Recording Sessions for the Virtual Summit

Posted on October 9, 2020 by way0utwest

A week ago the SQL Bits conference took place in London, sort of. The event was virtual, but it was held during the London timezone, which makes sense as all the organizers are there.

A few weeks before this, PASS announced that they wanted speakers to record their sessions in advance of the Virtual Summit. Some speakers were already doing this for SQL Bits, but I saw lots of complaints in blogs, on Twitter, and various other places. I understand the complains, and the concerns over the time needed. I also understand the equipment concerns, which can be an issue for some people.

I feel all those things myself.

This post talks about how I view this process for 2020. If you want to know what the platform looks like, I have another post on that.

My Advice

I’ve talked with a few people, all of whom have different views on this. My approach for this is to forget about the issues and prepare as you would for any other conference, albeit with a deadline being 2 weeks early.

Write your presentation, build the deck, practice the demos.

Then just record it. Set aside a quiet time, and put a timer on your desk and start recording. If you make a mistake, treat it like you are on stage and keep going.

Stumble over words, keep going. Have a demo break, move on or spend 30s trying to debug it. Just like on stage.

Get the recording done and make sure it’s under time. If things really went poorly, then correct them in your demo, practice again, and record one more time.

That’s it.

Don’t spend more time or effort. This is a conference, we all have things go wrong, so adapt to them as you might on stage.

Perfection Is an Enemy

I tend to not want a lot of mistakes, and often end up with 5, 10, or more takes for some things I record. I may spend lots of time editing, or re-watching the recording and trying to decide what to do.

I may practice a talk 10 or more times before I give it, including going through it the night before. I often set a timer, close my door, tell my wife I’m busy, and run through things in real time. I may even speak out loud, working through tough times. I try not to fix anything while I’m rehearsing, but I might make a quick note on a pad.

I worry when I have to do recordings because an hour of recording could easily be 20+ hours of stuff. However, much of that 20 hours is also what I spend getting ready for a conference. So I’ll do that part and ignore any minor mistakes.

Just prepare as best you can, test equipment, and then pretend you are on stage.

If you really hate the recording, I might request that PASS delete it after the year of access for attendees. I may do that anyway.

There are three options people have noted that might help some of you. If you just need slides, you can record directly in PowerPoint. You can also record in Teams, if you have access to that platform. Zoom is a great tool, and you can do a limited recording for free. I have an account and happy to help record you remotely if you need it.

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Daily Coping 9 Oct 2020

Posted on October 9, 2020 by way0utwest

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.

Today’s tip is to be a realistic optimist. See life as it is, but focus on what’s good.

I think that I’ve lived my life as a realist. Sometimes pessimistic, but more I’m careful and conservative, not looking to take changes. I often see the problems with some approach or decision. My wife is constantly optimistic, so she helps me balance out.

As we go through this pandemic, I am optimistic. I actually think that we will get back to many of the things we love in the next year. Already I’m back to coaching volleyball and my team is competing. No parents, wearing masks, but we’re playing.

I have a couple trips planned, and I saw that no infections in the US were linked to plane flights, so I do think we’ll start traveling more in 2021. I’m working on an event of some sort in Denver, and I’m hopeful that some people will start planning and executing events in 2021 as well.

I think we need to improve testing, and I think we will. Already we’re seeing better tests coming out. I am sure we’ll get a vaccine, though I think that is more likely a summer or later in 2021 timeframe for many of us.

Realistically the world has changed, especially for business and conferences, but we will find ways to move forward.

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Pulling Together

Posted on October 8, 2020 by way0utwest

When the COVID-19 Pandemic grew rapidly in early 2020, medical supplies were in short supply. Different areas and organizations struggled with different types of issues, and one of the higher profile issues was with ventilators. In March, the projections were dire and quite a few hospitals were worried about the supplies of these devices. This was especially disconcerting given how many people were being placed on them and how long it takes to produce them.

I met someone at that time that said getting a car company to produce these wasn’t possible. The factories were specialized and converting machinery and people wasn’t something that could be done in months. This was someone that claimed to have over 30 years of manufacturing experience.

I had no basis to argue, though my instinct was that we have mobilized large industrial efforts in the past. When I read this article recently, it made me think about that conversation. Microsoft worked with a number of manufacturers to produce ventilators quickly, up to 400 a day in the UK. The story is interesting, and it shows that engineers at companies like Ford, McLaren, Unilever, Rolls-Royce, and more can not only work together, but also focus their efforts in a crisis. With the help of technology and data, they transformed a manufacturing process from the ground up to meet the needs of the UK.

If you watch the video of the effort, it is amazing to see just how knowledge and data are brought together to ensure these devices can be built quickly, and at a very high level of quality. Certainly some PR is involved here, but the keys to success in producing something are the knowledge and skills being applied to a task. Products like dashboards and the Hololens help to move knowledge around where it is needed. In building software, tools like Live Share help to move knowledge from one person to another.

The coordination of people working together, driving to a common goal, is critical as well. DevOps asks us to practice this, choosing to be a team, with the goal of increasing quality while we focus on delivering software to customers. This is a great story, but one that highlights things that many of us could strive for in our daily work.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

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Daily Coping 8 Oct 2020

Posted on October 8, 2020 by way0utwest

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.

Today’s tip is to write down your most important goals for this month.

A little late, 8 days, but still time to do this. I am not a huge an of this, but as I think about this month, which is busy for me, what do I want to accomplish?

  • Presentations done and recorded for the PASS Summit
  • Finalize planning for the Nov Denver SUG meeting and start to promote it.
  • Winter prep around the ranch, a little vehicle maintenance, markers on the driveway, and gas drained/stabilized from a few tools for the winter
  • Work hard to enjoy time with family on a vacation trip. Engage and deal with the extra social time and time zone changes.
  • Book extra time for my team to practice volleyball during the month.
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