I’m happy to say that for most of you out there, the answer to this question is “no.” That’s as it should be. I’m not anyone all that special. I present technical sessions at various events from local user group meetings to SQL Saturday’s to international events like the PASS Summit and 24 Hours of PASS. Why? Not because the attendees know my name, that’s for sure. It’s because of a combination of at least two of these three things:

1. The organizers might know my name or may know of my books or the fact that I’m working for a vendor that sponsors their event
2. I’ve submitted sessions that seem to be of interest to the people who might be attending the event being organized
3. I’ve got a track record of delivering decent, if not world-altering, presentations that people find useful.

Let’s say you’re organizing a SQL Saturday event. And, let’s say that you want to get as many attendees as you possibly can. Is your best bet to find a bunch of people with MVP or MCM after their name? Or, should you focus on getting an interesting set of content from speakers that you know can deliver?

From what I’ve seen, it’s that second option that is your best bet. I’ve stood in front of people and started talking about a topic that I have a written a book about only to find that the entire room was not aware that I had written that book. They weren’t there for me. They were there for knowledge that I might be able to communicate to them. They were there for the topic, not the speaker. I’ve seen local speakers give presentations that were simply amazing, despite the fact that they didn’t have a book or weren’t blogging constantly. It’s the content and delivery, not the person delivering it. You’re going to know your local speakers as well as, or better than, any of the MVPs. Rely on your knowledge of these people and the fact that you’ve seen them present before.

This is something that I think way too many people overlook. Especially when you’re managing a SQL Saturday event, you need to build an interesting set of topics, not lure a bunch of MVPs to your event. Guaranteed, you’ll get an MVP or three. Don’t focus on that or worry about it. Instead, focus on your agenda. Build a good set of presentations, the kind that are going to be the most useful to your audience.

Don’t believe me? Check out these links to the front page of the PASS Summit 2011, 2010, 2009. Note a couple of things. First, no headliners at all. No speakers are called out in any way except the people delivering the key notes. Second, there are Flickr & Twitter streams in which anyone can be one the front page for a time. In short, the focus is on content and attendees.

Remember this when you’re setting up your event.

Oh, and don’t bother linking to this post. Everyone has my permission to copy and paste this and claim it as their own. You just have to include this disclaimer for everyone else to copy and paste this post as well.

I’m travelling to several upcoming events and I’d love to sit down and talk with you. Yes, I get it, most of these events you’re going to see the sessions, but you really should plan on networking too. Here’s your chance to get started on that:

Southern New England SQL Server Users Group, East Greenwich,RI – 3/14/2012:
TSQL Deployment and Continuous Integration Best Practices

SQL Saturday 120, Orange County – 3/24/2012:
I’m presenting two times here. They’re both presentations that I’m working up for Connections.
Common Backup Problems and How To Deal With Them
TSQL Deployment and Continuous Integration Best Practices

SQL Connections:Las Vegas 3/26 – 3/29/2012:
I get it. You don’t go to Vegas to network. That doesn’t mean you can’t still do that too. I’m presenting three sessions.
Top Tips for Writing Better TSQL
Common Backup Problems and How To Deal With Them
TSQL Deployment and Continuous Integration Best Practices

New England SQL Server Users Group – 4/12/2012:
Common Backup Problems and How To Deal With Them

SQL Saturday 111, Atlanta – 4/14/2012:
Execution Plans, a Deep Dive
Common Backup Problems and How to Deal With Them

In addition to these networking opportunities, I’m also speaking online at:

SQL Lunch UK – 3/13/2012:
Deadlocks, How to Identify Them and What to Do About Them

24 Hours Of PASS – 3/24/2012:
What to Look For in SQL Server 2012 Execution Plans

I’ve got more stuff coming in May, June and July (including SQL in the City) and I’ll post that as we get closer.

Seriously, please, let’s talk.

I’ll be presenting at the Colorado Springs SQL Saturday on January 7th of 2012. The session is called Seven Ways to Fix Bad Parameter Sniffing. Please, if you’re in the area, register and come to the event. There are going to be some truly excellent speakers there. There is also evidently skiing on Sunday, although I won’t be taking part in that.

I write quite frequently about SQL Server Execution Plans. I started in that area just because that’s how you figure out what a query is doing and sooner or later, we all have to tune a query. I found I was doing it sooner and more frequently. When the opportunity came up to write a book , I jumped on it. Now I find myself presenting, rather frequently, on execution plans.

