Voice of the DBA

Tag: speaking

  • Thanks Kathi and Mala

    I have to thank Kathi and Mala for putting on the WIT Mental Health and Wellness today today.  I was honored to present, but I was more glad that I got to watch most of the other presentations. I was glad they asked me, and to me, this was the best conference I’ve been to in many years.

    If you missed this, go watch these recordings. I was touched and emotional from the other presentations, as well as mine. Links should be available next week, so check their page.

    I overslept a bit, and actually woke up about 30 minutes before my talk. I was already nervous about this presentation, as it’s a bit of showing vulnerability for me, so I had a hard start to the morning. I went downstairs, checked in with Mala to verify the link and then went to get coffee and try to relax a touch.

    The presentation went fine for me, which is good, though I certainly had a lot of emotions while thinking back about the past year. I had a few tears in my eyes during the talk and was exhausted after. Fortunately, my boss was understanding and told me to just take it easy today. I had a few things to get done, and then watched a number of other talks before giving up in the early afternoon.

    I hit the gym (one of my coping tips), went to the store, and started cooking (another tip). Homemade lasagna and brookies (brownie cookies) for the family tonight.

    It helped me relax.

  • Mental Health Day from the WIT Group

    The pandemic of the last year has been a difficult time for many individuals and organizations. I know that I have had a number of ups and downs across the year.

    The Women in Technology virtual group is putting on a one day event, full of talks from a variety of speakers on Mental Health and Wellness. The event is on May 7, 2021, from 8am EDT to 6pm. You can register and attend, as well as view the schedule from the link above.

    I was asked to submit a talk, after publishing a year of coping tips at SQLServerCentral. It was an honor, and an interesting challenge. I’m not an expert in this area by any stretch, but I have had some struggles and worked through my own challenges, often with the help of the tips I published for others.

    I’ll be talking at 11:10am EDT, going over some of how the year has gone for me and the ways that I’ve tried to ensure life is still, well, enjoyable.

    Join me if you want something different. I’m certainly looking to some of the other talks from people that are sharing some of the experiences on the non-technical part of our lives.

  • The Diverse Data Platform–Dativerse.io

    The other day I got a note from Ben Weissman the other day that he was running a new event,  http://dativerse.io/. Not much information, but I liked this list in the call for speakers.

    1. Your session must be related to the Microsoft Data Platform
    2. You contribute to the diversity of the Microsoft Data Platform

    I often talk about the first one, but the second? That’s interesting. I assume this means some sort of new talk that expands on the way we use the platform. New technology, new ways of putting things together, new something.

    Or maybe a diverse speaker, someone that isn’t one of the same speakers that are often at most events. It’s an interesting idea here.

    I don’t know if I’ll submit. While I can speak on the data platform, I don’t know I add much diversity in some ways. I do sometimes pick niche topics, but if I do something I’ve already done, is that adding to diversity?

    I’m not sure, but I’m thinking about it. The CFS closes on May 16, 2021, so I, and you, have time.

    Even if you don’t want to submit, perhaps you want to encourage someone else to submit, or even co-submit with you and help them deliver a session. We need to encourage and broaden our horizons, which is something that we all can work on.

  • ConFoo–The Future of Database Development in Containers

    I delivered a talk at the ConFoo conference. I’ve never been to this live, and when I submitted last year, I was hoping this would somehow be a live event in Montreal. It didn’t happen, but I joined the virtual event and gave my presentation.

    The deck is here: FutureDBDevelopment_confoo.zip

    No real questions, but lots of interest, which is great.

    If you didn’t stay near the end, I talked a bit about the Spawn.cc project and the journey the research group has taken to learn about Kubernetes and file systems. It’s been fascinating to watch the project evolve. The API used to change almost weekly as it was improved and enhanced.

    A few resources: