Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

  • Goal Progress–Mar 2021

    I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2021.

    As I look at goal progress for 2021, I’m going to follow a similar pattern as last year. I’ll give myself a current grade and report on overall progress in of the areas where I set goals.

    Current Grade: B-

    I think I’m making some progress, and getting some items moving forward. I haven’t spent as much time on my technical skills, but I have been pushing project stuff forward a bit.

    Reading

    The goal was 4 books (3 non-fiction, 1 tech). Here’s the current progress:

    Technical Skills

    I’m solving the Advent of Code three times.  I’m also studying for certification.

    • Certification –  AZ-900 – 5%
    • Certification – DP-200 – 0%
    • Skills – T-SQL – 2020 Advent of Code – 4/25
    • Skills – Python – 2020 Advent of Code – 4/25
    • Skills – PowerShell – 2020 Advent of Code – 4/25
    • Skills – TBD

    Projects

    I had a few projects for myself. Most of January was supporting SQL Memorial as well as doing some SQL Saturday/Data Saturday stuff. So far things appear to be working fine.

    • SQL Saturday Foundation – 60%
    • Support events: approved a PR or 2 this month, helped with feedback on the Data Saturday logo project, and started conversations about events this year with a few people
    • Speak at the 3 local user groups, at least one live presentation – 0%
    • Help organize a Denver/Colorado event, live or virtual – 10% (conversations)
    • Complete my Power BI Volleyball report – I know lots of kids will use this, so I need to get it done – 20%
    • SQL Memorial – 80%

    I added the SQL Saturday Foundation as a project, since this will occupy some time. I don’t plan on hiring anyone, but with me and some volunteers, I’m hoping we build a website. I spent some time writing a little PoSh this month to rip through the XML from the old site and rebuild an archive. I used the Data Saturday-ish site as a template and got something up with a few pages.

    However, I need to make this more maintainable until I get some help from others. So I’m looking at more themes and trying to get Jekyll to make this easier to update. The site is mostly working, though I can’t get a domain redirect until I get a privacy policy approved.

  • Daily Coping 26 Mar 2021

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

    Today’s tip is to look around and spot 3 things you find unusual or pleasant.

    I don’t walk around a lot, which seems strange being out in the country, but life has become a bit simple and boring for me. I work, I go to the gym, I coach, I follow similar routes. Even my workouts are very routine. Maybe a sign of the last year.

    As a side note, I don’t know if this grounds me and helps me cope or it stagnates and worsens pandemic life.

    In any case, I looked around a bit to find a few things one day.

    First, it was the snowmelt, which has made a mess of the property. However, one section had a great view when I walked out of the barn. A lake and a current from the wind. It looks like the tide is coming in.

    2021-03-22 10_31_31-Steve Jones (@way0utwest) • Instagram photos and videos — Mozilla Firefox

    Later, after feeding some horses, we found the foal slightly trapped under the fence. My wife pulled her out, but she lay there for a few minutes and I caught them together.

    2021-03-22 10_31_08-Steve Jones (@way0utwest) • Instagram photos and videos — Mozilla Firefox

    I went back in the barn and saw this:

    2021-03-22 10_31_16-Steve Jones (@way0utwest) • Instagram photos and videos — Mozilla Firefox

    For some reason, a dog decided to play king of the hill. I’ve seen this when we have a large bale out for horses, but never in the barn, and there is hay here all the time.

    An interesting day.

  • Daily Coping 25 Mar 2021

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

    Today’s tip is to spend some time on a creative task or activity.

    I don’t think of myself as terribly creative, though I do like arts of various sorts. I play guitar, but that’s mostly covering what others have done, not really doing something new.

    Cooking is one area where I do like to experiment a bit. Often I’m more derivative than innovative, but I have fun. Recently I got a set of new cake pans, actually gifted to me from a friend. I hadn’t made a cake in a long time, with kids out of the house, but I decided to try and do one from scratch. We were somewhat snowed in, but I had flour, milk, eggs, sugar, etc., so I found a recipe and put something together.

    It came out pretty good, despite being a bit of a pain to go through this particular recipe. If you want to try it, here’s the link: https://www.recipetineats.com/my-very-best-vanilla-cake/

  • The SQL Saturday Foundation Vision

    A few things to start. First, this is about SQL Saturday events. Only.

