Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

Giving of Yourself

Kathi Kellenberger is my colleague at Redgate, and fellow editor at Simple Talk. She is quite active in the WIT movement as well as other charitable endeavors such as LaunchCode. A longtime speaker and author in the community, Kathi has a history of giving back to help others.

I enjoyed reading her editorial recently about some of the giving back that our team has worked on this year. It’s a good summary of the different ways that the Advocates have tried to do something for different parts of our community. Some of this was a normal “work” we might do, and some was separate, but these efforts are a part of the reason that we have this job.

One thing I’ve been impressed with this year is how often I’ve seen members of the SQL Community reach out to help others. From support to listening to offers of help, I’m glad that we have found ways to give of ourselves. I’ve seen similar things in my community, and it gives me hope for humanity.

I believe strongly that all of our should find ways to volunteer and help others in our lives. It might be when you are young, when you retire, maybe a few times a year, maybe every week, but we all benefit when we realize there is something bigger than us, and something more important than our own needs, wants, and desires.

As we close out this difficult year, remember that whatever happened to you, likely there are people who struggled more. Look for opportunities to help others, in big or small ways, whenever you can. It could be with an organization. It could be a helping hand in your community or a moment that you seize and opportunity on the street. Look for a chance to play Santa, with a gift, a donation, or an act of service. It will do you a world of good.

Steve Jones

December 21, 2020
Daily Coping 21 Dec 2020
I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to see how many different people you can smile at today.

I often wave and smile at people when I drive around my neighborhood. I smile and wave at people in town, especially kids. I don’t seem to meet a lot of people these days, and with masks, I can’t always let someone know I’ve smiled or see if they smile back.

I can, however, count my smiles. On a recent day I had to go to the doctor and the grocery before heading home. I smiled at these people, some of whom responded, so I’m guessing they could tell I was smiling under my mask.
- nurse admitting me into the facility
- doctor examining me
- 2nd nurse taking my blood
- receptionist returning paperwork
- employee walking into store
- cashier
- 3 family members
Not a huge total, but I managed to get 9 people today.
December 21, 2020
Placing my Bid for SQLSaturday.com

I’m making my bid. I don’t know this brand needs to continue, or that it will, but I’d like to hold this for posterity, at least in an interim basis.

Note: This is a personal bid, not associated with my employer, Redgate Software, or any other enterprise.

Feel free to submit your own bid. I am hoping PASS is willing to return this brand to the founders.

Update: I have had numerous offers to help crowdsource the cost, which I appreciate. If you are willing to contribute, let me know. I would prefer to ask for equal shares from everyone if it comes to that.

December 18, 2020
Speaker Guidance: Save Your Data
The PASS organization (and likely SQL Saturday) are shutting down their sites on 15 Jan, 2021. This means that potentially lots of links and data will disappear.

There are people in the community saving some of the data, and images. I’m hoping to put some of those in an archive that will live on and remain accessible, but for speakers, the links to events are part of our living CV. It may be important for you to capture some of this.

I’ve got a few things for you to do, especially those of you that are Microsoft (or other) MVPs, or nominated. I have thoughts here on image schedules and your living CV.

Note that you might not care about this, or you might not be sure. However, once the data is gone, it’s gone, so you might want to get it now and decide on its value later.

Sections here:
Image Schedules

I should have done this years ago, as some events (like DevConnections), get rid of their site for particular events and only show the schedule for the next one. As a matter of fact, they’re done.

For SQL Saturdays, you can get the schedule for an event on their page. For example, I spoke at SQL Sat 997 – Salt Lake City. I can get the schedule from an image capture:

Or at the bottom, there is an export to PDF. I recommend you save these, then upload the image/pdf to someplace you can link to from your CV.

Going forward, I’d continue to do this, and even take pictures on a marquee when we get back to live events.

Speaking CV

I track lots of activity for my Microsoft MVP award, but I also keep a Speaking CV I can point to from my resume. For me, this is a static page on my WordPress blog that I update, but I separate things by year and include the events and links.

Typically I link to a schedule page for an event, but these will all be broken, or some of them.

One of my tasks this winter will be to go capture some of the visual evidence of these, if I can. That way I can preserve things.

One other note is that the first day back to work after I speak, I usually update this and ensure it’s current.

Preserving SQL Sat Data

For posterity, or maybe just for me, I was curious what activity I’d had. If I log into the PASS site, I can go to My SQL Saturday, and see the events where I submitted things. If you’re curious, go here, and then you know where to go save an image.

The footer gets in the way, but you can copy/paste and resort this all if you need to.
December 18, 2020