Voice of the DBA

Tag: SQL Saturday

  • Third Times a Charm – SQL Saturday #64 – Baton Rouge

    Going back to Baton Rouge again

    We’re a week away from SQL Saturday #64 in Baton Rouge, LA. It takes place on August 6, 2011 at the Patrick Taylor at LSU again, the same location as the last two years. If you’re in the area, sign up and come learn about SQL Server. I’ll be presenting two sessions, one on Red Gate tools at lunch, and one on the Top Ten SQL Server Skills You Need to Know about SQL Server.

    I did a short radio interview with WRKF that should air next Thursday to promote the event. I don’t know how many people will hear it, but there might be some people signing up, which might fill up the day. If you want to come, register soon.

    This is a great event, and it’s one of the bigger SQL Saturday’s I’ve been to every year. There are 9 tracks, including a couple .NET tracks and a Windows Phone set of sessions, so there’s plenty for everyone to do. The crew that puts the event together does a great job, and I’m sure you’ll have a great time.

    Baton Rouge is a great place, and I’m am looking forward to a run or two around University Lake. It’s hot, humid, but a nice place to jog. If you want to join me, I’ll be aiming for an early Sat am run, likely around 7:00am.

    Once again I’m flying to New Orleans and driving up to Baton Rouge. I hope to get some lunch in the Big Easy, enjoying the beautiful French Quarter before going to a very nice college town in Baton Rouge. I’m not staying Saturday night, but heading back to New Orleans for an early flight home Sunday. I’ll be at the after party, so please stop by and say hi to me.

  • SQL Saturday #77 – Pensacola Recap

    sqlsat77_bThis past weekend I went down to Pensacola, FL for SQL Saturday #77. This was the third event in Pensacola, and my third time going down there. It was also the second time that I brought my daughter along for the trip. She had a great time the first time, and was good about spending Fri night and Saturday at the event in exchange for a couple days in Pensacola.

    Me, Tim Radney, and Karla Landrum

    I arrived early, on Thursday, spending all day Friday with my daughter until the speaker party on Friday night. The opening event was amazing, at Hemingway’s Island Grill, just across the causeway at Pensacola Beach, on a deck looking out over the water. With a cool evening, we couldn’t have asked for a better setting where I had the chance to sit and talk with Aaron Nelson a bit, met Wayne Sheffield for the first time, and of course, sp

    ent time with Karla Landrum as well.

    sqlsat77_a

    The coolest shirts were available for speakers, me being above, and separate shirts for the women. My daughter, and Aaron’s daughter, got shirts as well, and you can see them here. My little girl loved hers and wore is as much as she could all weekend. I don’t think speaker shirts are necessary, but they are a nice touch, and I love the creative ones I’ve gotten at this event, Cleveland, and Baton Rouge last year.

    The event was held at a local college, as it has the last three years. The entrance and building moved this year, mostly because the Mac user group refused to move their meeting or give up the auditorium they have, so boo on them. In any case, there was a motorcycle class happening in one parking lot, which caused a number of people to get confused as where to go. We suspect a few people were annoyed and left, which is something to be aware of. Ask about any potential traffic situations on the day of the event that might be going on.

    I arrived a bit late, and the event was quiet. Everyone was in sessions except a few speakers and vendors were learning something. With sessions spread out across two buildings, it was definitely a calmer event than I’ve seen in the past. The vendors had a nice walkway through the entrance hallway, on the way to food, and they had good traffic at lunch and as people were leaving. However I’m not sure how well this layout worked during the day as people could go from session to session without moving past tables.

    I realize that sponsorship is a tricky thing to balance with not annoying attendees but also allowing vendors a chance to get value for their sponsorship. I think I’d like to see vendors in between session rooms, giving people a chance to talk by, or vendors to show off some video or demos as people walk by.

