Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • MVP Summit 2011

    I am up in Redmond at the annual MVP Summit, where all Microsoft MVPs get treated to a three day conference on the Microsoft campus. It’s an event where MVPs interact various Microsoft employees and end up blogging about how NDA talked NDA and the NDA that might will be coming in NDA version of the NDA software.

    I’m joking a little as the information presented is bound by a strict NDA, and not much can be passed on by MVPs right now. At some point most of what we learn will be released to the public, but for now it’s private information. I know that’s annoying, and I found it incredibly annoying, but I will tell you a little something about this Summit that you might care about in a minute.

    The picture above shows me following Kevin Kline (blog| @KeKline) onto the campus after being dropped off at the bus. And the picture below is as far as I’m comfortable sharing what I saw.

    So what can I share about the Summit? The biggest thing I can tell you is that the SQL Server MVPs are arguing passionately for a better product. They are talking with Microsoft employees, often criticizing and explaining what is wrong with the product, and what should be fixed. They sometimes don’t balance that well with complements, but their goal is to get software that is better written, with more features, and solves the problems that most of us face on a regular basis.

    Just like most of you, the SQL Server MVPs are DBAs, developers, consultants, and other SQL Server professionals that enjoy working with SQL Server. They may promote the product as a good solution, but it’s not as some shill trying to stay in Microsoft’s good graces. In fact, I would guess there are more than a few developers that Microsoft that cringe at the thought of getting up in front of the SQL Server MVPs and trying to present information. It’s a room full of intelligent, outspoken alpha geeks that are quick to pounce on speakers and demand excellence in the finished product.

    The SQL Server MVPs are your representatives and liaisons to the SQL Server team at Microsoft. They have the chance to express the concerns and desires of the rest of you directly to the product developers more often than the average customer. So the next time you see an MVP at a user group, SQL Saturday, or somewhere else, let them know what you would like to see changed in SQL Server, what could be improved, or maybe a wish list of things to add. You can influence the people that have a little influence with Microsoft and perhaps make a difference.

    Steve Jones

    There was a fun article on the tweets coming out of the Summit from ZDNet. If you want to follow along with the comments at the Summit, there is a very active hash tag on Twitter, #MVP11.

  • Odd Questions

    What odd things have you experienced?

    Most people are aware that there are certain questions that you cannot ask someone in an interview. There are also a much larger list of questions you should not ask, but that still leaves you with a huge number of potential questions that are available for candidates.  Whether these questions actually help you find a better candidate is up for debate and a topic for another day.

    There are some famous  questions asked in interviews at Microsoft, with a book titled after one of them : How Would You Move Mt Fuji? The classic one I’ve often heard is “why is a manhole cover round?” with quite a bit of creativity given in the answers. Those aren’t the strangest questions, however. I found a survey that asked for oddball questions, and had quite a few responses. The top 25 are given in a list and there are certainly some that I would question in there.

    With many of us in the technical field being asked different types of questions, I thought this might make a good poll for the data professionals:

    What is the weirdest question you have been asked in an interview?

    In a few dozen interviews in my life, I don’t think I’ve been asked anything that I would consider oddball, and I’m not sure what I’d do if I did get one. I suppose it would depend on how the person asking the question behaved. It might certainly affect how I felt about working for the organization, and if I would continue in my quest for the job.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • Drive

    Highly recommended reading, especially for managers

    At every company I’ve ever worked, it’s been easy to tell the high performers from the low ones. There’s often a correlation between those the level of performance and the satisfaction people have in their jobs. Higher performers are often happy, and low performers are not. That isn’t necessarily 100% true, but it has seemed to work that way in most of my jobs.

    I don’t know if there’s any causality there. Are people happier because they do better I their jobs? Or if they find something in which they excel, does that make them happier? I think it’s a case of people having some level of passion about their work, that the work is important to them, and that makes them more willing to do the work and excel at it.

    I recently read Drive, by Dan Pink, and it was a book that really made me rethink the world and how I view it. The book talks about motivation and the ways that we humans are motivated to work at something. The book challenges the assumptions that most companies have used to drive workers over the last few decades: monetary rewards for high performance and punishments for a lack of effort.

    It’s a hard concept to understand, much less buy into, but there is this idea that humans like to work, that we need a task, and more importantly, we need a purpose in our lives. There is some truth to that, and I think that many experiments have shown that the majority of people will get work done, and people do want to work. You can count on people to actually do their jobs, especially in technology where we seem to enjoy solving problems and making things run efficiently.

    Not everyone is self motivated or self directed, but I think many people can be trusted to get work done, especially once they understand why it’s necessary.

    If you want and interesting book about business, give Drive a try, or check out this cool animation of Mr. Pink’s talk on the subject.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • Commuting Pain

    Commuting in traffic like this is very stressful

    It’s hard to believe that I have been running SQLServerCentral for almost ten years. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, hope I get to do it another ten years, and am thankful every day for having one of the best jobs in the world. It fits me well, and surprisingly, it’s a job I never expected to have as recent as 12 years ago.

    When I started working full time for SQLServerCentral, I also started my telecommuting career. I hadn’t ever worked outside of an office on a regular basis before that time, and now I wouldn’t want to ever go back to an office full time. Aside from all the benefits of a flexible schedule and more time with my kids, the most valuable part of working at home is the lack of a commute.

    IBM had a global commuter pain study recently, and this short video on eWeek highlights some of the results. I thought it was great that the study recognizes that there is pain involved in commuting, and the study talks about more than just lost time. There is evidence to support the idea that workers’ health is actually lowered over time from the stress and traffic issues in many cities.

    I firmly believe that investing in your health is very important for your future. If you can reduce the stress and the time spent on unproductive actions, like sitting in traffic,  you might actually find that you enjoy your job, and your life, more.

    Many managers don’t want to let employees work remotely, but you should try to convince them to let you try it. Gather stories that prove remote workers are productive, or ask to implement a pilot program. Try to prove to your manager that you can be effective a day or two a week. After all, many of you are effective away from the office when you’re on call. Why not get permission to  extend that to a few other time periods during the week.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts