Voice of the DBA

Tag: speaking

  • Help Us Help You

    Nissan GT-R
    Nissan GT-R

    Recently I was debating with some people on the quality of abstracts that were submitted to various conferences and events. There was quite a bit of discussion on the way that the summary of a presentation ought to be worded, whether your name should be in the description and various other considerations of what will attract an audience.

    To a large extent we all have our own personalities, and some of them show through in the session abstracts they write. If you look at how Brent Ozar (blog | @brento) or Buck Woody (blog | @BuckWoody) talk about their sessions, it’s quite different from those of many people. How many speakers use Nissan GT-R or arsenal in their descriptions?

    As a speaker I have a different view of the events and sessions, and more often than not I look at the speaker before the session title or description. Those often mean more to me in deciding if I want to attend. However I’m not sure that my view is the same as most of the audience.

    So…

    I’ve decided to try and help everyone out. We have created a new forum at SQLServerCentral calledPresentations and Speaking. It’s there for speakers to post their abstracts or titles and get feedback from everyone out there. This is one forum that I hope people subscribe to and go look at the entries on a regular basis.

    I’d also ask that those of you that have attended a conference or a SQL Saturday, take a minute and look at a few of the past submissions. Post a note in the comments for this editorial and let us know which abstracts made you want to attend a session and why? Or which ones made you not want to go see the session.

    With some feedback and help, you can help all the speakers out there get better at building presentations, and hopefully teaching you more about SQL Server.

    Steve Jones

    (originally published at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/72233/)

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • Cleaner Code Demos – Speaker Hints

    Recently I had the privilege of watching Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp present (separately) at SQL Server Connections. If you have never seen them talk I would highly recommend you make time if you are ever at an event with them. They do a fantastic job.

    In any case, they used SSMS quite regularly to show how various things worked in SQL Server. The thing that struck my quite quickly was the easy in which I could see what they were doing, and they could also track where they were in a large complex script.

    Typically when I see someone using Management Studio to present it looks like this:

    SSMS_present_1

    Granted, this is small, but when it’s projected on a screen, it’s not likely to be much better. The important stuff, the query, and the results, are actually a little hard to see.

    When I watched Kimberly do this, I saw this for the query:

    SSMS_present_2

    With this appearing after execution

    SSMS_present_3

    A couple things to notice here. First, under the main tab, in this case for SQLQuery1.sql, there are two sub tabs. One is the editor, so you can see lots of code (at font size 12). The other is the results, and when I execute a query, SSMS automatically switches to the results tab.

    However not only do I have results, but I also have the query at the top. That easily lets me determine what I’ve just run. When you’re doing a few things, either on stage or at work, having the query shown is very, very handy.

    How To Set This Up

    First, auto hide the Object Explorer and save yourself some space. You can get the menu below by clicking the little triangle in the Object Explorer header bar.

    SSMS_present_4

    First let’s set up results. I would change the results to text by right clicking in the query window:

    SSMS_present_7

    Next, you want to go to the Query menu, and select the Query Options item. In this dialog, there are a few things to configure. First is the results item. Choose text and check the these three items:

    • Include the query in the result set
    • Display Results in a Separate Tab
    • Switch to results tab after the query executes

    SSMS_present_8  

    Then you want to up the font so things are easier to read. I do this first in the Text Editor (see the drop down at the top)

    SSMS_present_6

    Then do this for the text results, changing the drop down again.

    SSMS_present_5

    Now when you run a query, you’ll automatically switch over to a screen that is easier to read on a projector. And you’ll see the query you just ran, so it’s easier to keep track of where you are in your presentation.

    I actually like these settings so much, I use them for any work I do in SSMS.

  • Boulder SQL Server User’s Group – Common SQL Server Mistakes

    The first iteration of my presentation on Common SQL Server Mistakes, based on the various things I’ve seen in the forums over the years as well as written about on this blog, was last night.

    It went fairly well, though not a lot of questions from the group and I ended up running ahead of schedule. Afterwards we had a nice debate on triggers, which I need to blog about as well.

    Good getting up to Boulder, or Broomfield in this case, for the meeting. It’s at Level 3, which is a great facility, and I’m hoping that we can hold another event there at some point.

    I’ve uploaded the presentation to SQLServerCentral if you are interested in seeing the deck.

  • SQL Saturday Advice – Speaker Communication

    Recently I was at an event and a speaker wasn’t able to make a session. There was a minor scramble, and the session ended up being cancelled, which is fine, but it got me thinking about what I would do if I had an emergency.

    I don’t always have the contact information for organizers, and it’s not easily available. In some cases, I’m not sure how I’d get in touch with someone. I usually have an email, but not always, and I think my emergency solution would be to “tweet” that I wouldn’t be there with the hashtag for the event and hope someone picks it up.

    However I think there’s a better solution. In the speaker communication the last week before the event, let all speakers know that they are expected to meet their commitments and give them 2 or 3 phone numbers to call for issues. Make sure those people keep their cell phones handy and can respond.

    I’d also be sure you have address, phone, and map links for all the locations for speakers. I know most should be local, but spending a few minutes including links in the emails will help ensure that speakers have a smooth event and are happy to come back again.