Voice of the DBA

Tag: speaking

  • Two Weeks until SQL Saturday #222 in Sacramento

    It’s just two weeks until my next trip. It feels like I just got back from London, and one again I’m prepping to leave again. This is my only trip in July, which I appreciate. It’s been a busy year so far, with lots of travel for me and I am glad to have a little downtime.

    This trip is a mix of vacation and work. I’ll be heading out early as Red Gate has a mini-SQL in the City event on Friday. We’re trying to get customers to come, but if there is space next week, I’ll send out a registration link. I speak Saturday and then head back to San Francisco. My daughter is joining me on this trip, with the chance to tour the NoCal area for the first time. She was actually here with me when she was 1, but didn’t remember that trip.

    I’m presenting my talk on searching binary data, which I’ve done a few times in the last year. This one will be a look at how you get information out of office documents from within SQL Server. It’s a neat feature for the product, and I’d like to hear how people are using it. Let me know if you are, or if I convince you to try it.

    I’ve also got a joint presentation with Grant Fritchey on A Day in the Life of a DBA, showing the common problems you face and a few ways Red Gate can make your job easier.

    I’m looking forward to a Sun/Mon/Tue vacation, getting some time off and recharging before I have a busy fall with the US SQL in the City tour.

  • Prepare for Disaster Webinar

    I’ve been asked by Red Gate to give my “Prepare for Disaster session on a webinar on July 23, 2013. It will be at 10:00am MST/12:00pm EST/ 5:00pm GMT.  This is a session that talks about some of the disaster issues I’ve faced, and you might face. I then “rewind the clock” and look at ways that we can prepare ahead of time and either prevent, or mitigate the impact of the issues.

    The registration link is here.

    For once I’m doing this from the comfort of home instead of being on the road somewhere, which is good and bad. I don’t love presenting webinars, since I really like the audience feedback. Talking to the wall isn’t something I enjoy. However I don’t have the hassles of travel, the time away from home, and I get to sleep in my own bed. All in all, it’s a win.

    If you’re interested in learning about how to get ready for disasters ahead of time, register and I’ll see you on the 23rd.

  • Speakers: Rehearsals Help

    Today was a rehearsal day. Actually the last 2-3 days of work have been split between rehearsing talks that I’m giving at SQL in the City this week, and handling the other daily work I need to do. With an extra load of family chores this week, I’ve had some long days.

    I have quite a load this Friday as I have 4 talks to give.

    • One I’ve given 10 or 15 times, and I just need to review.
    • One I gave earlier this year, but it’s been rewritten with about half new content.
    • One is brand new, never delivered
    • One is a joint presentation, of which I have few parts, but I do need to be ready for those parts.

    When I work on presentations, I go through the deck, build demos, practice things, maybe go back and forth a few times as I find the flow between the items is not smooth. By the time I’m ready for a full hour practice, I’ve usually been through all demos and the slides a dozen or so times.

    The Whole Enchilada

    However going through everything in one shot is important. Your timing matters, and your smoothness in transitioning between talking, demos, and even the various elements you deal with on the screen. When I see a presenter struggle to find a setting or a button on the screen, I’m think they haven’t practiced enough, especially the whole talk.

    It’s very easy to work on parts of the talk, maybe even all parts, separately and assume you can pull them together. When you do this, however, you tend to gloss over mistakes and tell yourself that you’ll fix things the next time. At some point the next time is the actual presentation to an audience, and that’s not the right time to deliver the entire talk the first time.

    I usually set aside an hour, and actually go through the talk from end to end. I may do this silently, running through the words I want to use in my head so that my family doesn’t think I’ve gone insane, talking to myself. I’ve learned if that’s the case, I’m usually talking 15-20% faster than if I actually had to voice the words. It’s quicker to practice this way, and I’ll do this a few times. I even do this on airplanes when I’m traveling to events.

    However there’s nothing quite like delivering the talk out loud, in real time. I usually do this by myself, with the door closed so as not to frighten the children with my arm waving and pacing. I open my mobile phone’s stopwatch application, start it, and keep an eye on it as I run through the slides, talk, and demos in real time.

    A Sigh of Relief

    Today was a full practice day for 2 talks, but with a twist. One of those, the brand new talk, was one I had to give on a conference call to a few people at Red Gate. This was partially to let the project managers know what I was demoing, but also as a backup in case something happened and I wasn’t able to deliver the talk.

    After about 20 minutes of Livemeeting issues, I finally was online and ready to go. I was short of time, so I ended up going through the synopsis of each slide, and then running through most of the demos, skipping a few items where my virtual machine was acting up. It wasn’t the best run-through, but it was complete.

    When I was done, it was nice to hear the people on the other end complement the talk and content. It’s always a little worrisome for me with a new talk, since I’m never sure how well people might receive the content. A sigh of relief today that people liked the talks.

    Recordings

    One of the things I did recently to practice a talk was to record myself. Using Camtasia, I delivered the entire talk to myself, recording the session. I was able to review it later, look for spots where the content did not flow together, as well as speaking issues (um, err, etc).

    I found that to be very helpful in terms of delivering a better talk, and building confidence in the material. I found that after recording myself, reviewing the talk, and incorporating my own critique into the talk, it went much smoother than expected in front of a live audience.

    Practice

    If you plan on delivering a talk, practice it beforehand. The whole talk, in real time. It will help you prepare and you will be surprised how much it might reduce your anxiety.

  • SQL in the City Goes Mobile

    sitc_e.jpgThis week is the kickoff of the third year of SQL in the City from Red Gate. As we have the other years, we start 2013 off in London, and I’ll be leaving Wednesday on a quick trip across the water to speak. I’m looking forward to seeing lots of familiar faces and a few new ones as well. These events are always fun and well run by the staff from Red Gate. We have a new venue this year, the Congress Centre in the West End as well, which means more Underground map reading and memories for me as I make my way across the city from Heathrow. I lived just off Bayswater Road for a semester in college and it’s always nice to wander around the area and look for familiar landmarks.

    We’ve gone mobile this year, so if you’re coming to the event, check out our app at http://m.twoppy.com/sitc-ldn/, It’s a great way to get information on the event and follow along with what’s happening. I don’t know how much I’ll be tweeting this year since I’ve got four talks scheduled, but I’ll get a few in here and there.

    The event is full, so if you aren’t coming, please cancel and allow someone from the waiting list to take your place.

    If you’re in the US, our fall our will kick off in California in October and make it’s way across the US for 2 additional dates. You can get more information at the SQL in the City site.

    See you in London.