    My first session was just before lunch, in the far building, and I had good attendance. With my daughter laying down in front of the room with a DVD, I delivered my talk on Branding Yourself for a Dream Job – The Modern Resume. I had about 40 or so people in there, with a mix of people looking for work, looking for new work, and just interested. I got some great comments, and people said nice things afterwards, even though it was a quiet crowd, and hard to get them to interact with me.

    sqlsat77_eI had a short break before a lunchtime Red Gate demo session, which was very well attended. Again, about 40-50 people watched me demo a few tools, showing them a few ways in which Red Gate tools make life easier. Right after lunch, I had a third session in a row, my Preparation for Disaster, a look at the types of things that need to go into preparing for things to go wrong with SQL Server. It’s a basic session, and perhaps it wasn’t well described as I only had about 10 people in there. However they seemed to like the session from the comments.

    After that I left for a break, my voice tired, and my daughter wanting a chance to swim a little before the after party. We arrived as the party was getting going, walking in with a few other people. It was a Rosie O’Grady’s with the old fashioned fire truck out front in Pensacola downtown. I had the chance to chat with a few more people, eat some great BBQ, and relax for a bit. With the iPad in hand, my daughter and Aaron’s little girl occupied themselves for quite awhile.

    Aaron, me, and our not-so-little girls

    I think I was expecting a busier event, but last year TechEd was the week after this event, and a short drive over to New Orleans, so there were quite a few more people I knew coming to speak. This year it was quieter, more restrained, but still a great event. Pensacola is a beautiful place, great beaches, and worth taking a day or two extra to relax on the gulf coast after some SQL Server learning.

    My daughter is already asking if we can come back next year.

  • SQL Saturday #63–Dallas

    I have been trying to get to Dallas for a SQL Saturday for nearly a year, when the first event was announced last May. I finally made it this past weekend with the third SQL Saturday in less than a year taking place on April 2, 2011 in Richardson, TX.

     

    The Location

    The event was great, lots of people (nearly 400) and it was an extremely smooth running event. Sri, Tim, Sean, and the rest of the North Texas SQL Server User Group put on a great event and made me and a number of other out of town speakers very welcome.

    The event was at a local training center, Region 10, with large rooms and large projection screens for the most part that made it easy to see what was being talked about.

    Saturday started with a crowd of people arriving early and ready to check in. I set up a Red Gate table with some swag and flyers, all of which were gone before the opening session. Sri gave a short opening, recognizing Andy Warren (LinkedIn | Blog | @sqlandy) and I as the founders of SQL Saturday. We each said a few words, nothing memorable, and we are both amazed that in four and a half years there have been over 70 events and over 15,000 people that have gotten a free day of training.

    sri

    I appreciate the recognition, but it’s not about us. It’s about the people getting some knowledge and help in their careers, and I struggle with how to get that message across. This whole franchise/framework was really about how to help people grow, people that can’t afford to go to a conference. Any ideas on how to get the focus on that and not the events would be appreciated.

    There was a few minutes when people were asked to remember to network and they took a minute to introduce themselves. After a few logistics announcements, the first session kicked off  in the beautiful Richard 10 training center, and the hallways emptied. I was about to get ready for my session during the next hour when I saw a tweet from Jessica Moss that she needed a ride from the hotel. The power of Twitter! I drove back since it was only a mile or so and picked Jessica up since we both had sessions at 9:30.

    My Session

    I did The Modern Resume: Building Your Brand with a packed room. A small room, but still packed with a few people sitting on the floor. Quite a few students, with some good questions on how to get started, but overall a fairly quiet presentation.

    People must  have enjoyed it as the 20 or so evaluations I got were almost all 5s. Nice to see that but I’m not sure if I need to change anything. I did make a couple notes based on questions to add to the next time.