One of the people I’ve learned from over the last several years is Gail Shaw (blog|twitter). I first saw Gail on stage at the PASS Summit, I think it was 2007. A co-worker of mine was picked, along with Gail, to go on stage for the Quiz Bowl. Gail was answering all the questions. If you go over to SQL Server Central, Gail doesn’t answer all the questions, but she’s involved most of the important discussions. If you read her blog and articles, Gail has also been deeply involved in query tuning and execution plans for a long time.

Why am I telling you all this?

In just a little over three weeks, Gail and I will be presenting an all day seminar on SQL Server Execution Plans. We’re going to cover the optimizer and the plan cache and we’re going to show you how to read a ton of execution plans. We’re going to go over how to spot problems and how to fix them. We’ll be examining plans from people in the audience (yeah, bring your problem plans) live on stage. You’ll get the chance not just to hear us talk, but to ask us questions, to get clarification on topics and meet other people who are learning the same stuff you are.

In short, we’re going to be having a really good time and talking a lot about Execution Plans. This is your chance. Register for the Summit and, please, register for our pre-conference seminar. You won’t be disappointed.

If you’re attending the PASS Summit this October, I’d like to make a suggestion. The Summit itself is only three days long, Wednesday to Friday. But, if you have to travel any distance to get there, you’re going to miss work on Tuesday as well. Why not take a whole week away and spend Monday with Gail Shaw (blog|twitter) and me?

The reason I ask is because Gail and I are putting together 7 hours of information all about execution plans. We’re going to be presenting this information on Monday at the Summit as a pre-conference seminar. Yes, you’ll have to pay extra to attend this session. But if you register for the Summit now, there’s still a discount, which you can put towards to the seminar. And, seriously now, didn’t you want to learn more about execution plans? This is your chance.

Gail is an acknowledged SQL Server expert who writes and speaks regularly about execution plans and query performance tuning. If you read this blog at all, you might notice the occasional post about execution plans. Plus there’s the book on execution plans and the one on query tuning . Come on! You really do want to attend our session.

Even if you’ve already registered for the PASS Summit, you can still add a pre-conference seminar to your registration. If you don’t like learning about execution plans, there are lots of other good seminars to pick from (I’d recommend considering Rob Farley’s (blog|twitter) session even though he can be slightly backwards when it comes to execution plans [kidding]).

In keeping with the all my other major speaking engagements, I’m posting the results of my pre-con and session evals at the first-ever SQL Rally. I’m posting this really late and I apologize.

The good news, I did a fill-in when someone cancelled and I was placed in the Grab Bag category where I had the highest rated session although it was a far cry from the actual highest rated sessions from the whole Rally.

There is no bad news.

Query Performance Tuning: Start to Finish

I was pretty happy with this considering it’s my first, public, all day training class. I’m even happier with the feedback. I received some excellent constructive criticism that I will attempt to take into account when I present in the future (including at the PASS Summit pre-con with Gail Shaw (blog|twitter)). Here are the results of the 80 (out of 98) evals:

• How would you rate the Speaker’s ability to convey information and control the presentation? 4.638
• How would you rate the Speaker’s knowledge of the subject? 4.7222
• How would you rate the accuracy of the session title and description to the actual session? 4.620
• How would you rate the speaker’s use of the allocated time to cover the topic/session? 4.650
• How would you rate your ability to follow along with the speaker’s examples/demonstrations? 4.413
• Please rate the practicality of the information presented? 4.646
• Session average: 4.615

To say the least, I have nothing to complain about. These are solid ratings. The one that concerns me is the rating on my demonstrations. It’s low. Lower than the other ratings by a considerable amount and it’s reflected in the comments. It’s not that the demonstrations were too difficult, but evidently I ran through them too quickly. That’s something I’ll try to watch for going forward.

A few of the comments and my responses, if any, in parentheses:

went a little too fast through a couple of the demos (several comments like this and the ratings reflect it as well)

wanted more on identifying bad queries

have alternate improvements, and measure all alternatives during the query optimisation section. (nice idea, hard to do and cover what I covered, maybe a different all day session on this)

very well made presentation. Got my money’s worth and some

would have liked to see a start to finish example. a large complex query and how to apply the techniques to improve it. Examples seemed too isolated (similar to above)

Not enough deep dive (it wasn’t meant to be. if something is rated as 200, you’re not going to get a deep dive. why would you expect one?)

