Voice of the DBA

Tag: SQL in the City

  • 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.

  • The 2013 SQL in the City Tour

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    Once again, Red Gate is planning on a tour of the US for the SQL in the City events. Last year we had a large tour, hitting 6 cities in the US during October and November of 2012. It was great fun, and very well received by the attendees. I enjoyed it quite a bit, though it was a bit of a stressful time for me with all the travel.

    This year we’ve scaled back slightly, but we’re still moving around the US. We have three dates scheduled, all packed into a week: Pasadena, Atlanta, and Charlotte.

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    Our first stop will be in California, on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2013. Red Gate has a sales office in the Pasadena area, and we’ll have a large staff coming out to meet customers and the SQL community. This event will be at the Pasadena Convention Center, in the North East LA area. It’s close to Arcadia Wilderness Park, where I’m hoping to get in a #sqlrun Winking smile

    Register today and join us if you are in the area.

     

    sitc_c

    Atlanta has a great SQL Server community. They consistently have the largest SQL Saturday events every year and there is a lot of excitement about the platform in this area. It would be a great place for a future Summit (hint, send your feedback to PASS).

    We’ll be in Atlanta on Friday, October 11, 2013 at the Blackburn Conference Center. This is at the John Marshall Law School in the heart of the city. I’m expecting this event to sell out soon, so register today.

     

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    The PASS Summit is in Charlotte this year, and once again we’ll open the week with a SQL in the City event in Charlotte on Monday, October 14, 2013. If you’re in town early, or live there, register and come spend a fun day on Monday with us, talking about lots of development and DBA SQL Server topics

    You can register now to join us at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Charlotte.

     

    That’s our 2013 tour (along with sold out London), and I’m looking forward to seeing many of you and meeting even more this fall.

  • What Do You Want from SQL in the City?

    This week finished the SQL in the City 2012 tour, which covered six cities in the US this fall and London this past summer. It was a fun, hard, whirlwind event that had myself, Grant Fritchey, and a lot of other Red Gate employees working hard to bring you a fun, educational, and worthwhile set of events. We met a lot of great people, and hats off to Annabel Bradford at Red Gate for organizing the entire tour.

    I think we did a good job, and heard some great comments from people at the events. Right now we’re starting to think about 2013, and I wanted to get some open-ended feedback here from people on what they’d like to see. Whether you attended a SQL in the City or not, give us your opinion.

    What do you want from a one day training event?

    I’m curious what you hope to get out of an event, what formats do you like, what types of content, and at what levels? Does the size, location, or any part of the venue matter? Do you need tables for a laptop or are you coming to listen and get ideas that you’ll work on in the future? Give us your feedback on what you think makes a worthwhile day of training for you.

    There are any number of ways we can do things in the future, all with various tradeoffs. We can do smaller events in more cities, larger events with more staff, or something in between. I can’t promise anything specific, but your opinion and feedback do help us to try and deliver the community service and education that will help you get better at using SQL Server.

    Steve Jones

  • I’m Not a Rock Star

    nickelback rockstar
    I’m not sure I would have enjoyed playing the same songs over and over, night after night.

    I used to play in a band in high school. I stood in front of crowds in bars and restaurants, dreaming of being a Rock Star. It never happened, and I’m not sure any of us had that much musical talent, but we had a lot of fun. As with most dreams, it was revived a few times in college, but eventually I let go of it, moving on to more practical, and less risky, career choices. However there are still times I’ve thought, “What if I’d tried harder….”

    I’ve had a great career and wonderful life and have no regrets. I’m lucky enough to work for a great company, and I get to spend my days at home, doing something I really enjoy. I get to travel as well, doing talks and meeting lots of data professionals all over. Both of those bring a smile to my face. Over the last couple weeks I participated in the SQL in the City tour, and while it was a tough schedule to follow, I really enjoyed the chance to meet so many DBAs and developers all around the country. We’ve still got one more event, on Monday, Nov 5, in Seattle, the week of the PASS Summit. Come by if you’ll be in town. It’s free, just register.

    Our tour covered five cities across eleven days, fortunately circling around Denver so I was able to go home a few times for a day or two. It’s much less grueling a schedule than many athletes or musicians follow, but it did teach me one thing: I wouldn’t have done well as a rock start. Delivering the same talks every two or three days was harder than I expected, and I didn’t love that part of the events. I would have preferred a little more variety of presentations, and it’s something I want to consider for future tour events.

    One very important thing I’ve learned across the last decade or so is that I need to understand who I am and what I like to do. I realized that often in my career I was willing to bend and flex to meet the demands of various employers. However when the bending and flexing was too far from my comfort zone, or occurred too regularly, I haven’t enjoyed the jobs.

    It’s important to know what you like, what you don’t, and what you are good at accomplishing and then finding the job that fits you. I might do another tour, but I won’t do them constantly. It’s not something I like or want to become a large part of my job.

    Steve Jones

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