Author: way0utwest

I’ve written a few things about why conferences and events are good, or why it’s valuable for an IT worker to go to them (Being Around Smart People is Exciting, The Conference ROI). I believe that if you take a motivated employee and send them to an event, it’s a win-win for both of you.

However what about the rest of your employees? What do you do to ensure they can blow off steam, recharge, and not burn out on the job?

On one hand you need to constantly be managing your people to detect issues, but I think it helps to give them the ability to self-manage themselves.

I read a great post by Andy Leonard on IT coaching. It’s worth the read, but what caught my eye was the Chill section. He said that people in his development room would appear to be laughing and having fun. Blowing off steam.

There is value to this. It allows people to unwind, and take a break from the intense concentration that good programming requires. Why does Google include games in their offices? Why does Fog Creek have a DVD player and game console in their Bionic Office? They realize it’s a good investment.

I worked in a startup, employee 22 or 23, and we had a room in our office dedicated to IT. Actually 2 rooms. One was large, and contained 7 desks, where we all sat together in a corner office. The other had a ping pong table, dart board, table hockey game, and a football. We’d work for an hour or two and then one of us would need a break and get someone else to come spend 5-10 minutes in a game. We might talk about an issue, we might design something, or just shoot the breeze, but it was refreshing. We had one guy that smoked, and we’d often throw the football with him while he had a cigarette.

Creative people need to de-stress.  Give them a chance, and then turn them loose on your problems. I think you’ll find it works better than chaining them to a desk for 8 hours.

There were tons of people taking pictures and video during the PASS Summit. I found a number of pictures on the Flickr Feed under the #sqlpass tag, and there are plenty more on Twitter as well.

A few of my pictures:

OK, I had to post this one because it was pretty funny. Grant Fritchey and I in kilts. I’m not sure how this got started, but sometime in August or September I started seeing my name and "kilt" on Twitter. Being a good sport, I grabbed one from Sportkilt.com and wore it on Wednesday.

It was fun, and I’m looking forward to doing it next year, perhaps as an annual tradition. I’ve enlisted a few other people, Andy Leonard, Tjay Belt, and Joe Webb among them and have already set a reminder in my calendar to ping them next July to get their own kilts.

Coincidentally, Wednesday is also the day of the Women in Technology luncheon. I thought kilts were a nice show of support for the women, and I think it’s important that we do support them. The kilt isn’t making fun of skirts, but rather making fun of myself a little. Not being afraid to be different, break a stereotype, something that I’d like my daughter to feel comfortable doing. Here’s an image of the panel from the WIT luncheon:

The convention center is nice, and despite being spread out across multiple floors, it seems comfortable to me. I’ve come to really like it, and once you know your way around, it’s easy to get from one place to another. I actually appreciate it more than the large stadium that’s the Orlando Convention Center.

There’s lot of signage, and you know what you’re in the PASS area, which was a large part of the convention center in 2009.

I do wish that the PASS booth and more seating was available near the sessions. There are lots of tables and chairs on the 6th floor, but I always find them a little uncomfortable to relax in. I’d prefer a few more sets of couches where people can sit and chat when they’re not attending a talk.

The keynotes were OK, though I’ll call out Dr. DeWitt’s presentation as fascinating. He’s one person that I’d love to sit in on a 3 or 4 hour lecture, not a 1 hour talk. I learned a lot about column databases from him in a short period of time.

The keynote with Bob Muglia, and then Ted Kummert was most interesting for the server rack, which at one point sounded like a jet engine. We thought it might take off briefly. Here’s a bit of the Twitter feed from that time:

joewebb: When the fans for a192 CPU server all kick on at one time, it sounds like an Apache helicopter is buzzing by. #sqlpass

SQLBoyWonder: We’re in the back of the room, and can hear the fans back here…can’t imagine how it sounds up front! #sqlpass

sqlagentman: Sounds like the server rack also doubles as a tanning booth. #sqlpass

Phil_Factor: I think I am a bit too near the Ibm server. I don’t want to suddenly become part of the cloud #sqlpass

SQLCraftsman: Seeing yellow lights on server rack. IBM tech must be having a meltdown too. #sqlpass

bretupdegraff: Watch for shraptnal! RT @sqlagentman: …Galagher… (the server rack is about to blow like a melon all over the front row…) #sqlpass

Tim_Mitchell: So at what point does that server achieve liftoff from the stage? Sounds like a turbine engine #sqlpass

paschott: Anyone else find it funny that the server fans are getting more tweets than the speakers? #sqlpass

paschott: "I must have hit the help button" #sqlpass

DamonRipper: The roar of that beastly server onstage is almost drowning out the speaker! #sqlpass

SQLDBA: I know why the demo’s blowing up – it’s running on the servers in that rack that’s about to explode! #sqlpass

jrowlandjones: #sqlpass the 192 core IBM hairdryer has switched onto a cool setting.

