precon Voting

November 1, 2010 by Leave a Comment

I have submitted a pre-conference session to present  at the PASS SQLRally, May 11, 2011 in Orlando, FL. 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 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Conferences, Opinion, Presentations, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: , , ,

Vote Now for the 2010 SQLServerPedia Awards!

November 1, 2010 by Leave a Comment

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. Please click below to cast your vote.: http://sqlserverpedia.com/awards/ Get your friends/kids/colleagues to vote too! Voting opens today (November 1st) and closes November 8th.  … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Conferences, On-Line Resources, PASS, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: , , , ,

Plays Well With Others – Upsizing Your Skills With OCW

October 30, 2010 by Leave a Comment

In our last installment , I describe the three essential skills I felt were hallmarks of the best and most successful directors that I’ve worked with.  Good directors, indeed good strategic leaders of all stripes, usually have at least one or more of these skills: strategic planning, visionary goals, and emotional intelligence. The good news about these skills, and lots of other skills that can advance your career, is that you can learn them.  Many people will spend a fortune on a classroom approach to learning these sorts of skills via an MBA.  If you’re a penny pincher, you can get a leg … [Read more...]

Filed Under: On-Line Resources, Opinion, Professional Development, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Strategies, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: , , , ,

Unpopular Science – a REALLY cute art page

October 29, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Thanks to Dan for sharing this with me!  It's really cute and I encourage you to take a look at it.  Read it here: http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/unpopular-science/.  For every force, there is an equal and opposite force. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Uncategorized
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