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…
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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…
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20Oct 2015 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Statistics for the New Data Pro

PASS, SQL Server, SQL Server 2016, T-SQL
Next week at the PASS Summit I'll be presenting a session called Statistics for the New Data Pro. You can read the abstract at the link. I just want to emphasize that this is a beginner level session. I think way too many people who are just starting out with SQL Server don't understand the role that statistics play in determining how your queries are going to behave. What's more, too many people don't know how to get and read statistics to understand how it is that the optimizer thinks you have X number of rows in your database that match a given value. I'm going to make darned sure that the people who attend this session come out with a full understanding of how to read the statistics. This includes…
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14Sep 2015 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

PASS Nominations Committee 2015

PASS
The Nominations Committee has done their job and the final report has been published. Good luck to everyone running. Thank you for stepping up and taking part in this process. This is the first time in a very long time that I don't get to put out a "You should listen to me and vote for..." blog post. Since I'm on the board I feel more than a little squeamish coming out for any candidate. If I openly support Person Y over Person X, have I just yacked off all the supporters of Person X? Have I yacked off Person X? Most importantly, have I potentially poisoned a relationship that I need in order to be effective while on the Board? Add to that the fact that I was ask…
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13Aug 2015 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

PASS Board Update: July 2015

PASS
I was actually travelling for most of July and some of that was on holiday with the family, the real family. That's why I didn't get a June update posted. I don't have anything much exciting to report. We're finally getting data out of our Chapter database and can report some interesting stuff. We've added 29 new chapters in the fiscal year of 2015. 10 in the US, 12 in EMEA, 2 in LATAM and 5 in APAC. There's a bunch more. Not sure when it's all supposed to be published, but I'll share some of it now, just 'cause. Our chapters logged 1,405 meetings in fiscal year 2015. That's a pretty serious amount of training. Well done everyone! Thanks for all your work Carmen. I missed the July board meeting…
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05Aug 2015 by Grant Fritchey 5 Comments

PASS Needs You!

PASS
It's time. No more procrastinating. No more complaining about the process from the outside. No more excuses. You have to run for the PASS Board. The Nominations Committee is all set, off and running. We've got great people involved who are going to do their best to ensure that the community gets the right people to run for the board. However, the NomComm isn't running for the board and the NomComm can't compel people to run. It's up to you to step forward and take on this task. If you've been out there thinking that maybe you need to step up, you do. If you've been thinking that you might be able to give back a little more, you can. If you think you might be the right person to…
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27May 2015 by Grant Fritchey 5 Comments

PASS Board Update: May 2015

PASS
I've had a busy month on the Board. You may have seen some tweets going by about our compliance with international laws regarding SPAM. This has been something of an education, so anything I say wrong below, it's because I'm wrong, but not malevolent (at least in regards to this topic), so please be kind. It appears that the mechanisms we had on our emails for showing where the email came from and how to unsubscribe from it, weren't completely in compliance... IF... we were sending emails that involved advertising. By we, I mean Chapters, not HQ. Now, that IF, could mean that we could skip out of meeting this requirement when our emails didn't involve advertisements, but then it'd have to be in compliance when it did and we'd…
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27Apr 2015 by Grant Fritchey 20 Comments

Benefits for Some, All or Only a Few

PASS, Professional Development
As a member of the PASS Board of Directors I attended the PASS Business Analytics Conference (BAC) recently. You can read more about it here and here (as well as here). Let me start with an important note: I am voicing my opinion here as an individual, not an official stance of the PASS organization. There is controversy around the BAC because of a whole bunch of things, but one question in particular bothered me. It was suggested that the people attending the BAC were just consuming the worth or value that other people who paid for the Summit generated. At first, I just dismissed this concept. It stuck in the back of my mind though. Suddenly I realized why. Yes, the BAC was partly paid for by Summit. The…
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23Apr 2015 by Grant Fritchey 14 Comments

PASS Board Update: April 2015

PASS
It's been a pretty interesting month on the board. First, we did have a little problem. I'm sure one or two of you may have noticed that the SQL Saturday web site was down for a moment. Well, three days. Joking aside, this was a serious problem, but my involvement was largely peripheral since I'm in charge of Chapters. I tried to help out a little, offering what support I could and, if nothing else, supplying an ear, willing to listen. Quite a few people took advantage of that. I communicated all their information up the chain to HQ and the other board members. Nothing has been held back. Next, we've started the budgeting process. That's fascinating. As well as a giant pain in the... well, anyway. Thankfully the people…
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31Mar 2015 by Grant Fritchey 6 Comments

PASS Board Update: March 2015

PASS
Hello all, It's been a while since my last update. Sorry. I've just been traveling and presenting and working on books and this slipped through the cracks a bit. I'll try to do better in the future. Nothing major to report. As a board member I've been working primarily on two things. First, I've been polishing my goals for the Chapters Portfolio. I'll publish those below. Next, I'm working on the budget for Chapters for next year. In between times, a lot of what I do, is work with Regional Mentors (RM) and Chapter Leaders (CL) on an individual basis. As much as the stuff that PASS as an organization is involved with is around technology, the PASS organization, especially Chapters, is all about people. And you know how people…
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