There was a photowalk one morning that I’m sorry I missed. Seattle has some great sights, and there were some great photos. I enjoyed this one from the fountain near the Space Needle, where I got some pictures and video of my son last year. There are some other shots from the Photowalk here.

Who could forget the SQLServerCentral party, I’ll have to blog separately on all the photos from there:

One of the great things about attending conferences is that you can meet some icons in your industry. Here are two from SQL Server. Longtime author Joe Celko and newer author Kathu Kellenburger, both trying to teach us more about T-SQL.

and of course there was lots of fun at the Summit. Here are two of the PASS HQ staff having fun at the Microsoft Gameworks party:

There are a few from the SQL Karaoke nights as well in the feed, and if you search around, you might even see a little video from me as well.

If you attended the conference, relive it through some of the photos that are out there. And if you want to revisit some of the sessions, PASS has DVDs for sale, and many of the sessions( or maybe all of them) will be on demand from the PASS Summit site.

I think it went off well this year, and it looks like it will be around next year as well. My initial conversations with PASS have gone well, and I expect a contract as soon as the staff recovers from the Summit.

Pat Wright, former PASS Board member, and super-shutterbug, took a bunch of pictures at the party. As you can see, there were plenty of happy people there:

I look a little confused in this one, but that’s probably because I felt a bit rushed at times. My main job was greeter, bouncer, doorman, so I didn’t get a lot of time in the event.

We had a lot of walkups this year, and I’ll plan for more next year. I actually was under budget for the party, so I ended up buying about 30 Starbucks gift cards and giving them out to people during the conference.

 

This was the second year in a row where we gave out the Exceptional DBA award. After a brief introduction from me, Brad McGehee (above) read a letter from Josef Richberg, the winner.  Gail Shaw then talked a little about what the award means:

Next up was Rodney Landrum, with a few words about the judging.

 

And then last year’s winner, Dan McClane.

 

When the ceremony was done, we were back to gambling and having fun.

I usually have some Red Gate folks walking around, giving out prizes to dealers throughout the night. they award people randomly during gameplay and everyone has a chance to win. At the end of the night, I’d saved off a number of prizes. We had 3 great ones, all about $150-200 in value, for the 3 big gamblers.

We had a few other prizes left, and I decided to randomly give them out. Everyone could turn in their chips at the end and get a ticket from the casino people. I drew numbers out of a bin then and we gave away more great prizes.

I’m looking to run the same type of party next year, with lots more prizes, possibly fewer items and more random things at the end. I’ll also be looking to smooth out the event a little.

If you’ve got feedback, let me know. I’ve said it before, this is the best day of my year, and I’m hoping it’s a great one for you.

I’m not going to look back at the keynotes since I blogged about them. If you are interested, you can read about them:

• Wayne Snyder
• Bob Muglia
• Ted Kummert
• Opening Remarks (Wed)
• Tom Casey
• Opening Remarks with Bill Graziano
• DELL Keynote
• David DeWitt Keynote

Instead I’m going to focus on some constructive criticism. I like seeing a great speaker, and I’d like to see 3, 4, or 5 great ones at the PASS Summit in the future. So a few comments.

Be Interesting

Let me say this, other than Kevin Kline’s tribute and Dr. Dewitt’s talk, I had to go back and look at notes to remember what happened. All of the keynotes should be interesting to technical DBAs and developers. It doesn’t have to be a technical presentation, but then make it interesting in a business sense, or use thought provoking topic. Don’t market to us or give us a high level technical view.

PASS Remarks

I think it’s good to have some summaries of what PASS is doing as opening remarks. However I’d like to see them kept short and quick. I would also hope they were relevant to the event. Don’t spend a lot of time promoting the “rah-rah” PASS has these stats, and don’t read the slides.

