Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • T-SQL Tuesday #14–Resolutions

    tsql2sdayIt’s T-SQL Tuesday time again, and this month the Midnight DBAs (Jen’s blog | Sean’s blog | @MidnightDBA) are hosting the party. You can read about the whole T-SQL Tuesday blog party idea from Adam Machanic (blog, Twitter) if you want, and if you want to participate, you have a few hours left.

    Resolutions

    The theme this month is resolutions. That’s interesting because this was the first year in quite some time where I haven’t set goals or resolutions for the new year. I’m behind and somewhat unsure of what I want to do in life.

    However, it’s T-SQL Tuesday, so I need to think of something if I want to participate.

    I recently received an offer to take the MCM written test for SQL Server. There was no downside for me, so I signed up. And I pushed back the test a month since I wasn’t ready. I could say that my goal is to get the MCM this year, or to pass the written test, but that wouldn’t be right. I have reasons I’ll blog about later, but suffice it to say those aren’t resolutions.

    However I would like to make an honest effort to pass the written test. I haven’t had production responsibilities on a SQL Server instance in years, and while I know a lot about SQL Server, and understand how many things work, I don’t have to practically apply that knowledge, and so I’m rusty.

    I’d like to remedy some of that this year. I have been watching the MCM readiness videos, trying to learn some things and get prepared. Part of the reason I pushed back the test was because I hadn’t had a chance to watch all the videos and read the other prep material. I’m still working my way through things, and hope to be better prepared when the test comes around.

    My resolution is to really make an honest effort over the next month. Not cramming, and making this a single-focus-I-have-to-get-it-all-done, but make a good effort, my best effort given my busy life, and do as well as I can on the test.

    Kind of a nebulous resolution, but I can say that I didn’t make a solid effort in December, and I’m working to fix that now.

  • Background Rebuilding

    I moved my blog over the weekend from Blogspot to WordPress. Mostly because I like the WordPress platform better, and because I wanted to consolidate my editorials, blogs, etc.

    However on the import from Blogger, which was very cool and smooth, all my posts came in with their tags as the categories. I think that was my fault, but I wanted to fix it and so I started to re-classify the posts as I get time. It’s good background work, and will continue over the next few weeks, so if the blog looks funny for now, that’s why.

  • Thinking about goals for 2011

    The SQL community is inspiring, and there are a lot of people that work hard to contribute to it. With all the efforts (I hesitate to use the word “competition”), it inspires others to try harder and do more. It’s no wonder we have a huge number of SQL Server MVPs, well over 200.

     

    I’ve somewhat gotten trapped in the “I should do more” mentality, spurred on by my talks with Andy Warren (LinkedIn | Blog | @sqlandy) and his efforts, reading about all the events others go to, seeing the regular blogs, tweets, and Facebook posts about user group meetings. However as I look forward to 2011, I realize that I can’t “compete” with others, and I can’t necessarily do more.

     

    I do feel the need to give back to others. This community has given me a great career, and I would like to do what I can to help others. That’s the “Purpose” part of Drive that I think we all need. At this point in my life, the purpose seems to be more important to me than it has been in the past.

    But life is busy. As I think about 2011, I want to do more SQL Saturdays, make more of a commitment to the local user groups (3 in CO), try to grow beyond SQL and teach/talk to the .NET and Windows groups, maybe reach some college kids and help them prepare for the workforce.

    I can’t do it all. I need to step back and focus on what is effective, efficient, and doable. I want to get some goals that make sense for this point in my career, realizing that I can only do so much and still take care of my family.

    I’ve committed to 4 SQL Saturdays and 1 other local event. As much as I’d like to go back to a few places, I realize that I need to hit some new events. Please feel free to ask me to come to your event, and I will consider it, but remember that I cannot travel every weekend. I will keep invitations in mind, and I have a queue of places that I could not make in the past, but will try to get to in the future. Chicago and Dallas didn’t make 2010, but they are on my 2011 list. My apologies to Malathi in Louisville for missing that city, but they will have top priority in the future. Columbia has sadly conflicted every time with me, but I will get down there to see Brian one of these years.

    As things stand now, I am thinking that some of the conferences are going to be out for me because of the stress that travel places on the family. Or at least my time will be cut down. I only spent two days at TechEd last year, and it’s possible that I might do the same for more conferences this year.

    Other goals are working on the MCM written test for now. That’s my SQL Server goal and while I don’t think this is the year for me to take the lab, I think the exposure to the process and the effort to learn more about SQL Server is well spent.

    A lot of words above to say I don’t know what I should do 10 days into Jan, but this week will hopefully allow me to focus on getting more specific items down.

  • Building Better Communication Skills

    I think that one of the most valuable skills that someone in technology can have is the ability to communicate with others. It doesn’t matter whether you write code, rack servers, or sit in meetings with business people, it is important that you find a way to express clearly what you want, need, or would expect from someone else. If you can’t, you will find that you often struggle to get anything accomplished in an efficient manner.

    It’s possible that you can get by with verbal communications in many instances, but it seems that so much gets done by written communications of some sort. Especially these days where it seems that so much of the interaction between people takes place through email, IM, or even Twitter. We are constantly using some form of written text to convey information between each other.

    However it seems that many people don’t place a premium on building better writing skills. When I talk to many people at SQL Saturdays, most of them are hesitant to try something like blogging. The most common complaint: I hate writing.

    But we have to do it constantly at work and working on your writing skills will not only help you to communicate better, but it will also help you learn to better organize your own thoughts. You will have a better understanding of the logical thought process, which might even help you build better code.

    Steve Jones