I have lists. Lots of lists. I even have them in different locations sometimes. Some of them are carefully written down in my notebook, others are typed into OneNote and I’ve been experimenting with Remember the Milk and Trello (Trello is winning). These lists include ideas for presentations, blogs, articles. Notes from sessions I’ve attended or meetings. Lots and lots of plans and ideas and all that sort of stuff. I try to keep it organized, but sometimes it runs away from me. However, I find writing things down helps me to keep things organized. Between very carefully scheduling out my calendar and all these notes, I only occasionally completely drop the ball.

One ball I dropped was coming up with some goals, some plans, for 2012. I just plowed through 2011 and then 2012 and here I am, two years an employee with Red Gate (and I’m sorry to say, terribly happy there, my apologies) and I’m not sure where I should be going. I don’t mean within the company. We’ve got lots going on there (more than I can keep up with). No, I mean career goals, work outside work, all the extra stuff.

I’m going to break these down into pure technical issues that I want to spend more time on and professional development. Let’s start with the easy stuff, technical.

First, HDInsight. I absolutely believe there’s something big possible with this technology. I could be utterly wrong (I sure thought SCOM had legs too, oops). But I’m going to keep slogging on this stuff til I get something of a more thorough understanding of it. I doubt I’ll be presenting on it except maybe for introductory sessions, and not even those for the next 3-6 months. But I’m going to get my mind wrapped around it and understand how it works. Maybe then I can better determine if it’s just a highly specialized impact wrench or a true paradigm shift.

Next up, more Azure. Go ahead, giggle. Microsoft keeps doing more and more stuff with it. You know you can store spatial data in Azure now? I didn’t either until earlier this week. I’m going to be presenting on how to do query tuning using Azure SQL Database tools. Actually, I’m thinking I’ll only use the online tools. Everything you need is there. You can access most of the Dynamic Management Objects (DMO) and you can read execution plans from queries there. I’ve got presentations already scheduled for this. I’m pretty excited about others that might be scheduled (LOTS of noise if those come to pass). I’m going to continue expanding my learning here.

As to professional/personal development, I’ve got something somewhat trivial I want to work on, and something that, frankly, scares me. I would also like to find a coach or coaches.

The trivial task is that I want to work on pumping up my slide decks. I’ve long simply used them as markers for my talks. Bullet points as reminders of the topics I want to make sure I cover. They somewhat act as a point for taking notes for the attendees, but they are excessively dull. I’m going to work with Mrs. Scary (a graphic artist, good at her job, freelance if you need some help and are willing to pay for it, get in touch) and punch up my presentations. I had about 12 or so different presentations last year. This year, I’m dropping that number down a little.

Scary. Really scary. No, not me. Me. I mean I’m scared, not scary. I’m scared because I’ve taken on the task of acting as a mentor to an actual human being. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find that extremely scary. I’ve got a level of responsibility that I’ve never had with putting up a blog post or even making a presentation. It’s as bad as writing a book (and if you think putting your name on a book isn’t scary, wait til you see your first bad review). But, I’m excited by it. This is something new and different. I’m really looking forward to it, and I think the person who approached me has a lot of potential. They’ll be great without my ever getting involved, so if I can take some of the credit, I win. Sorry, joke. I’m going to try to help someone who doesn’t need it, but will benefit from the help. Assuming I get it right… Scared again.

Coaches. Am I doing the marketing bits of my job right? I don’t know. I need some help in that area. Am I approaching learning HDInsight correctly? I could use a coach to talk with and get some guidance from. Maybe some suggestions on my slides (although my wife is going to supply a lot of that). Pro athletes do it. Good surgeon’s do it. They must know something. It’s an approach I want to try.

That’s it. I’ll be continuing things like working on books (yes, I’ve committed to writing one and editing one, so far), presentations, light consulting, and working for a fantastic organization. But these are the current plans for 2013.

Wow!

How’s that for a recap?

The concept for the SQL in the City events is pretty simple. Put on a free event that instructs people on SQL Server, Azure, and related technologies along with a healthy smattering of Red Gate tools. All teaching is done by some of the best people in the business (and me).