Use the live Twitter feed, which I thought was cool to see in Wayne’s keynote, but use it to comment on what’s happening. Respond live to something that came up.

Overall I liked the events, and the presentations for exceptional volunteers. However smooth out the processes and get those people up front and ready to come on. So what if they know a day before and tell 12 friends. It’s still a surprise to most people. The tribute to Kevin Kline was wonderful, and anyone that thinks Wayne shouldn’t have cried is out of touch. Kevin deserved recognition for a decade of efforts and I think I might have teared up if I was presenting it.

The other thing I’d say is that you should pick the best speakers from the PASS board. Don’t just stick with a set agenda of the executive committee. The best people in those slots aren’t necessarily the best speakers. The three we had this year do a great job of being loose, but that might not be the case in the future.

Microsoft Keynotes

We had 3 this year. Three executives and one technical fellow. Two good, one bad, in my opinion.

We are SQL Server professionals. In two decades of doing this, the vast, vast majority of the probably thousands of people I have talked to think this way:

We believe in Microsoft products.

Sure, we complain and point out issues. But that’s because they’re issues, not because we want to switch to Oracle, Java, or something else. We’re already sold, we’re using your products, and we want to continue to use them. You don’t need to sell us.

So stop the marketing. Both MS keynotes were too focused on why MS products are great, what we see in new versions, etc. It’s boring, and it’s a waste of a chance to speak to people that already love your products. Give those presentations to mixed audiences, and instead pick something exciting to us. Something that doesn’t just talk new products, but speaks to the audience.

I’ve seen Bill Gates speak a number of times. Quite often he’s made fun of himself, but he’s looked forward. Not at the latest product releases. OK, he’s done that at times, but he’s also made me think. Steve Ballmer talks marketing, but he at least has more energy.

Pick interesting speakers, maybe more technical fellows or Microsoft Research people that will make us think. Pick a business speaker, perhaps like the keynotes from the first Business Intelligence conference, Michael Treacy or Dr. Robert Kaplan.

Make us think.

And pick interesting customer references. Find someone exciting. I talked to the customers later, and they had interesting things to say, but they weren’t interesting on stage. Get people engaged.

Lastly, make them short. The keynotes ran too long this year. Heck, take 5 minutes between them and throw out some MS t-shirts. 

Dell Keynote

I’ve watched this twice now. In Denver two years ago and this year in Seattle. I have no idea who presented two years ago, but the guy that did it in 2009 was horrible. No offense to him, and he seems like a smart guy, but a few items that Dell should address.

1. Whoever wrote the presentation, and whoever approved the topic, remove them from the loop. They have no business being involved next year.

2. Know your audience – A high level, this-is-DR presentation is a waste of time for the vast majority of the attendees. A better topic would have been some real life disaster issues and how you would/could prevent them. Or even some of the cool stuff Dell has done in engineering larger servers.

3. Be fascinating – We are much more likely to talk about the Dell keynote positively if it catches our attention. Look to the Dr. DeWitt keynote for an idea of what’s interesting. People loved that one. It doesn’t have to be theoretical. Tell us how Dell.com handles transactions. Show us something large scale that you do. Pique our interest.

The marketing folks can’t help themselves. They somehow try to tie Dell to the keynote and think we’ll buy your products. Just stop that. Most of us don’t have a choice in what we buy, so stop it. Impress us and we’ll mention that to the decision makers.

Bloggers

It was great to have the blogger table this year and last year. I look forward to doing it next year if I’m invited and I think the exchange of tweets in real time adds to the event. One thing I’d recommend here so that people can read through accounts is have a way for us to send our posts to the PASS HQ. Most of us tweet them, but if you had a page we could submit thoughts on each keynote, or each day, that would be great. Or even low-tech with a series of email addresses (day1@sqlpass.org, tomcaseykn@sqlpass.org, etc.) and then have someone post them on the Summit event page, it would be a great way to promote us, and the PASS Summit at the same time.

I’d also like to see some fairly consolidated locations for pictures and videos that people shoot for the Summit. The #sqlpass hash tag seemed to work well, but it would be great to have someone clean up and produce some great timeline of the event a week or so later. Even the videos shown in the morning would be great promotions for the event.

I enjoyed the PASS Summit 2009, and am already looking forward to 2010.

Tomorrow I look back at some of the pictures and video I’ve seen of the event.