Update: Apparently I can’t write, or get a point across from the comments and a few emails, so I have edited this to hopefully make it clearer.
The pre/post conference sessions came out today for the 2010 SQL PASS Summit. And to my surprise the list of sessions wasn’t quite what I expected.
I know I complained last year about the selections, and a few people said that I should get involved if I didn’t like the way things were done. So I did. I volunteered and wound up on the Pre/Post Con and Spotlight committee. I spent quite a few hours of my time reviewing abstracts, emailing with the speakers to get more information, and then rating sessions. I got on a conference call, with all that prep work, and debated the choices with the others and think we had a great list of sessions. We, the three members of the committee, sent our decisions over to PASS over a week ago. Actually I think two weeks ago.
Only the sessions I the committee I was on had picked aren’t the same ones as the ones PASS published.
<insert four letter words here>
______-_______ _______ ________ ______ ______
</four letter words rant>
I understand that PASS needs to make money from these sessions, and there are marketing issues involved. However the instructions I had stated that my committee “Make decisions with regard to all Program aspects of PASS Community Summit.” (emphasis mine)
Apparently that’s not the case. I’m not going to disclose which session I picked that didn’t make it, and which one got picked instead. That’s not fair to either speaker, and not the point.
If marketing, money, other issues are the important ones, that’s fine. If you ask others to pick sessions, and supposedly decide on what the community wants to see and what is good for PASS, then let the committee do that. I can’t speak for the rest of my committee, but we were caught off guard and not happy with this decision. I’m upset because I wanted to make a difference to this process, try to do a good job, defend the decisions of the committee and take the flack for those decisions. I was also trying to ensure that PASS wasn’t choosing people because they’re a part of some “old speakers network”. I feel I’ve failed there since I didn’t make a difference, and the old speaker’s club reigned.
If that’s the way PASS wants to work, let some non-SQL, non-DBA, non-volunteer honk just rank everyone and pick the sessions they think are important. Publish the rules and guidelines and make it happen.
Just don’t waste my time as a volunteer.
To be clear: My committee sent selections to PASS some time ago. We were not informed, queried, or told of any changes. One of our pre-con sessions was demoted to an alternate. One we picked as an alternate, not sure it was one we wanted to see, was moved to a regular session. Nothing in the comments below seems to give a good reason for this.
Voice of the DBA 
You have got to be kidding me! That is redonkulous.This is another one of those episodes where PASS has just enough transparency that it makes things worse than having no transparency at all. Really shaking my head at this one.
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We received your list of sessions in the 11th hour before everything had to be to marketing to make it out in the Community Connector and to meet our critical dates deadline. There were a few issues with the list of pre/post cons and the spotlight sessions – some pre/post con speakers didn't have spotlights- there were too many pre/post con sessionsWe cut the lowest ranked pre/post con session. Technically, we had two pre/post con sessions that needed to be cut but I went out on a limb and worked with Microsoft to steal one of their pre/post conference sessions.Yes, there were communication failures. Yes, I could have done a better job of communicating these things. At the end of the day, it was a tough choice to make but it was one that had to be made on a long, painful, phone call.I'm genuinely sorry you feel slighted by this, but it really wasn't worth blowing out of propotion.
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Interesting. I'm not sure it is that big of a deal if only one got "changed", but I do find it interesting that pre/post con speakers have to have a spotlight. I would think that it shouldn't really matter if the speaker had a spotlight submitted (hmm, you have to be invited) if the pre/post con is good enough use it.
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Let me get this story straight. (Because I think I'm missing something). Steve, You were part of a committee and gave your input but your input wasn't followed. Or at least not 100%. I'm not an insider and I'm not sure what context this is in, but the article comes off as "PASS didn't use my picks"
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Not sure what the 11th hour was, but our rankings were done well in advance of the deadline.I, and others, volunteered to do this. It is a little whiny to complain, I'll admit. However I question why we are asked as volunteers to pick things if our input doesn't matter. As I posted, the volunteers are supposed to choose sessions, so the community is represented. If that's not the case, I'm saying that I feel like my time was wasted.I don't know who made the change, nor do I really care. This seems to me to be a fundamental failing in PASS over the years.
