Voice of the DBA

Tag: PASS

  • Promotions and Conflicts of Interest

    I noticed my co-worker, friend, and PASS board member, Grant Fritchey, posted a note on members of the PASS Board of Directors (BoD) presenting pre-cons at SQL Saturday events. It’s potentially a legal issue, and conflict of interest. I’m glad that the issue is being raised, and discussed publically. Here’s Grant’s question:

    The question is simple, for a PASS branded event, should a member of the PASS board receive payment?

    There’s two parts to this, because there are two events. There are events that the organization runs and takes legal and financial responsibility for, and there are events associated with PASS, but run by others who have responsibility.

    My short answer is yes to local events, and no to events run by the PASS board. I’ve read through some of the comments and I have some thoughts.

    PASS Run Events

    First, events run by the organization, such as the Summit and BAC, are different. The BoD can vote on aspects of these events, and can override the decisions on which individuals are chosen. With that being the case, I think there is a clear conflict of interest here and for the limited time the BoD members serve, they should not be a part of these events. Whether they receive direct payment or not, I’d say no.

    There was a conflict about this a few years ago, and I think it was justified. If you serve, you can’t present a pre-conference (or post) session. You have other duties, and a responsibility here.

    If your business or your employer wants you to be a part of this event in a different way, resign one position or the other.

    SQL Saturdays

    Really this could be any event that PASS might support or lend their name to, but doesn’t have any financial (or likely, legal) responsibility. This is trickier, as certainly the ability to bestow favors on the organizers of these events in terms of choosing them for PASS run events is possible. However I’d say that this is very unlikely, and hasn’t been an abuse of power. If that changes, I’d change my opinion

    I think that the BoD members are still speakers and well respected trainers, and I really have no issue with them being accepted to present a pre-con and being paid by the events. I’d like the fact disclosed, but this doesn’t seem to be a conflict of interest to me at this point.

    It’s also good for the community.

  • Looking Back at Summit 2015

    Last week was the 2015 PASS Summit in Seattle. It’s the largest SQL Server specific gathering of data professionals in the world, and it’s an exciting week. If you work with SQL Server in the US and have the opportunity to attend, I’d recommend you go. If you’re in Europe, I prefer SQL Bits, but either of these events is exciting and inspiring.

    The week began for me with SQL in the City 2015 – Seattle. As I work for Redgate I was tasked with presenting the event. The day started with my helping our CEO deliver the keynote. We’d done this a few weeks earlier in London, so we’d had some practice. I think the opening went well, and I enjoyed it.

    Photo Oct 26, 4 46 43 PM

    Immediately after I had a session on database version control. There were lots of great questions, so many that I ran a bit long. However it was good to see some great advocates of VCS in the audience as well as people interested in the topic.

    Photo Oct 26, 9 05 53 AM

    I also ran a panel on DevOps and smoother database development. I often don’t like panels, but this is a great topic, and with a number of consultants on stage, we had some good discussions. I would like to see more of these at events, especially with people that are building software successfully. They have great stories to tell.

    The Monday night networking dinner went well. It was a bit crowded at the Yard House, but Andy and I spoke with the managers Tuesday and we have some different plans for next year. However we had over 150 people stop by, which is a great crowd.

    Photo Oct 27, 8 22 43 PM

    It’s always a pleasure catching up with friends who I rarely see in person. Especailly the great Pinal Dave, one of the few that’s been to the ranch.

    Tuesday was a quiet day for me. I went to the SQL Saturday organizer meeting, seeing some changes coming to the SQL Saturday site as well as concerns and requests from organizers. With most of the people in Seattle at a pre-conference session on Tuesday, things were quiet. I also had some rehearsals for my testing talk to go over, so I spent the afternoon in my room going over demos.

    I did take a break for #sqlyoga with Daniel de Sousa. I have come to enjoy yoga, and would like to see some organizations at other events. It’s just as enjoyable as a #sqlrun. It was the two of us and lots of young people in downtown Seattle, but a great break.