This was the second event in London. The concept was launched there last year and succeeded quite well. This year the event filled it’s registrations so quickly that Red Gate felt obligated to have a second day, which almost completely filled up too. There were more than 350 people in attendance on Friday, and then, on Saturday, a day off, another 250+ people showed up. That’s well over 600 attendees over the two days. And what people! The UK audience is just excellent. These people really pay attention to what you’re saying. They don’t make many comments while the presentation is going on, but oh my gosh the detailed questions you get afterwards. It’s just wonderful. Plus, these guys are part of my #sqlfamily. I got to meet several people that I’ve met before in both the US and the UK. I love spending time with Tobiasz, Dave, Kev, Annette, Jonathan, Thomas, Neil. I also got to meet people that I had interacted with only online and they’re wonderful in person. Thanks to everyone who sought me out, especially Colin and Stephanie. It was a real privilege to meet you two (although neither of you knows the other). It’s the interpersonal aspects of these events that makes them great.

It’s so nice to be able to relax and show people something like how to get a sandbox environment set up, but all the ways that using Red Gate tools to do it can help you make the job easier, faster and cheaper. Normally you can’t give an open answer when someone asks how to do something better or easier during a session. This venue makes that possible.

I put on three sessions during the day. One on how to improve performance, yours and your code, in T-SQL. I got to regale the crowd on all the evils of ddltbl (not a typo, you had to be there) as well as common, simple, mistakes made all the time in T-SQL code. I also did a session on sandbox deployments. While I’m personally against giving everyone & their brother a copy of the production database for development, I acknowledge that it is a good set of data to develop against. So, if you have to do it, you may as well use Virtual Restore to save some space. Finally, my last session was on some of the lesser used performance metrics that are actually more useful than people give them credit for.

I sat in on some of the other presentations and they were great. I really liked Steve Jones (blog|twitter) session on handling disasters. I also liked watching a new speaker, Annette Allen (twitter), stretch her legs for the first time. She was good. UK user groups take note. You have another resource available.

I had a blast presenting all these sessions, twice, and the crowds seemed receptive. I really appreciate everyone who attended and the excellent feedback that they politely (but firmly) provided. Then we had beer.

Yeah, you heard me. Wonderful, glorious, Red Gate beer served right there at the event. It was a great batch of Select * Ale. Highly recommended at the end of a hard day of T-SQL learning and networking.

It was a magnificently run event. The only complaint I heard was that we had an inadequate number of bathrooms for the men (which, I learned, are not called stalls in the UK, some humor doesn’t translate well). Thanks to Annabel Bradford and all the team at Red Gate who put the event together (even if I do work for them, it was a really well run event). You guys are magnificent.

If you missed a session while you were there or you want to see a session again, keep an eye on the SQL In The City web site. Videos of the sessions will be uploaded. If you weren’t there, you missed it. But, I have good news.

We’re taking the show on the road. We’re going to be hitting five cities in the US in September and October and then Seattle in (which I think is still in the US) in November. It’s going to be a lot of the same people presenting the same topics, but it’s also going to include a ton of excellent local speakers at each of the cities we hit. This means the excitement and education that SQL In The City represents will be accessible to lots more of you soon.

Tom LaRock (blog|twitter) has assigned an interesting topic for Meme Monday this month, working with deadlines.

Some people hate deadlines. Some people love deadlines. But when you have one, there’s a good chance you need to really meet that deadline or there could be repercussions.

I have a tip that I’ve found useful in the past. When I have a deadline for delivery of X, I evaluate that requirement and determine what, if anything, is dependent upon other people. I’ve found this to be the biggest issue because my deadline is seldom their deadline. So if there are parts of my deadline where I’m dependent on others, that’s my first task: Go have a chat.

Here are a few questions:

• Is X a deadline for them?
• If so, when do they expect to deliver?
• If that negatively affects my deadline, can they adjust? If not, you may need to talk to someone about your deadline.
• If it’s not a deadline for them, when can they deliver?
• Can I hold you to that? Meaning, I’ve just given the other person a deadline.