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I just have a general comment based on working on a bazillion committees in a small community with limited funds, a dependence on volunteers, and a situation where most everyone has a different day job. Seems similar to this one.For all the collaboration and good discussions and bonding, there is always a certain amount of mis-communications. There are also always a few unpopular decisions that are made by a subset of people. It's unavoidable, really, and it's especially hard if people are not able to have face to face meetings very often.I personally have found that the trick to making volunteering on committees work is giving direct verbal feedback to other people involved when you feel like something really went wrong. Even if they can't tell you specifically why things went like they did (although usually they will), most of the time they genuinely appreciate hearing it and can possibly clear up a misunderstanding.I'm not saying a blog post is bad, necessarily. It did start a discussion of sorts. It just reads like you feel really alienated due to the situation and I feel like that's a shame since you seem like a great person in the community. Hope you end up talking it through.
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Just my 2 cents 🙂 (so for the american exchange rate that's about 1.5 cents)When I was on the DBA Abstract selection committee last year and our recommendations were put forward and followed almost 100% of the time.Not sure if the spotlight/pre/post conference sessions are ran differently but I was suprised/disappointed to read of your experience as mine was nothing but positive.
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I have submitted feedback all throughout on things that were done well and poorly. I completely understand communication issues. I don't feel this was one of those times, but we'll see if PASS will respond to my email to them privately or will look to discuss the process.
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Interesting you say what you say, because the first thing I thought when looking at all the pre/post speakers was that they were the "big names" all instantly recognisable and some of the sessions a little predictable. Yes this is no doubt a marketing decision and I believe it an unnecessary one and possible counter productive long term. The biggest reason for SQL success is the community support which just keeps building and it would be nice to hear the community speaking too.This will be my first ever summit (using my own money) after 13 years or so of SQL so I'm obviously really looking forward to it regardless. Don't let this knock back put you off trying again next year and hopefully PASS give you a little more consideration at 2011 and I'll look forward to listening to you then?Best of luck,Mark Broadbent (aka twitter.com/retracement)
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Mark,Thanks for the kind words and hope to meet you at the Summit. Please feel free to stop me and say hi.
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Dang hit post by accident Earlier, Jeremiah summed it up exactly as I saw it happen, this wasnt a marketing decision, or some non-sql, non-dba, non-volunteer honk making decisions. It was a group of volunteers just like you, trying to make the best out of a bad situation (incorrect counts of accepted sessions) Also, it might be interesting to note that not all of the speakers have agreed to their terms yet, and the list or precons and spotlights is continually updatedThat is not to say that the process was the best, or that there werent communications issues because im sure there were but, the answer here is not some mastermind behind PASS misusing volunteers or anything as nefarious, thats giving a bit too much credit to PASS.
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Perhaps you are correct, Allen. However I don't quite buy it. One of the pre-cons we chose as an alternate was elevated to accepted and announced, while one we chose was lowered.That doesn't seem to jive with "a bad situation"
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Steve, there's nothing to buy or not buy. What Jeremiah and Allen outlined was exactly what happened. There's no conspiracy – I'm sorry if it doesn't jive with you, but that's how the decision was made. I'm also sorry that you think that the work of the pre/post con abstract selection committee was tossed aside. That isn't the case — all of the ratings and comments for all of the sessions were reviewed. Changes were only made in order to keep within the numbers that had already been allocated – not as some way to keep or keep out any particular speaker(s). This is a community – we don't always agree, but it works better if we listen to one another.
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Lori,I find that to be complete BS. It's not that a session was cut that irks me. It's that a decision we made to include a session was tossed aside and another pick. That is not a last minute decision because of space. That is fundamentally a decision to put someone in and take someone out.
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I think this entire dicussion in the comments above suddenly becomes much more interesting in the light of the fact that, just a couple weeks later, PASS had enough space to run 4 (!) additional pre-cons by Scalability Experts.So, are pre-con slots for sale now, or what?
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Surprise, surprise, though I believe that some of the other pre-cons were MS sponsored. They likely picked Scalability to run them instead of internal people.
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