Category: Blog

Who is Mike in the business intelligence/analytics world?

Is it Mike White? If it is, he’s the guy I call for help with SSAS stuff. I’ve known Mike for years and he’s a smart guy.

Is it Mike Davis? He’s another smart guy. I don’t know him, but I read his blogs often, and he seems to know a lot about the BI side of things.

If it’s Mike Bag ’o Data, then I don’t know him, and I can’t vouch for his skills. I’m sure he’s a good BI/BA worker, and he deserves a conference to go to and discuss the problem and challenges he faces. I’ve linked to Tom LaRock’s description of Mike, and there’s a lot I agree with. In fact, I do think Tom is onto something.

I’m just not sure it’s something PASS should do.

I do think that analytics are important. I think this is a growth area in the data professional world, and I also think that lots of current DBAs better learn a bit more about how to support Mike, build tools or platforms for Mike, or transform into Mike.

I’m just not sure that PASS is the group to do this.

At least not in a way that it’s been done. The BaCON idea, which I suspect had a little inception from a for-profit company that’s a touch larger than PASS and gets to voice it’s opinion behind closed doors.

Now I like inception. I think there are plenty of times when I can’t come up with ideas on my own and it’s good to have someone suggest them to me. I can even take those ideas and run with them and make something of them.

However I’m just not sure I think PASS should be doing this, at least not at BaCON scale.

I attended the first Microsoft BI conference and thought it was a success. Lots of people, a disparate group of technical people, PMs, managers, and more. A great mix of content and I was looking forward to future conferences.

I wasn’t expecting the concept to be mismanaged and abandoned. I think MS lost its way here, combining the event with TechEd, then having it fall apart.

Or did it?

I think the concept was reborn, but by having someone else take the risk, and do the work. That’s fine, but if that’s what we want to do, then I’d like to start small.

Little BaCON

 

Have some small experiments, two slices, run a Business of Software, 200-person conference and build some momentum. See if you can grow the event with some new speakers and attendees outside your audience. Limit the exposure, and limit the work required. By all means, though, place the bet.

You see, I don’t have a problem with PASS doing more BI or BA work. I think it’s a good area in which to grow. I think there’s potential. I also think that most people would agree to making inroads in this area.

However the whole BA idea wasn’t well developed, and certainly wasn’t well presented to the community. A vast group of speakers and attendees weren’t sure what was happening. In fact, even after attending the event, a number of people felt confused about what the purpose was for the event. I think plenty of people thought it was this:

Time will tell if we get any players out there, but I can guess the purpose of the exercise, and I think it’s less about community and more about $$, though certainly there is some overlap.

I want PASS to experiment and place small bets. I want them to try new things. I certainly don’t want them to hoard their reserves and not improve their infrastructure or stagnate.

However I also want the organization to remember that the members are the organization. We’re not there to be pushed to manage some other organization’s agenda.

If there is a BA need, then someone should work on it. I’m just not sure that someone is PASS, at least not at scale.

Personally I’d much rather them expand into the BI area. We know this area, we know there are people dedicated to working in this space. In fact, I bet we could get a nice, 3,000+ person event every spring dedicated to BI. We could then have a 5,000 person Summit in the fall that’s mostly DBAs, the core audience, and includes some BI.

I bet we could grow the BI conference to 5,000 as well.

Imagine two 5,000 person conferences, bringing together data professionals. Maybe even have one of them on each side of the US each year.

Then imagine that we take an infant area, something like analytics, and grow it into a toddler at a small scale. Some of our current #SQLFamily won’t want to interact with the little one, but some will, perhaps a few hundred. However, it will grow, I truly believe that, and we can help it continue to move to 1,000, then 2,000, and who knows how much more.

We could even see PASS grow, with new funds to providing tracks or information at developer events, truly trying to expand the horizons of those that work with SQL Server and increase their competency.

We could do it. We really, really could.

If we’d learn to not work in secrecy, not spring the grand ideas on the community unexpectedly and then continue to defend the problems rather than embrace them and work to fix things.

If we worked from vision, transparency, and responsibility, I think we’d do better. Unfortunately, I think the structure of the organization leads to fear based decision making, and an overall perception of disappointment. I can’t help but think that the way things are set somehow takes good people and beats them down into something different in meetings.

I struggle with PASS as an organization, and I know many of you don’t care. However I hope you care about PASS as a concept and help work to make it something better.

If that’s with BaCON, that’s great. If it’s not, that’s OK as well.

I just would like more than the board to help shape decisions, and certainly more than a few bloggers spouting words at their screens.

