Author: way0utwest

After my editorial “The Missing Certification” I was amazed at the debate that took place. As of the time I’m writing this, this thread has over 7,000 views and 600 replies!

It’s incredible to see people debating certification, but what’s evolved is kind of a working thread that looks at creating a new certification that’s in between the MCITP and the MCM. I think those certifications are too easy, and too hard, respectively, for the average person.

In my mind, we ought to have a stepping stone for certification that includes some harder tests along with a narrower focus that can better assess if an individual has a skill. So far the debate has been a general focus, but I hope that they work towards a narrow focus that creates tests in specific areas.

As an example, in my mind, I’d like to have a series of T-SQL tests that examine how well someone can solve common problems, and implement well performing solutions. I’d think there would be 2-3 tests here, and that some level of scoring for each one that could be presented as a part of your resume, but also would show that you understand how to use the language. I’d anticipate tests that covered:

• Basic ANSI SQL
• T-SQL Enhancements (from 2005/2008)
• High performing T-SQL – Covering improvements that avoid RBAR type solutions and write code that performs extremely well.

We’ll see what happens, and while I know certification is no guarantee, I think that we can get a better process that has a good chance of actually assessing a person’s skills.

I’ve had the Prius for 3 years as of Mar 31, 2010, and it’s been a great car for us. As the 3 year mark turned over, I was at just over 60,000 miles, which is a pretty heavy load. That level of driving really contributed to my positive experience since it means that I saved a lot of gas over most other cars.

As with most things in my career with SQL Server, I don’t see the idea of going with a hybrid as black or white. It’s not something that I think we should push as heavily as we are in this country. Personally I think the decision to buy a hybrid “depends” on many factors. I’m not pushing the hybrid, but I do think it works in some situations.

As far as my experiences. In 3 years, and 60k miles, I haven’t had any issues. If I don’t have any more in the next year, then I think I’ll have wasted a couple thousand $$ on an extended warranty at this rate.

In 3 years, I have

• changed the oil about every 5k miles with synthetic oil.
• replaced the tires
• rotated tires
• replaced seat belts (4 of 5) that my dog ate

Other than that, no issues. I had to jump start it once, but that’s it. No other repairs. It’s been a solid, reliable, Toyota-like car for me. Just no issues.

The bad things I’ve felt are the handling in the snow. It does not deal with slick surfaces well and the rtaction control is a POS for getting started in snow. I wish that thing would not enable until you hit 5 or 10 mph, but that’s about it.

The interior (cloth) has taken a beating with 3 kids and dogs, but otherwise everything works well and it’s the car that I tend to drive most of the time.

If you drive a lot, it’s worth looking at the Prius. But do so from a financial perspective. I’m not sold this is the best way to go for the environment (I vote for hydrogen and fuel cells w/ electric motors). However if you drive a lot, this can can potentially save some serious $$.

An interesting experiment from Microsoft tonight. They brought 8 or 9 bloggers/press people from around the country to Redmond for a 3 hours briefing/wine tasting. We were picked up from the airport, taken to a hotel in Bellevue and then shuttled to the Commons building on the Microsoft campus. It’s a rather amazing building, with the feel of an upscale mall food court inside where Microsofties can eat, get their hair done, and even do a little shopping.

We were meeting in a rather amazing set of private rooms at one end. It was called the Great Room, and reserved by appointment.

It had a receptionist, and we had to give her our names to get access, even though we were a groups escorted by Microsoft people. It seemed a little silly, but we did it and then stood in front of a great door, easily 4ft wide and 9-10ft tall. We stood, and stood, and finally it opened.

By sliding! In true Star Trek fashion, it slid into a pocket noiselessly and we entered to find a large lounge area, with couches, TVs on all walls, and a crew doing video and still photography. There was a separate room with two XBOXs, a Surface computer, and a lot of wine set up on a bar, complete with attendants. We also had a small alcove with food set out. All in all, a rather impressive gathering.

Lots of wood trim, as you can see above, and even a great picture that Andy Warren pointed out to me.

Don’t recognize it? Maybe this small caption in the lower right corner will help.

Silly, but we’re geeks, right? And it got me to take a few pictures.

We had some wine and Donald Farmer (@donalddotfarmer) started the type of presentation that I’d like to see more of. This was his first slide.

Not a great technical briefing, but it was a chance for him to summarize why they built R2 as they did, and give a nice overview of what was included. Dan Jones helped, and for the most part I think it provided a framework for us to talk about the product later, but with a slide like the one above every 2-3 slides, and a new wine appearing, we were joking and harassing each other more than we were talking seriously. There was one serious journalist there from Forrester, but for the most part we were geeks. Myself, Andy Warren, Denny Cherry, Jen and Sean McCown, Jorge Segerra, and Bill Graziano.

We tweeted quite a bit, and it was fun to see tweets pop up on the side large screens. A few people had laptops, and it was a fun group of Microsofties. Donald, Dan, Buck Woody, and a few other bloggers from the SQL team.

We had a hashtag, #sqlr2, and there was a fun stream, but not a lot of response outside of the room. I think that was one failing in that we didn’t schedule this to start at 10 or 11am PST so that people around the country could respond to our posts. Here’s a snippet of the stream from near the end of the night.

It was a fun time, I got to see some friends, and even Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp stopped by later on. The seven of us guests went out to dinner, chatted, and had fun. It was good to catch up, and debate a little on SQL Server, the community, PASS, and more.

I think this was a good event for me, I did a short video interview (not sure where that might appear). There are pictures on Facebook from the event, and I have a few things that I’ll be writing about here in the next few months as R2 launches and the SQL community becomes hungry for more information. As much as I am traveled out for the time being, this was a good event and I think it was worth two days of travel.

I didn’t think about it this way, but it made perfect sense after I read an essay. Recently my team at my day job had an offsite gathering for brainstorming and evaluating our group’s place in the company. We met for two days away from the office, and 6 of us were in a meeting room for 8 hours a day.
That’s not a two day meeting, or a 16 hour meeting. It was for me, but for the company that was a 96 hour meeting.
Just think about the loss of productivity from that two days. Across 2 major sites, that’s a lot of work lost. True we did get some things done, and we had the chance to each hear what the others think of their business and how to improve it. However it also added a lot of stress. In addition to the need for me to work nearly twice as hard for the time of the meetings (2 days), I also had to take more time to prepare for the meeting, in my case, about 3-4 hours, which was twice as long as I presented.
That’s stress to be prepared for the meeting, but that meant that essentially the 2 hour meeting time for me meant a 6 hour increase in work. Two hours of work, two hours of extra work to handle things, and two hours of prep.
Imagine how many meetings you have in your company, even in small companies. Taking a couple hours of each day for a meeting between 2 or 3 people and it’s no wonder that 12 hours days are needed to get many companies going. That lowers creativity, adds stress, and doesn’t necessarily accomplish a lot.
What can you do instead?
What I’d recommend is that you empower people to make more decisions. Don’t require meetings to get things done, and when you do need people to get together, make it minimal. Schedule time and limit the number of people, and solve things quickly. Don’t take a half hour for a meeting. Start on time, get the issue out there, debate it and make a decision in half the time to allotted.
Then go back to work.