    This is NOT about the future of the Summit. Redgate is working on that separately from this project.

    This is NOT about user groups, which Microsoft and DCAC are helping, each in their own way. If you are interested in those efforts, or want to help, please contact others that are supporting or managing those events.

    Second, this is NOT about replacing PASS or taking over their mission. There is no intention from me, or Redgate, to replace the PASS organization.

    Third, this is my vision. This is what I think now, and this is completely subject to change when a board of directors gets together in the SQL Saturday Foundation and starts to vote. I’ll have one of nine votes, and everything I think now could be changed. I may start something in the next few weeks to get SQL Saturdays moving that will get abandoned over time.

    That’s fine. The important thing for me is to start moving. With that in mind…

    The Vision

    I have come to love and appreciate all the different ways that SQL Saturday events have run in the last 14 years. With that in mind, my goal in working to get this foundation set up is to continue to facilitate and promote local, free events organized by individuals in some area.

    I see a foundation doing this in a few ways:

    • Hosting a landing page for events
    • Provide a non profit umbrella
    • Tooling that integrates services needed (payment, speakers, registration, etc.)
    • Connecting organizers with mentors or volunteers
    • Collaborating with other events
    • Assisting with fundraising

    The first item is easy, and with credits from Azure or AWS as a non-profit, I envision a site like the Data Saturday project to host landing pages for the site. In fact, my first attempt really duplicated a lot of the style from that project.

    Likewise, having a non-profit entity is something that needs to get completed. This is likely a US 501(c)(6), allows many organizations to donate to the event and take a tax deduction. Redgate is donating some resources and has engaged lawyers to get this set up.

    Tooling

    Tooling is more complex. While I think a lot of the tooling from the old SQL Saturday site was useful, some needed work. I don’t anticipate anyone funding this, but I do think their either an OSS project under this foundation, or under Data Saturdays, can help here with the tools needed.

    I don’t anticipate tools being an issue in 2021, as most events a likely to be virtual, but 2022 will need some things. What, I’m not sure. The board will need to prioritize and help here, likely with some committees weighing in.

    Mentoring

    When we started SQL Saturday, a lot of the time and effort in the first few years were mentoring other organizers. No one really knew how to run an event in 2008. Now we have hundreds, maybe thousands of organizers worldwide that can help. Now I don’t anticipate the foundation being more than a repository for knowledge, and a way for inexperienced organizers to connect with and ask questions of others.

    That being said, the board will need to disclose their experiences and help us mentor future board members.

    Collaborating

    I knew last year that SQL Saturday would be in trouble. Part of my concern led me to join the Data Saturdays project. I’ve helped SQL Saturday events that were scheduled move over and supported them. I think it’s a great project, and I hope that I can work with them as part of SQL Saturday.

    There may be other projects or event umbrellas, like Sharepoint Saturday, that we can work with, share tooling, help each other with marketing, and more. My goal is to work together to get more events (and more types) rather than compete.

    I want more people to experience a one day conference and get inspired by others. I want more speakers sharing in person. And these days, I really want to get back to in person events at some point.

    Fundraising

    One of the best things I saw from the previous management of SQL Saturdays was the global partner program, which allowed a sponsor to provide a pool of money that would be allocated to events. This reduced the burden on sponsors, which certainly can be a resource issue. It also provided a base for some events to get started in funding their effort.

    In order to provide this program, a legal entity is needed. Unlike the former program, this one will look to send 100% of the sponsor funds to events. I would anticipate fees being minimal here, and those ought to be covered under the annual operating expenses of the foundation.

    To me, this is the big work of the foundation. Raising money, deciding how to allocate to events, and publicly accounting for every penny.

    Overall

    We built SQL Saturday to ensure that a lot of people would have the conference experience. They’d get the chance to attend an event, with lots of speakers, with vendors and swag, and get to meet other professionals.

    It succeeded beyond any of our expectations thanks to the amazing volunteer efforts of organizers and speakers. SQL Saturday become quite a phenomenon. I want that to continue into the future, with lots of events, lots of volunteers, and lots of collaboration with others.

    As I mentioned, this is my vision for now, but subject to the opinions and views of the foundation board of directors.