Raise the screen up higher i couldn’t see the bottom of the screen (a few of these. I changed how I did my presentation so that instead of results on the same tab, my results go to a new tab, which means execution plans can be at the top of the screen. I did what I could, but it’s these rooms that make this difficult, people running these conferences, take note)

If the speaker allows audience to do some testing simultaneously with ongoing session will make the session more interactive and fun (excellent idea and I wish I had done this)

While 7 hours was plenty of time, a faster pace would have allowed for more demos (and here you get the reversal from the people complaining about the fast pace, of which there were several)

Thank you everyone for the feedback. It was extremely useful and thoughtful and I really appreciate you taking the time to fill it out. I hope to apply all this to my pre-con in the fall (please attend, especially the person who asked for a deep dive on execution plans, you’ll love it)

Reading Execution Plans: The Deep Dive

This was a fill-in session. I hadn’t rehearsed it at all and it was supposed to be 90 minutes, not the 60 I had to present it in. It was a new style of presentation that I was experimenting with for the SQL Cruise. Getting the chance to run through it at the SQL Rally was a great opportunity. I think the weaknesses of the presentation are reflected in the evals, but overall, I was really happy with how it came out, despite the fact that I was speaking really fast to get 90 minutes of material into 60. Here are the results of 40 evals out of about 60 people in the room:

• How would you rate the Speaker’s ability to convey information and control the presentation? 4.700
• How would you rate the Speaker’s knowledge of the subject? 4.875
• How would you rate the accuracy of the session title and description to the actual session? 4.750
• How would you rate the speaker’s use of the allocated time to cover the topic/session? 4.600
• How would you rate your ability to follow along with the speaker’s examples/demonstrations? 4.440
• Please rate the practicality of the information presented? 4.725
• Session average: 4.700

Nothing much to say about these. It was an unrehearsed presentation. The fact that it’s not all 1’s is wonderful. Demos & explanations low ratings I’m putting down to excessive speed because I really did talk quite quickly.

Here are a few comments:

THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME UNDERSTAND EXECUTION PLANS.

WOULD LOVE TO TAKE A 5-7 DAY CLASS ON THIS WITH LABS. (how about a 1 day class?)

GRANT IS AWESOME! GREAT TRAINING ON A LAST MINUTE FILL-IN.

WOULD LIKE VALUES. GOOD, BAD (absolutely something to consider, but this was meant as a “what/how to read” session, not so much a “what to do about it” session, maybe I should stop trying to separate those)

OPENED MY EYES TO THINGS IN THE EXEC PLAN THAT I NORMALLY OVERLOOK. (100% absolute WIN! This is exactly what I was going for with this session. Bringing out the details that people don’t know about to show them how to understand the plans. When I saw this comment I jumped up & down, for real)

TOO MUCH INFO FOR 1 HR TIME SLOT (Tell me about it)

Again, wonderful stuff. People at SQL Rally seemed to take on the task of providing feedback much more seriously than I usually see at conferences. Thank you!

Thanks to all the organizers of SQL Rally. You guys did a great job. Thanks for letting me present twice. It was an honor. I had a blast. I’m looking forward to more SQL Rally events in the future (although I don’t think I can present since I have a pre-con & spotlight at the Summit).

I’ve put in several abstracts for the 2011 Summit. This year we’re voting for preferred sessions. If you’re interested in any of the ones I’ve listed below, please consider giving me a vote.I was very kindly invited to submit for a spotlight session (for which I am very grateful and humbled, again) so I put two in for that. I also put in for two regular sessions. This year, for the first time I put in not one, but two abstracts for all day pre/post-conference sessions. One of them was put together as a partnership between Gail Shaw (blog|twitter) and myself. I’m excited by that one.

I love speaking and I really hope I make the cut.

In the interest of sharing, these are the abstracts I’ve submitted:

Spotlight: DMOs as a Shortcut for Performance Tuning
Dynamic Management Objects(DMO) expose a wealth of information to the database administrator. However, they also expose information that is vital to the database developer. More often than not people gather performance metrics through server side traces, but they don’t have to. This session will show how to gather information from the DMOs for currently executing, and recently executed queries. The session will demonstrate combining this information with other DMOs to get more interesting information such as the query plan and query text. I’ll show where you can get aggregate information for the queries in cache to determine which queries are being frequently accessed or using the most resources. I’ll show how to determine which indexes are being used in your system and which are not. All of this will be focused, not on the DBA, but on the query writer, the developer or database developer that needs information to tune and troubleshoot data access.

