In keeping with the past, I’m going to go ahead and post my evals for the two sessions I did at Connections in Vegas back in November. It was a mixed conference for me. The first session I had ~80 people. The second session I had 9. Yeah, weird. But there were great speakers there (as usual) so I’m hardly shocked that I had low attendance, but the funny thing is I expected the sessions to be reversed. The low one was the session I lavished love & attention on. The high one wasn’t given as much of my focus. Figures. Here are the evals. I love how Connections shows the high, mean and low so you get a sense of how you fit. SQL Server Optimization Checklist (36 responses)…
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,…
Another Summit done gone by and I’m exhausted. You know you did the Summit correctly if you’re crawling onto the plane to leave because you can no longer stand. That’s where I was on Saturday. I’m going to go ahead and write down a few thoughts about the Summit, but I want to point you over to Andy Leonard’s (blog|twitter) blog for what is a truly great summary. I won’t blame you if you read that & skip this. Still here? This year the Summit was amazing. I think it’s probably the best run Summit I’ve attended. From registration on Sunday night, to the final sessions on Friday, everything was dealt with in a timely and professional fashion that made the place a joy to attend. Huge kudos to the…
And we’re off. We opened with a video of people saying “Connect, Share, Learn†and “This, is Community†Rob Farley & Buck Woody came out with a song about long running queries. [8:20]Wayne Snyder has been working with the PASS organization since 1999. He spoke at the first PASS Summit and he’s been on the board forever. He has finally hit the point as immediate-past president where he has to leave the board. We’ve got a great little thank you for him from all sorts of people. Wayne is a magnificent guy, seriously. If you see him, thank him for his service. [8:28]We have a new executive committee, Bill Graziano as President, WHOOP, Douglas McDowell is Executive Vice-President and Thomas LaRock is VP of Marketing and finally, Rushabh Mehta is…
Bill Graziano has come out on stage, looking marvelous, in a traditional kilt and stockings. Thanks Bill. For those who don’t know, Day 2 at the Summit every year is Kilt Day. [8:19]Outstanding volunteers being recognized are Tim Radney and Jack Corbett. These are some outstanding people who work their bottoms off for the PASS Community. If you meet them, thank them. The 2011 PASSion Award goes to Lori Edwards. She’s simply amazing. Congratulations Lori and thank you for all the work you’ve done! [8:23]Time to eat our vegetables. We’re looking at the financials. It’s a slightly painful process, but important to understand where the money goes since this is a non-profit organization managed by volunteers. You should understand where the money comes from and where it goes. [8:25]Quentin Clark…
This is Day 2 of the Summit proper. But for me, this is the fifth day of the Summit and my sixth in Seattle. Sunday was the opening of registration and it was like a high school reunion with people that you really love. Registration itself only takes about three minutes, but I was there for almost two hours talking to people, friends from previous PASS Summits, SQL Saturday’s, SQL Cruise, and SQL In The City. Monday I put on a pre-conference seminar with Gail Shaw. We had 120 attendees. Despite our worries and multiple contingency plans, we had more than enough material for the time (you try coordinating 7 hours of material with someone from South Africa who has less band width than my phone). It went off wonderfully.…
Hello again. The PASS Organization has once more allowed me to sit at the bloggers table for the key note. I’ll be posting updates as the information unfolds. [8:06] The crowd is filling in. this looks like one of the biggest crowds I’ve ever seen at the summit. The organizers have done a great job so far. Thanks for all the hard work guys. [8:10] SQUEEEEE! I just met Dr. David Dewitt and got a picture with him. I’ll post it after I get home and find the cable. [8:22] Watching the videos of different people on the big screen talking about what they like about the PASS Summit is really cool. [8:26] Rushahb Mehta is introducing the board and the Partners of the PASS board. We now have a…
You know I share what feedback I get from conferences. I don’t usually get feedback from users groups (well, I do, but it’s seldom written down and the bruises heal eventually). The St. Louis SQL Server Users Group did collect information. Since I share the other stuff, I may as well share this too. They didn’t have a metric. It was just written down comments. Here are a few, my comments, as usual, will be in parenthesis: Enjoyed the demos; Everything worked (ditto, the enjoying demos working part) Good speaker; just dislike presentations w/ remote speakers.(Me too. I prefer interaction. I like seeing heads nodding or shaking or eyes rolling up so I know if I’m covering things well enough. Remote presentations are hard & can be very boring to…
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 first ever SQL Rally was held just last week. It was an excellent time. The event was organized and run by PASS. Which means, in effect, it was a like a mini-Summit. I’m struggling a bit to come up with the words to describe what the event was like. It was so much more than a long SQL Saturday, but describing it, as I just did, as a mini-Summit mischaracterizes it as well. I guess it must be it’s own critter. Let me just tell you what went on, maybe that will help. The event was held at a very nice hotel, the Marriott World in Orlando, Florida. The Rally proper was two days long, but there was a set of pre-conference seminars held the previous day, making the…