Voice of the DBA

Tag: speaking

  • On the Road Again – SQL Saturday #90

    I’m leaving this morning for Oklahoma City for SQL Saturday #90. This is my first time traveling to Oklahoma City and I’m looking forward to it. I’m thinking to check out the National Cowboy Museum, I need to see the national memorial, and of course, get it in a run. It looks like the event isn’t too far from the river, so I might get it in run along there.

    I have a light schedule for the event, which is good for me. I have the opening keynote and then a lunchtime demo session of Red Gate tools. That’s about all I want to do, having learned the hard way that more than 2 sessions is a lot of work. I’m happy to do three if someone drops out, but I’d rather not.

    It should be a good event, and I’m looking forward to seeing OKC for the first time.

  • Feedback from SQL Saturday #64 in Baton Rouge

    I did my session on The Top Ten SQL Server Skills You Need for the first time in Baton Rouge at SQL Saturday #64. This was my first time doing this session, which I hate doing at a large event. I had hoped to get to a user group and get this scheduled, but I didn’t have time or the freedom to get it scheduled in a busy summer.

    So I went through a dozen practice sessions and hoped for the best. Once again I was packing in a lot of information into an hour, really 55 minutes, and moving quickly.

    The session was busy, with the auditorium holding about 100 people. I went through the list, and made it through on time. With a clock on the wall, I could watch and keep myself to about 5 minutes per section. I’m blogging about the ten things over time, so most of the info will get out here, and the deck is available from the event site.

    I ended up with 71 evaluations, which was amazing. Usually I get much less, but with this event at a college, and with a beginner session, perhaps that isn’t surprising. The ratings across all categories averaged above 4, and an overall rating of 4.7. I guess I did OK, and am looking forward to presenting this at the PASS Summit in October.

    Once again, not many comments, but a few constructive ones:

    • Maybe more time per slide to make better notes – I can understand this, though I did not at the beginning that I was moving fast and the deck would be available. Perhaps I need to mention this a few times during the session for latecomers or to reinforce this.
    • I was expecting something more in-depth – This is a hard one. It’s always a battle to try and get enough content in there and cover it in depth. One of the things that one hour sessions don’t do well is go very in depth into a topic unless it is very narrowly focused. I’ll have to think about what I could change here, but I’m not sure I can do a lot. I was mostly trying to trigger the idea that each of these skills is something you need to work on and use in your job.
    • Speaker volume dips from time to time – Usually I’m a loud talker, but it was a large room and I was trying to turn from side to side. Have to keep this in the front of my mind as something to watch out for.

    The rest of the comments were very positive, which is nice and helps make it worthwhile.

    I’ve enjoyed my three years in Baton Rouge and looking forward to going back next year if I can.

  • Third Times a Charm – SQL Saturday #64 – Baton Rouge

    Going back to Baton Rouge again

    We’re a week away from SQL Saturday #64 in Baton Rouge, LA. It takes place on August 6, 2011 at the Patrick Taylor at LSU again, the same location as the last two years. If you’re in the area, sign up and come learn about SQL Server. I’ll be presenting two sessions, one on Red Gate tools at lunch, and one on the Top Ten SQL Server Skills You Need to Know about SQL Server.

    I did a short radio interview with WRKF that should air next Thursday to promote the event. I don’t know how many people will hear it, but there might be some people signing up, which might fill up the day. If you want to come, register soon.

    This is a great event, and it’s one of the bigger SQL Saturday’s I’ve been to every year. There are 9 tracks, including a couple .NET tracks and a Windows Phone set of sessions, so there’s plenty for everyone to do. The crew that puts the event together does a great job, and I’m sure you’ll have a great time.

    Baton Rouge is a great place, and I’m am looking forward to a run or two around University Lake. It’s hot, humid, but a nice place to jog. If you want to join me, I’ll be aiming for an early Sat am run, likely around 7:00am.

    Once again I’m flying to New Orleans and driving up to Baton Rouge. I hope to get some lunch in the Big Easy, enjoying the beautiful French Quarter before going to a very nice college town in Baton Rouge. I’m not staying Saturday night, but heading back to New Orleans for an early flight home Sunday. I’ll be at the after party, so please stop by and say hi to me.

  • Evaluating Sessions You Attend

    I have seen more than a few posts about feedback that speakers get from sessions in the last couple months. Last week Buck Woody made an attempt to build a better form that could be used for feedback, which I like, but I think it’s a little too long for most events. If you attend 3-6 sessions in a day, filling out forums like this could be a chore.

    Attendees Should Give Feedback

    I know your time is valuable, but please give some feedback. I agree with Buck that the numeric scores are useless, but I know organizers wants something. If you liked the session, give it a 10, if it was OK, a 5, and if it didn’t work for some reason, drop a 1 in there and leave it at that. Let’s just make it a simpler system because no one knows what a 6 is vs a 7.

    But Be Fair.

    The way you perceive a session is not the way everyone else does. If you think the speaker was technically wrong, tell them. If they didn’t cover what was listed in the abstract, tell them. If they wandered around the topic without making sense, tell them.

    But don’t mark up a form with bad scores because you didn’t like their music, or their shirt, or don’t agree with the approach or thought something was too (or not enough) technical. More often than not I find people are so subjective in this area, and the inappropriately send information to other attendees, or impact the speaker’s ability to present in the future.

    If you have specific complaints, speakers would appreciate hearing them. You don’t have to rate everything, but give one specific piece of criticism that you’d want changed. One thing Buck does well is give you a chance to impact a presentation, and you ought to drop one written comment (not a score) on each evaluation you turn in.

    If you don’t have something bad to say, say something.

    I know that many evaluations are used for raffles, so please feel free to fill them out quickly, but I would appreciate some feedback. I do like seeing all 4s or 5s on my scores, but they often don’t help me improve the presentation. Give me one thought about what I could do better.

    For Speakers

    If you’re a speaker, you have some idea of what goes into building a presentation, writing a description, developing flow in your presentation, and pacing. Therefore, you ought to be able to evaluate a few things for other speakers.

    You ought to be able to tell them if they hit their mark in terms of what they said they’d deliver. I think speakers often have a better perspective on evaluating this. Not that non-speaking attendees’ opinions don’t count, but they sometimes aren’t very well thought out

    If you know the speaker, drop them an email, or take a (private) moment to give them an assessment of what you thought. I routinely let others know when I think they could improve something, or have approached a session in a way that turned me (or others) off.

    If you don’t know the speaker, introduce yourself, and say “I have some constructive feedback on your session. You don’t have to do this, but I thought …”  and then explain your point of view. It’s not rude, or assuming, and believe me it’s appreciated.

    Just be aware that it’s an opinion and don’t get upset if the speaker doesn’t make the change you mentioned. You’re still one of many, and while it’s nice to hear your opinion, it’s not a marching order.