10Dec 2015 by Grant Fritchey 5 Comments

Promote Community

PASS, Professional Development
When I present at any given event, I generally assume that the people attending have heard of the event that I'm at. For example, I don't need to ask people at SQL in the City, "Who here has heard of Redgate Software?" Same thing goes for a SQL Saturday event "Did anyone here know that there's a local, free, event being held that provides free training and networking in your area?" seems like a waste of time while at the event. However, what about the rest of the community? If you're working on your presentation skills, I'd like you to add one more bit of work to everything else you're doing (yes, yes, you're welcome). I'd like you to get in the habit of taking 3-5 minutes prior to the…
Read More
09Dec 2015 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

PASS Board Update: First Year

PASS
This represents my 12th month on the board so I thought I would recap my time there so you know what I've done, haven't done, etc. A year ago I took over Chapters as my area of responsibility, what's known as my Portfolio. Wendy Pastrick had been ably running it quite well, so I had big shoes to fill. The first thing I had to prepare was a set of goals for the Chapters. I've blogged about them and the process and I reported on my success in meeting them (mostly) at PASS Summit this year. Over the year I've welcomed a number of new leaders, new Regional Mentors and new chapters into the fold. I've worked with Carmen and Karla at HQ, and we've done a good job (in…
Read More
07Dec 2015 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Learning R: Foundations

Azure, DevOps, Professional Development, SQL Server 2016
Learning a programming language is largely an act of using that language to do stuff. Done. However, the big thing about R is the mathematical and statistical analyses that can be easily run against your data sets. This means, part of learning this language is learning another, that of data science. I'll be posting about how I'm learning R, but I also should tell you how I'm picking up on Data Science. First and foremost, madman he may be, but one of the few sources of information that I simply trust is Buck Woody. He's been running a series on Data Science. Here's an excellent example on how to pick a particular algorithm. These are must reads. Next, I'm starting a book called Data Science for Business: What you need to…
Read More
03Dec 2015 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Changing Course On Learning

Azure, Database Lifecycle Management, DevOps, DocumentDB, Professional Development
With all the new stuff on the Microsoft Data Platform, it's really hard to keep up with it all. I had announced my plans to charge down the DocumentDB road to try to get the basics of that in my head along with learning some JSON so I could get what all the hoopla is about. However, after a lot of thought and some extensive meetings at Redgate, I'm looking to shift my learning in a new direction. First up. Arrrrrrrrr! No, it's not yet "Talk Like a Pirate Day." I'm going to start learning the R language. It's a language for statistical computing and is one of the many underpinnings for what's going to be happening with a lot of the Machine Learning capabilities in the Data Platform. With Azure…
Read More
01Dec 2015 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

It’s Not Too Late

Azure, Professional Development, Redgate Software, SQL Server 2016
You know you want to go on the SQL Cruise. You can. You just have to convince the boss that it's worth doing. It is. I've said it before and I'll repeat it as necessary, SQL Cruise changes peoples lives. I've watched people go on the cruise with a job and come back with a career. People don't just learn on the Cruise. They get energized. They get engaged with the data professional community. How do I profit by promoting SQL Cruise? I don't. Tim Ford is a friend and I'm supporting him. My company, Redgate Software, is a sponsor of the cruise, so I'm supporting them. I could just be doing the bare minimum in support of these parties. However, I'm not getting paid anything special by anyone for doing more.…
Read More
05Nov 2015 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

Speaker of the Month for November 2015

Professional Development
A great benefit that I get with my job is that I get to travel all over the place to see people present. This means I can expand out beyond my own country to see good speakers. That's the case this month. My Speaker of the Month, with all the glory it entails, is Rob Sewell and his session "Using PowerBI With My DBA Database" delivered at SQL Relay Cardiff. Rob delivered a very interesting, useful and entertaining session. It was all about how to gather data about your databases and their behavior and then put it into different types of reports in order to be proactive about stuff within your managed environment. I loved the way he put his slides together, the graphics and the lack of bullet points.…
Read More
02Nov 2015 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

PASS Summit 2015: Wrap-up

PASS
WHOOP! Another PASS Summit is complete. This one was amazing. It's my first time ever as a member of the Board of Directors of the PASS organization to attend the Summit and take part in the full process of making the sausage. It was hard. It was exhausting (more so than usual). It was one the most exhilarating, fascinating and wonderful experiences of my life. First the sad news, Rimma Nehme and Dr. DeWitt have delivered their last presentation at the PASS Summit. It's the end of an era. I was at the first session delivered by Dr. DeWitt. It was one of the most amazing technical keynotes I'd ever seen until the next one that he gave. The two of them became absolute rock stars in the SQL Server…
Read More
29Oct 2015 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

PASS Summit 2015: So Far

PASS
It's Kilt Day! I want to give a quick assessment on how the Summit has been for me so far. Monday, as is true for the rest of the week, I served two masters. In the morning I went to the Redgate SQL in the City event. In the afternoon I attended our in-person board meeting. The minutes for the meeting will come out after they're approved. The meeting largely consisted of reporting on how we had done this year and starting the process of getting going for next year. I left that meeting and went back to SQL in the City. Yeah, I've been running all week. Tuesday was my community day. It's been announced that I'm moving from the Chapters portfolio to the SQL Saturday portfolio. I went…
Read More
23Oct 2015 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Talk to Me at PASS Summit

PASS
If you're going to PASS and you want to have a chat, I want to talk to you. If it's about the Board of Directors for PASS, PASS Chapters, execution plans, crossfit or something else, here are a few places where I'll be doing my best to make myself available: Redgate Booth - I'll be here quite a bunch all next week. Swing by and don't just talk to me, get a demo of one of our fine products. Community Zone - I'll make a point of going here to hang out when I can so you can track me down. Board of Directors Q&A - Thursday in 307/308 at 3:30 PM, I know exactly where I'll be. Receptions - Tuesday night is the welcome reception for Summit. I'll be…
Read More
22Oct 2015 by Grant Fritchey 9 Comments

ZOOMIT!

PASS, Professional Development
Guilty. I'm at least one of the people who yelled Zoomit during a keynote at PASS Summit. I want to take a moment and explain why I did it and why it was wrong. I was frustrated. I'm watching a presentation on a HUGE screen, from about mid-way in the room and the presenter is earnestly showing off a cool new feature of SQL Server in about 3 point font and saying "... As you can see ...". No. No I couldn't. After a little while of staring at the blur on the screen and hearing the person say I could see this or see that, I popped. I was interested. I was paying attention. I really and truly wanted to see what was on the screen and I honestly could…
Read More