These are both presentations I’ve done in other places, and they’ve been received well. I’m looking forward to giving them again, and I hope that I’ll see some of you there.
After these two events, I start out on the SQL in the City Tour and then hit Dev Connections in October before finishing up at the other Colorado SQL user groups in November. Across those events I end up going to 11 events and giving 21 presentations.
The recommendation engine is the result of some complex algorithms
When we publish articles that look at the performance of T-SQL code, the pieces are very popular. It seems that people are always willing to learn how to write better code, and there is no shortage of people willing to discuss the methods, the results, and the implications of various techniques. It also seems there is no shortage of argument and debate that take place in the discussions as to the best way to solve problems.
However we don’t really understand what will resonate with people, or what things they’d like to learn. What we would like is a system like Amazon’s recommendation engine that might help us improve traffic, and also bring you information that is more relevant and interesting to your career. If you’ve ever purchased something from Amazon and then browsed their site, you might notice the recommendations appearing all over the site. If you’ve received an email from them, you might see some interesting items suggested to you.
Amazon knows their engine is valuable, and it’s constantly being refined. We don’t know exactly what they use to build the recommendations, but they are constantly analyzing the results and tweaking their system. That makes sense for their commerce oriented business, since they can easily measure the results by looking at sales, but it might also make sense for other businesses. Many of us have reports, and other queries used to perform analysis on our data. Do we regularly analyze the performance of those algorithms and look to tweak them?
I’ve found many employers in the past were content to develop a system and leave it alone until some new requirement arose. One company didn’t like that approach, and regularly looked to tweak our systems to try and get more performance out of an inventory analysis application. It was frustrating to regularly rewrite a series of reports, but also challenging to try and find ways to solve a complex problem.
As more and more data professionals begin to work in the analysis and business intelligence areas, learning to build algorithms, and tweak them over time, will be more and more important. It will be challenging, but it should be fun if you are excited by the challenge of improving your algorithms over time.
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.
Help, I need some data, Help, not just any data, Help, I was told you need a report, help. When I was younger, so much smarter than today, I never needed any query help in any way. But now these reports are long, I’m not working late nights, Now I find I’ve got to ask for help on window functions. Help me if you can, I need a rank And I do appreciate the over clause. Help me, get my report back to the client, Won’t you please, please help me. And now T-SQL has changed in oh so many ways, the over clause just seems to vanish in the haze. But every now and then I feel I know row_number, I know I need a lag or lead just not sure which to use. Help me if you can, I’m feeling slow And I do appreciate returning more rows. Help me, get my query back to the client, Won’t you please, please help me, help me, help me, oh.
The Rules
T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party hosted by a different blogger every month. This month is hosted by Rob Volk with the theme of “Help, I Need Somebody”.
If you’re like to participate, just write a post, publish it on the appropriate day and link to the host’s post. If you want to host, contact the founder, Adam Machanic (b|t).
Can you divine what’s important for your career in the future?
Those of us in Information Technology are constantly learning to do more with the tools and platforms we have. There are no shortages of new systems to manage. Since staffing levels never increase as quickly as servers, we must find ways to manage and maintain more and more systems all the time. That’s fine since tools like Powershell or MultiScript allow us to extend our reach to many machines as easily as we work with one machine. That’s not quite accurate since the effort to build a repeatable process is greater than performing a task one time, however I have found that most of the time if I need to perform a process once, I’ll need to do it again.
Over time I’ve learned that investing in my own skills, and learning to work smarter and more efficiently, has paid dividends for me. Becoming more familiar with the business my employer is involved in has helped me to return more value to the company, as well as ensure that my employment is appreciated. As companies look to virtualize systems, move to cloud services, or find some other more efficient way of dealing with computing resources, it’s up to each of us to find new ways that we can provide value. That’s what system administrators need to do, and I suspect DBAs need to be thinking along these lines as well.
The world is getting more complex from an IT perspective. These days companies have their pick of candidates for many jobs, and the person that has a variety of skills in multiple areas with a history of solving problems is desirable. Even when companies have few candidates, they seem to be waiting to hire a candidate that is a good fit rather than picking the first person they find if that person lacks some of the skills the company needs.
As you continue along the path of your professional development, think about adding a variety of skills in different areas, skills that improve your efficiency, and allow the business to get more of their work done every day.
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.