Spotlight: Reading An Execution Plan
This presentation will be about execution plans and nothing but execution plans. I will spend the entire session showing you as much as possible about all the information available to you inside execution plans. I’ll show you how to dig into the plans to gather all the data there that tells you what happened with your query. We’ll go to places in the plans that people just don’t think to look at and explore how information from these places informs you about the operations and methods of the optimizer and the storage engine. From this session I want you to learn how to read a plan for yourself. Once that’s in hand, you’ll never need anyone’s help tuning a query again.

Session: SQL Server Backup and Restore for the Accidental DBA
You’ve either volunteered or had the position thrust upon you, but here you are. You’re the DBA. You are being looked to as the person who will protect the companies’ data and you really don’t have a clue where to start. Let me suggest that one of the first things you should do is put together a good plan for backing up your database. This session will focus on the best practices, standards and methods that you can employ to ensure that you have a solid backup process for the databases under your charge. You’ll also learn how to restore these databases, because your backups are only good if you can restore them. We’ll also go over some of the questions you should be asking your business, because data recovery is as much a business decision as a technical one. At the end of the session, you should be able to go back to your office with confidence that you can begin to protect your data.

Session: Creating a Winning Abstract
You’ve decided that you’d like to try out this technical presentation thing, but you’re expected to write this odd little document called an abstract. What the heck is an abstract? This session will attempt to answer that question. It will also provide some methods and best practices for improving your abstracts and possibly improving your chances of getting selected. I’ll be working from failed and accepted abstracts of my own and examples from others, again, both failed and accepted. We’ll talk about what makes an abstract work and what makes an abstract ugly. You’ll be able to take home a few new ideas for building abstracts of your own that can help to get you started making presentations at your local user group, SQL Saturday, and possibly even international events like the PASS Summit. (and yes, if this one doesn’t get selected, it’s the last time I submit it, anywhere, ever)

PreCon: SQL Server Query Performance Tuning: Start to Finish
One of the most common problems encountered in SQL Server is the slow running query. Once a query is identified as running poorly, people frequently don’t understand how to diagnose and fix the problem. This one day seminar focuses exclusively on these two topics, identifying the queries that are performing badly and figuring out how to fix them. We start by learning how to gather performance metrics including both server metrics and query metrics using tools available directly from Microsoft such as performance monitor, DMOs and Profiler. From there we’ll move into learning how the optimizer works and how it uses statistics to determine which indexes and other database objects can be used to assist the performance of a query. The session takes considerable time to show exactly how to generate and read execution plans, the one best mechanism for observing how the optimizer works. We’ll then look at other DMOs that can also assist you when performance tuning queries. With all this knowledge gathered, we’ll move into looking at common performance problems, how they evidence themselves in the metrics and execution plans, and how to address them. Finally, we’ll explore advanced methods for solving some of the more difficult query performance problems introducing such concepts as query hints, plan guides and plan forcing. Through all of this, best practices and common techniques will be reviewed. Attendees will go home with a working knowledge of query performance tuning, a set of methods for identifying poorly performing queries, scripts to assist in these processes and the knowledge of how to fix performance problems in their own systems.

PreCon: All About Execution Plans
The key to understanding how SQL Server is processing your queries is the execution plan. This full day session focuses on the execution plan. We will start right at the beginning and talk about the compile process. We’ll also go over how, and more importantly, why, plans are stored in cache and how they are removed. We’ll spend time exploring the key differences between actual and estimated plans, and why those descriptions are more than a little misleading. We’ll also show you assorted methods to obtain a query’s execution plan and what the differences and tradeoffs of each are. A full day class on execution plans would not be complete without spending time learning to reading them. You’ll learn where to find useful information in execution plans, what the common operators are and how to decipher the sometimes cryptic messages the plans are sending to you. We’ll also debunk some myths surrounding query operators and execution plans. All of this is meant to further your understanding of how queries work in order to improve the queries you’re responsible for. With this in mind, we’ll show how you can use execution plans to tune queries. All of the information presented will be taken from real world examples. We’ll build on the information through the day so that at the end, after following us through multiple examples at your own computer, you’ll have a stronger understanding of how to read, interpret and actually use execution plans in your day-to-day job.

The very first ever SQL Rally is taking place in a little less than four weeks in Orlando Florida. It’s going to be quite the event. There will be two full days of sessions on any number of topics. But before that all starts, there’s going to be a set of full day pre-conference seminars. These too are on a number of topics, but I’m hoping to draw your attention to just one, mine.