Obviously you can’t just storm into an office and start rearranging people’s schedules (trust me, they get upset). You’ll need to work with them. But, it needs to be your first priority because, you can put yourself on a 24/7 alert to make a deadline if you want to, but, unless you’re in management, you don’t get that kind of control over your fellows.

To make your deadline, priority one is to recognize your dependencies on others.

Gee thanks Jes (blog|twitter). Just what I wanted, a little extra work on a Friday afternoon. I used to like you.

We have a tagging theme started by Ted Krueger (blog|twitter) who I also used to like.

The theme is: Deciding that I need to delete and start all over

Lordy I hate this one. See, I find it easy to decide that I need to delete and start all over. My challenging task is persevering. But… here’s the rub. Because my challenge is persevering, I have a tendency to try to persevere when I really should be throwing in the towel.

I don’t have a technical example of this ready at hand (I did mention it was the afternoon on a Friday, right?), but I do have a presentation example. One of my presentations from last year… let’s say the topic wasn’t one I wanted to do. But, I had to. So I busted my hump on the slide deck. When it was done. I knew it was a steaming pile. But I sent it out for review anyway. Guess what. It was a steaming pile. They really didn’t like it, but suggested changes.

So I went back to work on the pile. Basically trying to take the substance, brown & smelling, and rearrange it to something resembling a pleasing shape. I worked at it. Hard. I tried different slides, jokes, anything I could think of to try to make this stuff resemble something of value. When I finally thought I had the pile in as pretty a shape as it was going to get, I sent it off to a second person for review. This person, a friend, didn’t pull a single punch. “Throw this out and try something completely different.”

Now that’s what I had wanted to do ever since I struggled through the first four or five versions of this slide deck, but I fought against my common sense and tried to do the hard work rather than take the “easy” way out and chuck it all and start all over.

Sometimes, you need another person’s perspective to realize what you’re vigorously polishing is not actually a diamond, but something entirely different.

I’ll tag… Gail Shaw (blog|twitter) cause it’s her turn.

Microsoft is supporting an effort by PragmaticWorks targeted at supporting technical training for returning veterans. I can’t think of a single better cause to throw some support behind. Not one. They’re going to donate money based on posts about #sqlfamily.

Well done to Brian Knight (blog|twitter) and all the team at PragmaticWorks. I knew you were great people, I just didn’t know how great.

Thanks to Microsoft and the SQL Server Team for their support of Brian. Oh, and for all the work you guys do with SQL Server. I may bitch about you guys more than you’d like, but it’s only because I live inside your software, constantly. I wouldn’t be there all the time if you didn’t do great work. Keep it up. We can talk about this issue with rpc_complete and sql_batch_complete showing TSQL in two different fields in extended events another time.

Enough fawning. This post is supposed to be about #sqlfamily, so let the fawning begin.

My previous post for #sqlfamily didn’t go much into specifics. I don’t have a deeply personal story of support to share. I do have a story of technical support to share. I’m not going to name names on this one because the person involved gets paid to do what they did for me for nothing. If this person reads this, thank you.

I’ve only recently started working with Extended Events with SQL Server 2012. I know, I know, I should have been using them for years. What can I say. I’ve been busy and trace did most of what I needed. Anyway, I tweeted about the experience of getting going and a particular problem I had hit and how I solved it. I received an immediate direct message asking me for my skype account and if I had a minute. Sure, I thought, let me get five minutes of face time and I’ll be good. After a 40 minute drink from the fire hose, I had a much better understanding of extended events, as well as several pages worth of notes and links to information I had previously missed. Why did this person do this? Because someone they knew needed some help. That’s #sqlfamily to me.

You gotta think of it like this. Technically, we’re all competing for jobs. If I know something really well and you don’t, that makes me more marketable than you so I’ll be damned if I’m going to give you a leg up for free. And there are technical communities out there that behave exactly that way. We don’t. We share. We share our knowledge, our time, our struggles, our passion.And the funny thing is, we all get better for it. Will there come a day when I’m sitting in an interview room with someone I know next door interviewing for the same position? Ha! Already did that. I recommended the other person (neither of us got the job). Will there come another day where the same thing happens? Yes. And I’ll do the same thing again. I’ll list the other persons strengths and suggest they’re perfect for the job if that’s what I think. After all, we’re #sqfamily.

