Voice of the DBA

Tag: PASS

  • Rating PASS Abstracts

    I was on a committee to help rate abstracts for the PASS Summit this year. It was an interesting and challenging experience. I learned some things, and I can better appreciate that this is a tough job. It’s hard to try and choose what people want, what will interest people, and what makes the Summit a better sell to potential attendees. Or at least their managers.

    I found some flaws in the process, at least things that I thought made it a difficult set of decisions for me. I wanted to list them out, not to blame anyone, but to give some insight into the process, and perhaps get some ideas on how to better serve the community in the future.

    Here’s the basic process:

    • People submit abstracts. This year they could see what else was submitted prior to their entry. I believe they could edit theirs, but not sure.
    • All abstracts were put in an XLS and sent to committee members.
    • We had a tool on the PASS site which allowed us to rate each abstract in four areas. Ratings were 1-10, and were in these areas: Abstract, topic, speaker, subjective.
    • Once all sessions in our area were rated, the committee scheduled a call to review the overall rating.
    • We picked a certain number of sessions in various tracks along with alternates.
    • People get notified.

    A quick list of the issues I saw, and I’ll give some more detailed thoughts on each one of these. However I’m curious about any feedback as well from other people that are interested.

    • My first issue was that I didn’t really have a set of guidelines for what each rating meant. What is abstract v topic v subjective? Speaker I could figure out, but what do you do if you don’t know the speaker or haven’t seen them talk? We actually had people rating this differently
    • I find it difficult to actually rate things on a 1-10 scale. What’s a 7 v 8 v 9? I found myself struggling and probably inconsistently rated things. I might give someone an 8 in one area, and then find a very similar item and give it a 7. This is a hard one
    • I didn’t have much feedback on how other people in the community felt about speakers.
    • I didn’t have much feedback on how other people in the community felt about topics, or these specific sessions.
    • It was hard to tell if we were covering all types of topics in SQL Server. I only saw one replication submission in the spotlight sessions. No idea if there were any in the regular sessions.
    • I had no insight into what other groups were doing for their tracks. For all I know we all picked SSIS ETL sessions and everyone left out fuzzy matching or data mining.
    • I have no idea what speakers submitted in other tracks or areas.

    Some of these worked themselves out, so they aren’t major complaints. As an example, we discussed our ratings, and didn’t necessarily pick the top xx in some area. We moved around, and sometimes picked sessions rated much lower.

    As I mentioned, I’ll post some notes on each of these areas in more detail, assuming I can disclose things. Please feel free to comment on what you think we should do to pick sessions of more value to everyone.

  • PASS, Don’t Waste My Time

    Update: Apparently I can’t write, or get a point across from the comments and a few emails, so I have edited this to hopefully make it clearer.

    The pre/post conference sessions came out today for the 2010 SQL PASS Summit. And to my surprise the list of sessions wasn’t quite what I expected.
    I know I complained last year about the selections, and a few people said that I should get involved if I didn’t like the way things were done. So I did. I volunteered and wound up on the Pre/Post Con and Spotlight committee. I spent quite a few hours of my time reviewing abstracts, emailing with the speakers to get more information, and then rating sessions. I got on a conference call, with all that prep work, and debated the choices with the others and think we had a great list of sessions. We, the three members of the committee, sent our decisions over to PASS over a week ago. Actually I think two weeks ago.
    Only the sessions I the committee I was on had picked aren’t the same ones as the ones PASS published.
    <insert four letter words here>
      ______-_______ _______ ________ ______ ______
    </four letter words rant>
    I understand that PASS needs to make money from these sessions, and there are marketing issues involved. However the instructions I had stated that my committee “Make decisions with regard to all Program aspects of PASS Community Summit.” (emphasis mine)
    Apparently that’s not the case. I’m not going to disclose which session I picked that didn’t make it, and which one  got picked instead. That’s not fair to either speaker, and not the point.
    If marketing, money, other issues are the important ones, that’s fine. If you ask others to pick sessions, and supposedly decide on what the community wants to see and what is good for PASS, then let the committee do that. I can’t speak for the rest of my committee, but we were caught off guard and not happy with this decision. I’m upset because I wanted to make a difference to this process, try to do a good job, defend the decisions of the committee and take the flack for those decisions. I was also trying to ensure that PASS wasn’t choosing people because they’re a part of some “old speakers network”. I feel I’ve failed there since I didn’t make a difference, and the old speaker’s club reigned.

    If that’s the way PASS wants to work, let some non-SQL, non-DBA, non-volunteer honk just rank everyone and pick the sessions they think are important. Publish the rules and guidelines and make it happen.
    Just don’t waste my time as a volunteer.

    To be clear: My committee sent selections to PASS some time ago. We were not informed, queried, or told of any changes. One of our pre-con sessions was demoted to an alternate. One we picked as an alternate, not sure it was one we wanted to see, was moved to a regular session. Nothing in the comments below seems to give a good reason for this.

