Voice of the DBA

Tag: community

  • The Costs and Rewards of Speaking

    Most of the people I know who speak at a SQL Saturday or user group aren’t paid for their efforts. At many of the community events, the speakers are volunteering their time. Many are also paying for their own way to those events not located in their area. A few, such as me, might get a company to cover their travel expenses, but often this doesn’t include time. If I attend a SQL Saturday, I still have a bunch of work on M-F that needs to be done. No comp time for these events. That being said, I’m happy to donate some time and money to community events.

    Some speakers build and teach full-day sessions, usually called pre-conference sessions, for which they are paid. There can be competition at large events like the PASS Data Community Summit and SQL Bits to get a session since the payment can be rewarding. I’ve seen some speakers make USD$1k or so, which can cover travel expenses, and others make over USD$10k, which is a nice payday.

    Most of us don’t want to teach a full day of sessions, usually because it’s a lot of work to build a day of training. It’s also very nerve-wracking to try and teach people who have paid you. A lot of speakers don’t really want to deal with that stress. I’ve done it, and it is hard work. I don’t deliver pre-cons at events because I get expenses covered at lots of events and prefer not to compete with others who might want to earn some money while growing their careers.

    However, lots of people want to share their knowledge and teach others something useful. It’s been amazing to me how many people have stepped up to submit sessions and present them at events all over the world. I’ve been lucky and honored to meet many of these volunteers and call them friends.

    When Andy, Brian, and I started SQL Saturday, we weren’t sure there would be enough speakers to run 10 events in a year in 10 cities. At the time, the PASS Summit and a few other conferences were the only places to speak outside of user groups and we weren’t sure there would actually be enough people in a community willing to speak to run a conference. We also weren’t sure that many people would travel outside their home area to speak.

    I’m thrilled we were wrong. So many people have volunteered their time and energy to build a session and then deliver it at user groups and local events that there are often more speakers than spaces available for them. I’m also glad that so many of you attend and support local events.

    Speaking can be intimidating, but I know many of you can do it. It’s scary, and it’s something I never thought I’d do when I left university. It is a lot of work, it interrupts your free time, and it doesn’t pay you any hard currency after a session. However, it’s also thrilling to help others, exciting to have them listen to you, it hones your communication skills, and it is impressive to employers. On balance, I’d say that even delivering a presentation at your local user group is a profitable endeavor and a memorable experience.

    I hope we continue to see more of you willing to deliver a session for your peers, share some of your knowledge. I also hope that we see more of you stepping up to help organize a SQL Saturday or another local event in your community.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

    Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

  • Speakers Are Normal People

    The #SQLFamily is amazing, at least I think it is. Like many families, it’s welcoming, supportive, and comforting. It’s also maddening, frustrating, and exacerbating at times. Like most families, or at least the ones I know, it’s not perfect, but it’s what we have and at the end of the day, most of us get along with each other.

    It’s also an open group of people. In general, we welcome people with open arms and smiles. Those of us that are more visible or prominent are willing to listen to, help, and support anyone. I was overjoyed during the recent PASS Data Community Summit, where I had the chance to see so many people that I haven’t seen in person in 2-3 years. I met many other interesting people for the first time and enjoyed the experience.

    Not everyone feels the same way. I loved seeing Kimberly Tripp and Paul Randal for the first time in years and was honored to share the stage with them for the Community Keynote. I enjoyed the time we spent together, but afterwards Paul wrote about some people not feeling included or welcome.

    I understand that feeling. In many ways, much of adult life can mimic teenage years in high school with cliques and pettiness. I won’t pretend that doesn’t happen in the #SQLFamily, but I find it quite minimized, especially compared with many other communities of which I’ve been a part in the past. I haven’t seen the higher profile speakers and leaders in the SQL Community dismiss someone for asking a question or expressing an opinion. I have, however, seen that in other communities.

    It can be intimidating to walk up to someone that you don’t know who you might feel is famous or well known. It can be intimidating to just walk up to a group of people who are talking when they appear to know each other. I have that feeling at times even today, so I appreciate feeling like an outsider. In the Summit keynote, I talked about the thrill in meeting Kalen Delaney in 1999 and shaking her hand. I was nervous and intimidated to ask her a question after her presentation. At the time I hadn’t delivered a talk in front of anyone outside of school environments and was a fairly introverted geek. It was hard to step up and make that effort, but I’m glad I did.

    As Paul writes, anyone is welcome in the #SQLFamily. Anyone can join. You don’t have to come shake a hand or say hi, but I’m happy when you do. Will we be best friends right away? Probably not. Will we go out to dinner that night? Maybe. I’ve certainly met attendees at events and then had dinner with them. I know plenty of other speakers who have as well.

    Many of the people who speak, organize, and write/blog/tweet/etc. in our industry are friends. We do value time with each other, and that can feel like a club, but it’s not. We enjoy seeing each other and want to catch up, like any group of friends. However, we are also welcoming of newcomers, so feel free to introduce yourself.