I’ve put together a seven hour session on query performance tuning. I’ve tried to make it as complete as I possibly can. I’m going to cover the whole process from collecting data on your machines to identify where problems may be, to understanding the optimizer so you know how things work, to reading execution plans so you can identify issues, to various methods of fixing all sorts of different performance problems. In short, performance tuning, start to finish. Here are the specific things that I hope to communicate to you with this seminar:

1. The ability to collect performance metrics on their servers as part of an overall query tuning methodology

2. The ability to generate execution plans from multiple sources in support of troubleshooting poorly performing queries

3. An understanding of how the optimizer works in support of writing better TSQL code as well as troubleshooting poorly performing queries

4. A working knowledge of DMVs that will help them identify and fix performance issues on their servers

5. The ability to address common query performance problems

That’s it. If you get all or part of these five topics, it’s a win. This is probably an low to intermediate level class. It’s not high level. If you’ve been teaching performance tuning to experts for years, you’re probably not going to get much out of this class. If you do want to prep for the class, I’d recommend getting a copy of my book, “SQL Server 2008 Query Performance Tuning Distilled.”

There’s a good chance this seminar will sell out. If you’re interested, please click here to register soon in order to ensure that you have a spot.

I hope to see you there.

I just received 35 speaker evaluations from SQL Saturday #60 in Cleveland. It was a great event (although I had a hard time getting there) and I really enjoyed giving my presentation on “Gathering and Interpreting Performance Metrics” (a warm-up presentation of part of my SQL Rally pre-con).

Feedback is a wonderful gift. Thanks to everyone who filled out the eval and especially to those who commented.

The evals have six questions and an area for comments. The questions are rated from Very Poor to Excellent. I’ve decided to assign them number values from 1-5. The overall average is 4.82. Here are the breakdowns per question:

How would you rate the usefulness of the session information in your day-to-day environment: 4.79
How would you rate the Speaker’s presentation skills: 4.85
How would you rate the Speaker’s knowledge of the subject: 5
How would you rate the accuracy of the session title, description and experience level to the actual session: 4.76
How you rate the amount of time allocated to cover the topic/session: 4.67
How would you rate the quality of the presentation materials: 4.85

Here are samples of some of the comments:

• Great enthusiasm, demos are valuable
• Not enough on “interpretation” focused on “how” I was hoping to hear more on what they mean, and which ones to focus on. Too general & broad for the title
• Lots of info to digest. I hope I can remember enough to use it.
• Fun guy
• Great finish to the day
• Clean up the order some, but good stuff
• Good energy and style. Get your order sorted & you’re good

My take on the evals? Overall, I’m very happy. I’m especially happy with that 5 on Speaker Knowledge (not that I believe it). I’m a little disappointed in the low scores on Usefulness and Accuracy. I’m flatly surprised that people aren’t finding this useful in their environments (although, I realize I got a 4.79, which is really good, but I need to be able to comment on something). Maybe everyone already has a great monitoring tool installed. Accuracy of the session, I’m not sure where to go with that one. I tried to be very clear in the description that we would be talking about data collection and interpretation and if you look at the slides, it’s about 50/50. Yeah, I do cover how to collect the data, but I also spend time giving actual numbers for evaluating what’s what. And the time on the topic rating? Who cares. I hate this question. Did people rate it low because they thought more time was needed or did they rate it low because I spent way too much of their time? Yeah, I don’t know either. Take that away and my overall average goes up to 4.85. As to the comments on order, I had rearranged some of the slides and kind of lost track of which was when. My mistake. I think I’ll keep the order their in, but just remember where I put them.

Thanks again for the feedback everyone. It was a wonderful gift.

As I have done in previous years, I’m going to post the results from my sessions at the PASS Summit. Feedback is a gift. I received a great many gifts this year and I’m extremely happy about all of them.

There are a set of questions with ratings, the higher the rating, the better you did. One exception to this rule is the question on time for the session. I think there, somewhat lower scores are better. There were 183 technical sessions rated during the Summit. I’m very honored to have been included in that list.

Identifying and Fixing Performance Problems using Execution Plans: 286 Attendees, 172 Responses, Avg Score of 4.23, Placed 136th

How would you rate the usefulness of the information presented in your day-to-day environment?

I’m a little disappointed with this score. Maybe people are just dealing with fewer and fewer queries these days.

How would you rate the Speaker’s presentation skills?

Again, I’m a little disappointed on this score, but I think it’s partly explained in the comments, some of which I posted below.