  • SQLSaturday Bequeathed to PASS

    I guess you could look at this one of two ways. Either PASS acquired SQL Saturday, or we (Andy, Brian, and I) bequeathed it to PASS. The truth is it’s a bit of both. We were looking to get some help in keeping the SQLSaturday events going, while also freeing up the time required to make them happen.

    This was mostly Andy’s baby, from start to finish, with support from Brian and I, so the credit really goes to Andy. He came up with the idea, did most of the work with various people around the country to get the events setup and running, and he attended more than anyone. I think most of the event organizers would agree that Andy’s mentoring was invaluable in getting the SQL Saturday franchises up and running.

    This was a non-profit venture, which really didn’t make any money for the SQL Share (formerly End to End Training and JumpstartTV) company. It was a nice marketing move, it was great for the community, and I think a fantastic idea for keeping the SQL Server community vibrant. It was also a little bit of a time sink. That wasn’t great for something that wasn’t generating any revenue in this economy.

    This is a perfect venture for PASS to be involved in. It fits their mission, and I’m looking forward to seeing even more events in the future under the PASS/SQL Saturday brand.

    I had the privilege of going to 3 or 4 events over the last few years, and I’m looking to try to get to a few more this year. I’ll still be supporting the events, and speaking when I can.

  • PASS Board of Directors – Call for Nominations

    Well I feel a little strange making an announcement about this since I’m not running. A number of people have asked me to run, and I considered it, but I can’t this year. Or at least I’m not willing to right now. I’ll give you a few thoughts on the position and then give you my reasons.

    The Call for Nominations

    It’s open now, and if you want to run, or know someone, you can nominate them here. The page lists a bunch of qualifications and benefits that board members have to deal with or get.  The deadline is Sept 3, so just a week left.

    If you have been working with the community, and enjoy it, then think about running. It’s the chance to help the community and make a difference in how our professional organization runs. You can get some good experience and have a nice resume bullet. It won’t hurt if you are looking for an MVP award as well.

    My feelings are that a board member should be:

    Employed as an FTE at a company – Nothing against consultants, but I think they have a hard conflict in dealing with clients when PASS calls. We’ve had a lot of consultants over the years on the board, and I don’t always think it has worked out well.

    However you should be in a stable situation with your company, and your boss needs to support 3-4 3 day trips a year. I’d ask if your boss is OK with it, and ask them to treat this as an educational experience, just like tuition reimbursement. Only instead of $$, you need some time off.

    Have Volunteer Experience – It doesn’t have to be with PASS, but you should have some nice long term volunteer experience. It can be with your church, Scouts, or some other group, but it’s hard to understand what type of commitment this can be if you haven’t been through it. I don’t think a board of directors is the place to start.

    Have Completed Projects as the PM – This can be a development project, a deployment, but something where you had to manage or direct other people to get things done. As a board member you’ll need to manage volunteers, keep them on task, and be aware of what they’re doing. Again, if you haven’t done it, this isn’t the place to learn.

    Enjoy the community – You can’t just be a great DBA. You have to enjoy meeting new people, working with them, and have a passion for helping the community. If you don’t like speaking, attending user group meetings, or working with groups, this isn’t the position for you. You don’t have to be a super-go-getter that’s at every event, but if you don’t enjoy getting out and networking with other DBAs, this isn’t the place to start. You could be a great volunteer for PASS, but not a director.

    Again, if you think you might fit this profile, apply. If you want another look at what’s involved, check out Andy Warren’s blog.

    My Situation

    I really thought about this last year, and was prepared to apply. I ended up missing the deadline for no good reason, and then decided not to do it. Andy Warren did run, and has been keeping me up to date on what it has required from him. We’re business partners and talk a couple times a week, and the subject of PASS commitments comes up often.

    This year I have a wife that travels a lot, often on short notice. She’s gone about 24,000 miles on airlines so far this year, and that can make it hard for me to travel at times. I also have 3 kids in 3 different schools, and managing all their events is a bit of a juggling trick each week. Add to that my son and I are both closing in our black belts in karate and I do a fair amount of scout volunteering with one son and my daughter, so I’m limited in the time I have available for PASS.

    Red Gate was supportive of my running last year, and I’m sure they would be again this year, but I’m a little worried about the distraction of work for the PASS board. I have a mixed schedule already of short and medium length work that makes it hard to context switch some times. I’m also a little worried about the conflict of interest if both Andy and I are on the board at the same time.

    Next year things should be different. One son leaves for college, karate will slow down, and Andy may not run for a second term. I’m not committing to run, but I’ll be in a better situation to handle the load.

    In any case, I’d like to see some new directors on the board. I think PASS has had too many people run for multiple terms in the past and I’d like to have a few new faces to congratulate in November.