I said that I’d write about some good things PASS does, and I’ll make it a point to do so. Despite my complaints and criticisms, I like the organization. I’ve been a part of it since October 1999, when the initial conference was in the basement ballroom of a hotel in downtown Chicago.

Since that time, I’ve attended most of the annual Summits. I’ve missed a few, and the last few years I’ve been on an every-other-year pace, but that’s my issue, not that of the organization.

The Summit has grown from a conference, like every other conference where techies gather to watch presentations, furiously scribble down notes, and then return to their hotel rooms to get a little late night work in for the employer that sent them away to a conference.

That first year was no different for me, though I did meet the amazing Kalen Delaney and managed to ask a semi-intelligent, reasonable question that she answered. I also had my wife, sister-in-law, and infant son with me. We watched the last game of the year at Comiskey Park, smoked cigars and enjoyed wine looking out over the river, and had a great few days in Chicago.

However something happened. I’d like to think that Andy Warren, Brian Knight, and I had a hand in it with our annual SQLServerCentral parties on opening night. Those grew from a line out the door of the reception hall in 2003, to the XBOX debacle and tv giveaway in 2004 to the casino parties with tons of prizes in later years. However we weren’t the only ones and PASS has grown to encompass numerous social events at the Summit and a community of people that greet each other with smile and hugs each fall.

We have more and more attendees that greet larger and larger groups of fellow attendees by name. We have runs, worship services, Women in Technology, kareoke and more, all of which almost overshadow the event itself. They don’t, and there’s lots of information being passed around, but the PASS Summit is way, way more than a conference.

Kudos to the organization, the HQ staff, and the various board members across the last 15 years that have worked hard to build (at times) and let evolve organically (at others), an amazing event.

I don’t want to get too deeply involved in the complaints and struggles of PASS, but I also want to ensure we have a healthy community. I want to have us continue to grow and prosper as data professionals who work with SQL Server. PASS has a mission, and it does help our user groups, SQL Saturdays, and members thrive as a group.

I also want to say that I think PASS does lots of good things, and there are good people involved. Props for the good things, and I’ll make it a point to point them out more.

Now…

Every year we have a set of candidates for the PASS board, who will help guide the organization through the next few years. We have had board members who did  well, and board members who didn’t. Overall, the organization may move forward, or it may stall, but I haven’t really seen anyone damage PASS through their actions.

To be clear, I have liked most of the people who have served and consider most of them friends. I’d be happy to sit down and have a drink with most of them, and I think they all had the community’s best interests at heart. No one made decisions to maliciously hurt the organization. I thank them all for their volunteer time and efforts.

However let’s not confuse appreciation with acceptance. Your best intentions do not imply competence or success. Criticism is not a personal attack, but rather an understanding that the process and system have bugs. If you can’t handle that, don’t serve.

I’ve wandered a bit from my title, but for a reason. The process for allowing candidates has changed over time and while I think the NomCom served a purpose when it was created, I wonder if that’s the case now. I saw a note recently that candidates need to meet a minimum criteria, and then they are evaluated by the committee.

If someone passes the minimum criteria, shouldn’t they be on the ballot. That certainly hasn’t been the case, but really, why have a committee? It can serve no other purpose than to influence voting by ranking candidates or removing candidates from the process that the committee doesn’t like. That dislike can be for personal reasons, a non-disclosed issue about the candidate, or some reason they aren’t qualified, whatever that means.

However if I certify I will travel, if I can speak English, work with SQL Server, and if I have some volunteer record, then stick me on. Well, not me, but anyone else.

I know some people worry we might have 25 people running for 3 slots, and then oh no, what will we do? How can the voters decide? Listen, if we ever have 25 people running for 3 slots, I think that’s a good day in the community. I’d view that as a win, not as a problem.

The point I’d make is there are no real decisions being made by the board that require some special training that the board members somehow have. We entrust the running of many civic decisions to people with no real training in some area, and I see no reason why the PASS board is any different. Any reasonably intelligent DBA can listen to information, ask questions, and make a decision.

In fact, I’d argue that while everyone that has served on the board has worked in the technical field, and probably had some success, they aren’t necessarily qualified to lead a non-profit with $1m+ in revenue. At least not more qualified than you or any other member of the community.

Even me.

Let’s grow up a bit. Let’s recognize that the board is a part of the community, and keep it that way. If someone wants to run, meets the criteria, let them run. Anything else smacks of attempts to shape and control the organization in some way.

Any way, whether good or bad, is unnecessary.