Voice of the DBA

Tag: speaking

  • SQL Saturday Baton Rouge 2024–Resources

    For my talk at SQL Saturday Baton Rouge 2024, here are the resources.

    Slides: Architecting Zero Downtime.pptx

    GitHub: https://github.com/way0utwest/ZeroDowntime

    If you have questions, reach out.

  • THAT Conference 2024 in Wisconsin Dells

    THAT ConferenceI’m headed back to Wisconsin Dells next week for THAT! Conference 2024. This is my second time in Wisconsin and third THAT overall. This time I didn’t submit, but Redgate is sponsoring the event and they asked me to deliver a session. I’ll be talking about Best Practices for Seamless Database Deployments on Tuesday morning, but there are a bunch of other good sessions taking place on Tue-Thur.

    Each time I’ve gone, it’s been an enjoyable experience, learning about various developer and database technologies from others. It’s a fun family atmosphere and I recommend this conference as one to consider if you want to learn about any development topics.

    Last year I learned about Rust and hummus in one talk, about containerized builds, and TDD. I also learned about Mind Over Milkshakes, which inspired that piece.

    If you’re near Madison, this is a short drive. It’s worth checking out THAT and trying the conference if you want a family friendly developer event.

  • The Annual SQL Saturday in Baton Rouge

    I’ve been to quite a few of the SQL Saturday Baton Rouge events. There have been 10 with the 11th coming in a couple weeks. The crew down there has done a great job over the years, and I’ve met lots of friends there: Patrick LeBlanc, William Assaf, Kenny Neal, and more. Too many to list, but this has been one of my favorite events.

    This year, SQL Saturday Baron Rouge 2024 is on July 27, and it’s once again at LSU. You can register today and join me for a fun day of learning inside, away from the heat. There is a packed schedule of all kinds of data related sessions. Learn about performance topics, Power BI, app dev, cloud, Data Ops, and more.

    I used to fly to New Orleans each year and drive up. It’s an easy drive, and I even went to the Saints training camp one year. This year I’m going to Baton Rouge direct (well, I change planes) because I’ll be visiting a customer the day before.

    However, if you don’t have plans Friday, there are two precons:

    These are great ways to get some fairly inexpensive training. Ping your boss and ask him to send you to one.

    Register for SQL Saturday Baton Rouge and join me next week. Hope to see you there.

  • Not Selected for the PASS Data Community Summit 2024

    I got this in an email about a week ago from the PASS Data Community Summit.

    2024-06-19 10_16_28-Inbox - steve.jones@red-gate.com - Outlook

    There’s more to it, but essentially I submitted 3 talks (2 on deployments, 1 pro dev) and none were selected.

    It’s slightly disappointing, as it is a rejection, but it’s not really a rejection of me. It’s that the talks didn’t make the cut. I’ve spoken there before, and I have other engagements coming up at events. I’m also still going to the Summit and I’ll likely still have some speaking slot from Redgate.

    For others, this might be very disappointing, but it’s not a rejection of you as a speaker. It’s that there are only so many slots, and there is a lot of competition. The program committee is a volunteer one, and while the conference organizers review their selections, they don’t make many changes. I know because I was one of the final reviewers where we looked at the breakdown of sessions in different topic areas, the diversity, the experiences, and we really only made 3 changes out of a few hundred where we saw a gap.

    I don’t want to give too many specifics, but Grant noticed we had no Extended Event sessions in there, so we removed another DB Administration talk and added an xEvent one.

    This year had over 1,100 submissions for 108 slots. There are a few more slots for vendors and a small few for first time speakers specifically, but that is a lot of competition. My Pro Dev talk has been popular elsewhere, but it wasn’t better than the others that were selected. Same for my other submissions.

    They were good, just not good enough.

    I do get rejected by some events, as do most other speakers. I don’t know anyone that is picked 100% of the time.

    It’s OK. It doesn’t stop me from submitting, and it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do a great job at this conference. It just means not this time.

    If you feel bad, that’s OK. Just keep submitting, working on your presentations, ask for feedback from others, and keep sharing your knowledge. You’ll get picked at another event.