Earlier this year, I wrote a post about my upcoming plans for the year in response to a question asked by Jen McCown (flat out, one of my favorite people, blog|twitter). It was supposed to be about resolutions, but I just don’t make those. I make plans.

Here we are, close to a year later (11 months). How did the plans work out?

The first one, hinted at the time, was to start a new job. Well, that’s done and it’s going swimmingly, thank you very much. The job has turned out to be harder than I thought it was going to be. I travel more than I thought I was going to travel (although we’re keeping it within the limits we agreed to, I love my new company). Frankly, I’m concerned that I’m doing a good enough job, pretty much all the time. But, I love it. Thank you, everyone at Red Gate Software.

Next one was setting up the home office. I’ve got that done too. It proved to be quite difficult, but with lots of help from Glen Berry (blog|twitter) and several other people on Twitter and elsewhere, I finally have a functional set of systems. Currently I have three computers, my glorious Lenovo W510 laptop (sporting lots and lots of flair), a POS Dell desktop (which, as soon as it crashes & burns again, I’m replacing), and a nifty little HP Proliant MicroServer that I’ve named Bob. I even have a little Iomega raid array. I’ve learned how to set up AD and have these things humming along well enough. I’m able to set up tests and get done what I need to get done for my job. I won’t lie. It’s been a pain in the bottom having to set it all up myself. I’m still spoiled from working at a large corporation where I didn’t have to sweat this stuff, but I’ve managed to get done what was needed. I learned how to set up virtuals and I’ve been using a couple of them for most of the last year while working with SQL Server 2012. Trivial stuff for a lot of you, but a leap forward for me.

Then I promised to drill down on a new set of tools. Once again, referring to my glorious job at Red Gate. Man, I had no idea those guys worked so hard. They are releasing new software and new functionality constantly. I can’t keep up. I love it. I rate this goal only about 1/2 accomplished and I think I could have done a somewhat better job at it. I’m going to try to improve on this in the coming year.

The last one, writing more… Unfortunately, I accomplished this one all too well. I did rewrite the execution plans book , but we’re looking at rewriting it again (some structural needs and to capture 2012 stuff). I’m close to half way through rewriting my performance tuning book . That one slowed down because I took on another project, SQL Server in a Month of Lunches, which I’m also about 1/2 way through. Oops. If you’re counting at home, that’s three books this year. Not good. Oh, and did I mention I wrote a chapter for the MVP Deep Dives II? And, I’m maintaining my chapters in Beginning SQL Server Administration (2 of 3 done as I write this). Yeah, five (5) books this year… no, no, no. Stop. That’s on top of all the new articles for my most excellent job, maintaining this blog, starting another blog… Yeah, writing successful. Don’t do it again.

On the whole, I’d say I accomplished what I set out to accomplish on 3 of the 4 goals. The incomplete one, getting better with Red Gate tools, is going to be ongoing anyway, but I still need to improve.

Oh, and by the way, thanks for reading this blog over the last year.

As part of my commitment to read and review 12 books in an effort to be active in my own personal development, a commitment made on the SQL Cruise back in June, I’ve completed another book, Guerrilla Leader: T. E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt by James J. Schneider.

This was not the book I was scheduled to read. I’m still reading it, but, frankly, it’s boring. This book came to my attention, a history book that is also an exploration of leadership, and I got excited. I’ve long been a student of history and I’ve had a fascination for World War I for a long time. I have over twenty books on the subject that I’ve read. So the chance to combine reading about a subject that I already enjoy with a subject that I’m trying hard to improve on was too much to avoid.

I won’t discuss the history in James J. Schneider’s book here because it isn’t appropriate to this blog. I will point out that I got a sense that he was rushing through bits and pieces of it in an effort to get to the points he wanted to make about leadership and I thought that the rush detracted from the book, just a little.