    Speaking of which, Wednesday morning I met up with Allen White and a few others for a morning #sqlrun along the water. This has been a bit of a tradition for many people, and we had a good group of 20 or so jogging along.

    The rest of Wednesday was a few lightning talks at the Redgate booth and a couple live practice sessions of my talk in my hotel room. Not very exciting, but this was the end of a stressful month with lots of travel.

    Both Tuesday and Wednesday night have evening events at the convention center. Tuesday is the opening reception, with lots of people milling around a large room with some appetizers and drinks. Wednesday is in the expo hall, with dinner and drinks and the chance for vendors to meet attendees. It was a large crowd both nights, with the chance to see lots of friends in the SQL community and meet new people.

    Thursday had me watching Dr. Dewitt and Dr. Nehme’s keynote on my laptop while I did a little other work. I have to say that the live keynote was probably better, but this was an interesting topic on IoT. You can rewatch it if you missed it. Then I went to a DocumentDB session, supposed to show case studies of who’s using the technology. We heard a little of that, but not much technical detail, and the session went sideways with lots of antagonistic, almost angry, questions from the attendees. I really wish SQL Server people wouldn’t be so upset about NoSQL technologies. They work in places, so let’s discuss where things work well.

    Lunch had me in the expo hall for a bit before taking our Argenis Without Borders 2.0 picture. We raised $25k for Doctors Without Borders, which is amazing. Thanks to everyone that participated.

    Photo Nov 01, 8 02 33 AM

    My session on testing T-SQL code went well. Lots of questions, lots of people. I walked in a few minutes before my start time to find 150 or so people in the room, which was amazing. I thought I’d get 15 people to talk testing, and I’m glad so many people are interested in the topic. Hopefully I inspired a few people to start testing code.

    Photo Oct 29, 4 19 47 PM

    That was really the end of the event for me. I had missed most of lunch, so I went for a short snack before the Friends of Redgate dinner. A late night hour with the Varigence Biml crowd before getting to bed. Then I was off Friday for home, capping off 18 days of travel for the month.

    Photo Oct 30, 8 47 59 AM

    This was a quiet conference for me. With pressures to deliver a good presentation for the first time, I spent more time than I expected getting prepared. However it was great to see so many friends and fellow #sqlfamily people at the event, and I enjoyed the conversations and pictures on Twitter throughout.

    I missed being there Friday, hearing about everything online, but I was also worn out from the month. My apologies if you wanted to say hi and couldn’t find me. Thanks if you took a few minutes to chat with me.

    The event comes back to Seattle next year, and hopefully I’ll spend more time at the event.

  • No Live Blogging

    The PASS Summit opens today with the first keynote. This is one of the few times that I’ve declined the blogging table at PASS. The table has grown, it’s become a bit loud at times, and the pressure to take notes and push them out distracts me from listening and thinking.

    As  a result, I’ll be in trying to think about what’s happening and what it might mean for our industry. Having given keynotes and developed them, I know it’s a marketing show, and a bit of entertainment. However it also can generate some excitement, and certainly the ideas shown can influence managers and executives, which can free up money for us to play with.

    I’m a bit excited to see what’s coming, and what Microsoft might announce. If you’re not at the Summit, jump on the PassTV channel and watch live.

  • SQL in the City Comes to Seattle in 3 Days

    Last week I spoke at SQL in the City 2015 in London, and it was a great event. We had a wonderful event, and I’m looking forward to Seattle. Lots of good questions and comments in my version control talk, good feedback on the keynote, which I really enjoyed. I thought our end of day panel was outstanding, and I wish we had 2 hours for that as the questions were amazing.

    I’m looking forward to a duplication of SQL in the City in Seattle on Monday, just a few days away. We’re going to be at the Hyatt in downtown Seattle, and we’d love to have you come. You can register and join us, but please don’t register unless you can come.

    There are also a few workshops in Seattle on Tuesday, so if you want hands on practice, come sign up for on of these.