Voice of the DBA

Tag: SQL Saturday

  • Speaking at SQL Saturday #304–Indianapolis

    indy304Next weekend is SQL Saturday #304 in Indianapolis, a milestone for me. It’s the first Indy SQL Saturday I’m speaking at, though not the first one they’ve held. I’ve been to the Indy Tech Fest, but that was years ago and I’m looking forward to going back.

    It’s also the first 300-ish event for me. I’ll be at #300 in Kansas City in September, but as it sometimes goes, #304 is happening before that milestone.

    This looks like another great event, with speakers coming from all over. The schedule has Allen White, Brian Davis, and Erin Stellato coming from Cleveland. Joey D’Antoni from Philadelphia, Kevin Boles from Alabama, Rob Volk from Atlanta, Tamera Clark from Tennessee, and more. I see amazing sessions on Azure, T-SQL, execution plans, extended events, XML, Hekaton, and more. The biggest challenge will be choosing between sessions.

    I’ll be delivering my branding session, at 9:15, so hopefully I can convince a few of you to network and brand during the day.

    If you are anywhere near Indianapolis, which means Louisville, Cincinnati, Dayton, even Chicago or St Louis, I hope you make the drive and come attend.

    And please be sure to stop and say hi and shake my hand. It’s always a pleasure.

  • One a Week

    When Andy Warren and I first talked about SQL Saturday after the initial event in Orlando, we joked about whether we could have twelve events in a year, one a month. It seemed like a stretch goal, after all, how many events can you actually put on where the attendees don’t have to pay?

    The latest PASS Connector newsletter had the headline of “SQL Saturday: Setting Records” in which there were 86 events in the last year, 34 around the world and 52 in the US.

    52.

    That’s one a week, though there wasn’t actually an event every week. We had some busy weeks, mostly in April and September, including 6 events on Sept 14, 2013. That’s an amazing number of events where SQL Server professionals around the world are getting a day of training for free. The cost of some events is a nominal fee to cover lunch expenses, but all the speakers give their time, often delivering the same sessions they’d give at a paid conference.

    The success of SQL Saturday is due to all the efforts of the hundreds of organizers, volunteers, and speakers who work to give you a great event. If you attend an event, be sure to thank someone for their efforts. However much of the credit for the growth of SQL Saturday really belongs to Karla Landrum (b | t). The addition of Karla to the PASS staff, with her focus and support of event organizers, has made SQL Saturday grow far beyond what any of us might have thought possible at SQL Saturday #1, Orlando, 2007. If you get the chance, thank Karla when you see her.

    If you get the chance, I’d encourage you to attend an event in the 2014-2015 fiscal year. If there’s not one near you, organize one. You can put on a small event, with a single track, a few speakers, and support from your community. Lots of us would love to help support an event in a new city, even a small one. You might be surprised to see a nationally known speaker at a small event, but you shouldn’t be. We love helping the community.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

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    The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.

  • Speaking at SQL Saturday #286–Louisville

    I’m taking a short break from my sabbatical to head to Louisville for SQL Saturday #286 to deliver a couple of sessions. I’ve been invited and accepted to Louisville twice before and had to cancel for family reasons. I’ve felt bad, especially as my sister-in-law lives in Louisville, so I decided I needed to just go this time.

    I’m looking forward to this event, and with a number of other cities nearby, I expect a lot of you to come out for a free day of training. I’ll be delivering my Encryption talk and then my Branding talk, so come see me if you can get over to Louisville.

    There’s also a pre-con from my colleague, Grant Fritchey, on Friday discussing performance tuning. Worth the investment in your career.

    I hope to see you there.

  • Calling Local Speakers

    There’s likely a call for speakers open somewhere near you. When I was early in my career, I’d see these calls at large conferences like Comdex, TechEd, even the PASS Summit, and I’d think I’d never get the chance to present, with the best of the best speakers being accepted and no chance that I would be chosen. Things have changed in the world with the growth of SQL Saturday, there are a dozen open calls right now, all around the world, with many opportunities for new people to give a presentation.

    When Andy Warren came up with the idea for SQL Saturday, the idea was that we would mostly find local speakers to help present at the event. We thought it might be expensive, and hard, to get the same speakers that present at larger conferences. This event would give many of the talented DBAs in local areas the chance to speak to larger audiences than they get at many user groups. SQL Saturday has been so successful, and the growth is amazing. We’ve started to see more and more well known speakers traveling substantial distances to attend events. That’s great, but I do worry about the lack of local speakers at some events I’ve attended.

    Most of you can speak at a SQL Saturday. If you are solving problems and getting new systems implemented at work, you can deliver a session explaining what you do. If you’ve built an SSIS package or developed a query for a report, then you can help other people working with SQL Server. If you’ve given a session at a user group, you certainly should submit to any of these events. All of these events could use more local speakers

    and of course, #300 (WOW!), in Kansas City. There are quite a few more, and if you head over to the SQL Saturday site, you’ll find all the events listed. I would recommend you think about submitting a session if you’ve done any speaking at all. A brown bag session at work, a user group talk, or even helping a group of kids with computers. You’re qualified, and we’d like to hear what you have to say.

    Steve Jones

     

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.6MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

    The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.