But the leadership sections of the chapters were very good. I think the use of the story of an actual person attempting to take charge of something as wild as the desert revolt provided an excellent prop for making points about leadership in general. Each chapter ended with a discussion about the things that Lawrence learned, mistakes he made, and things he got right, all in, and around, leadership. I found it instructive and useful, but not really useful enough. I think two more chapters, one outlining the major points of leadership that the book was going to explore at the beginning, and another summarizing the points at the end would have made for a more complete book. As it was, you got the sense that the author wanted to mainly write the history, and the leadership stuff was a hook. If that’s the case, then the history was processed too quickly and the leadership stuff could have been reduced.

I’m walking away from the book with things to think about, which is the main point of a personal development book, at least I think so. I wouldn’t say I have any tasks to add to my list from reading this book, but I do have a few more insights in what it means to be a leader, how difficult, yet important, communication is, and that leadership is not about titles.

This is my October book, slightly delayed because of all the travel. You’ll see another post shortly with yet another book for November. That will make this  #5 and the next will be #6 for my year.

No, I’m not talking about hubs and switches. I’m talking about people. Networking is a major component of an event like the PASS Summit. Whether you’re networking with individuals or with organizations, this is an opportunity to build direct, personal connections with people that can, and will, help you in your professional career. With the economy behaving as it is, having a better network gives you an edge over your peers. You’re going to be better and faster at solving the tough problems, not because you’re smarter, but because you have contacts that have already solved that problem (which, actually, means you are smarter) and you can go to them for the solution.

I’ve been “that guy.” (I can’t be be “that gal” even if I tried). You know the person. They show up having flown in the morning of the event, they hit sessions all day, sit in a corner at lunch not making eye contact, repeat for 3 full days with time off in the hotel room, then fly home. Afterwards, they talk about, “Well, it was OK, but I didn’t get that much out of it.” Really? No kidding? Maybe it’s because you didn’t put anything into it. Just a guess.

Maybe you’re like me and you’ve spent a lot more time trying to figure out how to work on computer than you have people. Not a problem. I’ve got the solution for you. Don Gabor (blog) is back at the PASS Summit for his third year in a row. He has a two hour mini-seminar called Networking to Build Business Contacts. If that doesn’t sound perfect for the Summit, then you’re not paying attention.

I’ve taken the class with Don two years ago and it was really worth it to me. Further, I’ve read one of Don’s books and I was privileged to publish an article he wrote for our short-lived attempt at reviving the SQL Standard. His subject matter is serious and important, but Don’s approach is light, fun, approachable and incredibly useful.

If you’re that guy/gal, stop. You don’t have to be. If you need that leg-up on how to get involved, then you’re absolutely in luck. Take Don’s session. You won’t be disappointed. Then network your behind off at the Summit and get that extra edge you need for your career.

In my continuing quest to not get personal visits from Buck Woody (blog|twitter) I’m making sure that I make good on my commitment to read 12 personal development books in 12 months. We’re up to #4 (again demonstrating the degree of fear that Buck can put in a person) and the book is Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-Free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business by David Siteman Garland (blog|twitter).

The extended title on the book covers what it’s about quite well. David Garland is considered one of the top marketers these days and he seems to follow the processes laid out in his book. I say this because I received a tweet from him after I tweeted that I’d finished reading the book. One of the processes laid out is to set up search routines to keep an eye out for your name, your companies name, your book’s name, and go to where those things are being posted and respond, in person.

I can sum up a huge part of the book in those last two words, in person. He’s very much about the concept that what you’re selling is not a widget, but yourself and that the more and better you sell yourself, the more and better your widgets will sell. The focus of the book is on marketing and selling, which is good, that’s what I expected and wanted. I’m just still having trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that I’m in sales & marketing. But, the good news, for me anyway, is that David Garland’s idea of sales is to generate useful content. Wait, what was that? You mean writing books, blog posts, articles, recording videos and presenting online & at user groups is sales & marketing? Sweet! I’m in favor.