    Other Sessions

    I went to see Andy Warren’s “Building a Professional Development Plan, which I highly recommend. It was excellent, and while it was a bit of “tough love” at times, there are some things in there that I would highly recommend to people.

    sqlandy

    I caught a bit if Tim Costello’s introduction to dimensional modeling. I met Tim last year in Baton Rouge, and gave him some feedback on his session. I went to this one to see how he did and also to get a little info on a topic that I don’t know much about.

    timcostello

    I thought he did a nice job explaining the topic, walking through different aspects of what a dimension is and how they are defined. Worth seeing Tim talk on BI stuff if you get the chance.

    jessicamoss

    Jessica Moss had a bit of a technical snafu at the start of her talk, where the projector did not want to pick up her laptop. She left it alone in the capable hands of David Stein, Jeremy Marx, and a few others and walked around, starting to talk to the audience about data management topics. Once the projector was fixed, she dropped right into her slides and demos.

    Jessica is a great speaker, and a popular author at SQLServerCentral, and if you get the chance to read her work or see her speak, do so.

    I glanced into a few more sessions, many of which were almost full of people and it seemed that everyone was focused on learning at the event.

    Food

    The food was plentiful, with lots left over from what I could see. Breakfast was a series of muffins and danishes with apples and bananas available as well. Most of this was left in a break room for the day, so you could go get more if you wanted

    Lunch was a boxed deal, set up outside, and I had to follow the crowd to find them setup in a small courtyard, so a few more signs would be nice, but people walked through one door, picked up a lunch, and went through another one, so things flowed smoothly.

    The afternoon snack was a gelato cart that created a line stretching through the middle of the center. There were 4 or 5 choices, and plenty of the tasty dessert. Quite a few people, including myself, went back for seconds.

    Afterwards

    The speaker dinner and the after-party were both held a Dave and Busters, with lots of drinks, billiards and shuffleboard for everyone. I enjoyed both nights there, getting the chance to catch up with lots of old and new friends.

    afterparty

    I wandered around, talking with different people, and had the chance for some long conversations with David Stein, Jessica Moss, Tim Mitchell, Kevin Boles, Jim Murphy, and Sri Sridharan. I have probably missed a few people, and I apologize, but it was a long weekend that came right after SQL Server Connections.

    Both nights I managed a late dinner with Andy Warren and a few other people, getting back to the hotel ready for sleep.

    It seems that more and more I find that people all over the country are running very smooth events with almost no issues. I found the center easily, speakers showed up, people learned things, and there were no real issues.

    I enjoyed the event in Dallas, and am looking forward to going back next year if I can work out the scheduling.

  • Building a Professional Development Plan

    Your personal business plan.

    If you are waiting on your boss to tell you what to learn or what to do, you are making a mistake, they arent going to do it.

    Would tou do an it project without writing anything down? Usually not, so why not do this for your care ultimately you need to take charge of your own career

    Tis is more than technology ( networking, project management, managing, accounting, etc)

    Has goals, milestones and tasks. Its written down. Loos at your total package.

    Consider yourself a product.

    Where you you want to be a year from now? Are you still excited about your career?

    Time
    0-20 hours just work
    21-50 slow growth, maintenance
    51-100 growth, one skill
    101-200 growth, multiple skills, change focus
    200+ hyper growth

    Money
    $250 basic
    $1000 growth
    $2500 leap frog
    $5000 everyone envies you

    Hard to write the check. Most people spend 0 if the employer doesn’t contribute

    Beak up the time. Easy to take one class for the year, but that is all the time and money. Thi about the divisions. Both time and money. You have resource constraints, but think about the way you do this and live with the constraints or renegotiate the resource with yourself/your family

    How do you learn best? Is it books, video, blog/article, seminars, hands on? Usually you will combine this together into some plan.

    Why write? One of the main reasons is that people think they don’t have time, they don’t know what to write about, worried about embarrassing themselves.

    If you write in a word document and saved it without showing anyone you are ahead of the game, you are helping yourself, teaching yourself, and building a better skill.

    Treat your manager like a client. Imagine that your job is a one year contract and you need to win the bid for the next year. You want to win the bid, so you want to edge out others. Can you get the business by staying where you are? That is the mindset to develop a plan.

    Change your mindset in building the plan. Consider yourself a business of one and approach your career with the attitude of taking control of your own career.