How would you rate the Speaker’s knowledge of the subject?

As my kid says, giggity!

How would you rate the accuracy of the session title, description and experience level to the actual session?

Not sure what was expected. I said we’d go through common problems and execution plans, we did.

How would you rate the amount of time allocated to cover the topic/session?

This was partly because I had more material than I had time for. But, it was also partly explained in the comments.

How would you rate the quality of the presentation materials?

This one, I understand, partly. I only had about four slides. Other than that, all the time was spent in TSQL playing with code. I think most people are looking for slides as documentation. I don’t entirely understand that myself, but I’ll try to improve my slide deck in the future.

Comments (responses in parenthesis):

• Not Good. Talks about to read other material.
• no microphone-couldn’t hear him-couldnt see screen (I had a mic, I did sound checks before we started, but there were a ton of these comments, so there’s something for me in the future, double-check sound levels, especially once the room is full)
• A little to fast.
• A little too basic for what i was expecting. (yeah, they bounce like that)
• Couldn’t hear or see presentation. Too many people. Couldn’t hear questions. Worked at bottom of screen too much. (another lesson learned, exec plans are at the bottom of the screen, it’s hard for people in the back to see. I need to figure out how to post them up higher)
• I felt that Grant needed to pull in the adhoc questions at times, just a little distracting after a point. (noted, there were several of these. I might encourage audience participation too much, or I need to restrain questions more to the end. I just enjoy the conversation so much.)
• A lot to cover in 75 minutes. (there were a ton of these too. I’ll take it as a mixed blessing, one, they wanted more, two, I need to control the questions a bit more)
• this would be better in an all day session in Pre/Post. (a bunch of these comments. I’ll see how SQL Rally goes & I might submit)
• Excellent and very useful session. Presenter was very engaging. (several of these, thank you)

Overall, a decent session. I’m not excited about the results, but the feedback is excellent. I’ll have to work on some skills to deal with low screens in large rooms (other presenters who don’t already have this problem licked, take note).

DMV’s as a Shortcut to Procedure Tuning: 235 Attendees, 122 Reviews, Avg. Score of 4.626, Placed 31st

How would you rate the usefulness of the information presented in your day-to-day environment?

How would you rate the Speaker’s presentation skills?

How do I square this rating with the one above? I don’t know. Better room? The screen was higher & I was working on code mostly that I could keep near the top. I’m not sure.

How would you rate the Speaker’s knowledge of the subject?

And again, giggity! But seriously, I don’t know everything about this topic, I’m constantly learning, I learned during the presentation, but if I can get info to people that I have & they don’t, mission accomplished.

How would you rate the accuracy of the session title, description and experience level to the actual session?

Why so many 1’s and 3’s? I’m not sure. Based on comments, I think it’s the 300 rating the session has. I’ll tell you true, I’m not sure it should be 300, but then again, I don’t think it’s a 200. So if it’s a 249 or a 251, where does it go? Tough question.

How would you rate the amount of time allocated to cover the topic/session?

How would you rate the quality of the presentation materials?

Clearly a bit of a weakness of mine. I’ll try to work on it.

Comments (again, responses etc.):

• One of the best presenters I’ve seen in the years I’ve attended PASS. Good material presented in a very lively and informative manner. (can’t help it, you get a comment like that, you share it)
• More like a 200 level course. (several similar comments. I’m not sure where to go with it, but if I present this again, I’ll try marking it 200 to see how it goes)
• Not sure about the legs! (it was Kilt Wedensday)
• Very interesting topic…and the presentation got better over time. (there really were a ton of comments of this type. Everyone, really, thanks)
• There were lots of “I don’t knows” from the presenter.
• Would say if he didn’t know something. That’s good. (yes, this was the reversal commentary this time. Fact is, I did say, I don’t know, at least three times that I recall. One time the answer came from the audience. I’m good with that, but it clearly bothers people who expect the presenters to be all knowing. People, with the exception of Paul Randal, we’re not)
• Used lots of humor (some self-deprecating)throughout. Well applied. Engaged the audience. (I think I used “I’m stupid & lazy” a few too many times. I am lazy, which is why learning how to use DMOs is so wonderful. It enables my laziness)

I’m very pleased with this one, obviously. Some details to work on, but overall, a pretty good presentation that seems to have been pretty well received.

That’s it. I have results from the lightening talk that I did, but they’re aggregate across all the speakers and don’t provide much in the way of good information beyond the fact, that most people seemed to think the lightening talks were a fun thing.