The point is, you have to move away from the ideas of marketing the old way, buying commercial time on TV and move into using the intertubes to do your marketing. That marketing is done by becoming a trusted advisor, or as Seth Godin has it, a linchpin. You do that by generating material, like this blog, and handing it out for free. You take part in discussions in forums, twitter, whatever, and grow yourself into a trusted resource THEN, you carefully sell. I’m sold. Of course, I’ve been sold. I got this message a year ago, right before I changed my career path. The book goes on to discuss various mechanisms of engagement and production you can use to build up that material which will turn you into a trusted resource. There’s a lot of great advice about how to manage your online presence, how to overcome fear (of failure, success, what have you), produce video, and probably most importantly, building a community. The book is all about building out a community of people that you help and who in turn help you. A real community, not just a bunch of readers or viewers, but an interactive group of individuals. Again, I’m in favor.

Unusual enough for a modern book, he has an Index. In fact, he has a good index. When I saw that I had to check to see if I was reading one of my history books or a technical book. No one puts indexes in books any more (apart from historians & geeks). Excellent.

So that’s what the book is all about, how did it affect me, personally? I have to say, I’m a bit… meh, about it. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a very well written book and I believe in what David Garland is pushing here. I think he’s 100% correct and I think the book would be very useful to others. Unfortunately, I’ve read several of Seth Godin’s books and I’ve been pursuing this line of approach already, so… while the book reinforced the things I know, the approach I’m taken, the beliefs I’m working under, it didn’t add a lot to them. But I think the fault here is the reader, not the book. However, I still found it useful, if for nothing else the reinforcement that I’m at least striving in the right direction (which is very nice to have).

I did find the chapter on reputation, “Your Reputation in the Transparent World We Live In” … scary and useful. I’m sure that doesn’t sound good, but it is. I’ve made several adjustments to how and what I do online over the last year and I suspect I’ll be making a few more changes based on this. I’m just nervous about going too far and becoming boring (right, right… more boring).

Anyway, on to the next book, Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself by Daniel H. Pink.

I’ve finished my 3rd book as part of my year long commitment to read and review professional/personal development books. I read one of my favorite authors this time, Seth Godin and his book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us .

I’ve either been very smart or very lucky in my choice of books. I’ve enjoyed all three. But this one was better than the other two. Then again, this is my third Seth Godin book, I think I’m predisposed to enjoying his writing.

The core idea behind the book is predicated on two facts. First, humans tend to congregate, we’re social critters. Second, you can take the lead of your tribe. Easy stuff, right? Wrong. It’s complicated and weird and hard. The book doesn’t even remotely suggest otherwise. This is not a “do these three things and you’ll be famous, rich, and have lots of attractive people draped across your body” kind of books. No. This book is about work. Work at home, work at work, work in the community… defined how you want to to be. Working to take the lead to decide on a direction and do the things necessary to go there, but most importantly, to take your tribe with you, assuming they want to go.

It’s a great and fun read. It’s filled with stories from real life and movies, whatever and wherever, to illustrate the points that Seth Godin wants to illustrate. Some of it is wonderful, such as “Leadership Is Not Management” or “Stability Is An Illusion.” Other parts are frankly off putting, talking about failure and the fear of it, something that we all deal with all the time… or maybe that’s just me. He really covers a lot of material that I found incredibly useful because I’m trying to be one of those leaders (and why I’m motivated to do that was at least partially answered by the last book).

I find that some of the book is just going to be difficult for me to really make use of. He talks about doing things that others are not. Frankly, I’m just not there. I try to be imaginative, but I think I’m generally a bit dull (which is fine, competent, dull & employed is just fine). Other parts were inspiring and I think I can use them. For example, we live in an age where you really can just start doing things with little cost to entry. I’m reading this book at the same time as Google+ is getting started. There is this thing called Hangouts in G+. While reading the book and looking at the functionality of G+ I realized that, maybe, Hangouts were a way to build community, chat, help people, consult, something… I’m still not 100% sure. But, because I was reading the book. I started hosting hangouts. I’ve hosted 5 or 6 at this point and I’ve attended another 5 or 6 hosted by others. I posted about my experience with Hangouts too. All because I was reading this book and realized I might be able to do something here in relation to my “tribe.”

In short, it’s a great read, I think I’m going to get useful information out of the book. I think I already have. Plus, I get a kick out of the idea of being a heretic. Now I just need to find out what I should be a heretic about.

Next book is all about marketing: Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-Free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business