    Ultimately those of us who engage in these highly visible, extroverted acts are often just like the rest of you. We’re a mix of people that are mostly introverted, with a few extroverts thrown in. Some speakers are very smart and talented, some are more like me: we know enough to get the things done that we’re asked to do.  Some of us love to go out and sing karaoke until all hours of the night and others prefer a small dinner or a little tabletop gaming in a quiet environment.

    My encouragement to get people to meet others, network, set up events or meetups, and more isn’t to try and convince any of you to join the cool kids club. It’s not to get you to change who you are.

    It’s to help you find your tribe. To find your kind of people.

    I’d love to greet all of you with a hug at events, call you by name, and go out to dinner with you. I can’t because there isn’t enough time in the day. And quite frankly, I really, really value my alone time. What I want more than anything is for you to be successful, find a great job or career you relish, and for you to enjoy spending time with those you enjoy. Whoever and wherever that is. That takes some effort, but it’s worth the energy involved.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

  • T-SQL Tuesday #148–User Group Advice

    tsqltuesdayThis month the T-SQL Tuesday invitation is from Rie Merritt, and it’s one that means a lot to me. I don’t actually run a user group, but I think community is important. It’s a big part of my job and my life.

    Rie asked me if she could host this month because she had a specific topic. If you’d like to host a T-SQL Tuesday, all you need is a blog and participation in another month by writing a post. You could even write a post today for T-SQL Tuesday #1.

    If you’re interested, contact me.

    Advice for User Groups

    As I mentioned, I don’t run a group. In fact, I never have, but I have run events, attended lots of meetings, and I do speak at quite a few.

    The pandemic has been hard on many groups, and a blessing to others. While I don’t like the virtual meetings, I understand how and why they work for some groups and not for others.

    My big advice for organizers is twofold, and I’ll write a couple paragraphs about each.

    Serve Your Community

    My main advice is that your work with groups or events, whether leader, speaker, or something else, you ought to make sure you are serving your community. What is best for them, or what do they want?

    Sometimes I find leaders doing what’s best for them, without knowing what the community might prefer. If you want virtual meetings for your own personal reasons, whatever they are,  make sure a large portion of your attendees and speakers agree. Same for in-person meetings. If your area wants to stay online, understand that.

    This isn’t to say that you can’t experiment, and that you might make decisions on days/times/etc. More it’s advice to think about what helps people as we come out of this pandemic.

    Go Slow

    I’ve seen a lot of groups struggle over time to run a monthly meeting and find speakers. Speakers are easier online, but it’s still work.

    My advice is that you can consider doing something less than monthly, especially if you move to hybrid or in-person. A quarterly or every-other-month pace might suit you (and others better).

    Also think about adding in some lunch meetings, perhaps just discussion ones without a presentation. Bond, be social, just talk, vent, and share what we love about data and technology.

    Don’t kill yourself. I’d prefer you enjoy running a group for 3 years than burning out after 6 months.

  • A New Community Summit

    The PASS Summit has been an annual event for a lot of my career. I attended the first one in 1999 and most of the rest through the years. After last year’s virtual Summit, I was concerned that we wouldn’t have an annual event where the most, brightest, and friendliest data platform people came together. Redgate purchased the assets out of the PASS bankruptcy and has committed to future Summits. This year’s Summit is virtual, and more importantly…

    It’s free, and you can register today

    Free to attend the main conference, which means you have the opportunity to go to the largest Data Platform focused conference for no charge. Just ask your boss for a little time to learn, get inspired, and interact with your colleagues around the world.. There are still pre-cons that cost money (US$200), but all the proceeds go to the speakers. A great opportunity to learn from experts and support them at a cost you likely won’t see at a major event.

    I don’t love virtual events, and I do hope that we get back to live conferences, but I do like that everyone can come to the Summit this year without asking their employer, or their household, to fund the effort. Microsoft is a major sponsor and will keynote at the event, likely with some exciting SQL Server and data platform news coming. Lots of other sponsors will be there as well, which I’m pleased about because sponsors are an important part of events and user groups in our community.

    If you want to know what types of sessions are coming, the best of Summit 2020 is available for you to watch, again for no cost. This year there are three themes, Back to Basics, Reach for the Clouds, and Level Up. I’m glad for the cloud track as the cloud has continued to grow faster than I expected, with so many friends, customers, and clients looking to move portions of their data workloads into a cloud situation. I’m also glad to see the career advancement Level Up track becoming a place of focus, as actively managing your career is something I feel strongly about. Hopefully, I’ll get to deliver a session in that track. As of the time I’m writing this, I know I have one session, but not sure if the program is complete.

    While Kathi and Grant are managing the process, community volunteers are reviewing, rating, and making choices about sessions. That’s one thing I’m glad to see. There is a strong community effort in helping to program the conference. While I know paid professional staff organizes things and configures the platform (we contracted with a few people that have helped run the conference in the past), it’s the community that should really help decide which speakers and sessions they want to see. I’m hoping that some of the fun things like networking, the photo walk, and more are a part of the event.

    There’s no good reason to not attend the Summit this year. Unless you’re buried with a deadline the week of Nov 8, 2021, ask your boss for some time, register, and come join me in watching some sessions, chatting with old friends, making new ones, and getting excited about what you can do with data in 2021.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.