25Jun 2018 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

My Speaking Schedule

Misc
I have quite a few speaking engagements coming up. Rather than an intermittent blog post, I've decided to have a permanent home for this information. If you want to know where to get in touch with me, go to this page of my blog. I'll keep a rolling update of all the events I have coming up. Also, if you want me to speak at your event, it might be a good idea to look to see if I'm already scheduled, or, if I'm going to be right in your area already (I'm happy to go to local user groups if I'm free). I hope this page is helpful. I'll still occasionally promote a particular event with a blog post or links at the bottom of other posts. Anything I…
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28Aug 2017 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

Speaking at Live360 Orlando

Azure
Are you going to be in Florida in November? Me too. I'm privileged to say that I get to speak at SQLServerLive, part of the Live360 event. It takes place November 12-17 at the Royal Pacific Resort at Universal Studios in Orlando. I'm going to be presenting three different sessions. The first is on Azure SQL Database for the DBA. Adoption and interest in Azure and the platform as a service offering is growing like crazy. Get ahead of the curve and figure out how you can use this technology in your organization. I'm also going to be doing a session on automating the management of your Azure databases using PowerShell. I'm sticking to the platform databases with this session (no VMs), but I'm covering Pools, MySQL, Postgres, Azure SQL…
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28Mar 2017 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

Sharing With You In All Fifty States

Misc
I made a mistake the other day. For some reason I got it into my head that I was flying to Albuquerque when I was actually flying to Phoenix. I've no idea how or why that occurred, but I sent a tweet out on how excited I was to finally be visiting and presenting in New Mexico for the first time. Yeah, oops. But here's the deal. It got me thinking. I've been presenting professionally for quite a while. I've visited a lot of places around the world because of this. I want to visit a lot more. I've decided to work closer to home as well as elsewhere. I Want to Speak in All Fifty States I've presented live sessions to user group meetings, SQLSaturdays, Code Camps, and large events all…
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17Mar 2016 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

Opportunities To Talk

Misc, PASS
It's weird being an introvert who likes to talk to people, but what can I do. I like talking to people. I have a number of upcoming trips, quite literally all over the world, that provide us with the opportunities to get together and have a chat. First, I'll be at SQL Saturday Boston (the 500th SQL Saturday event, HUZZAH!), this weekend, March 19th 2016. I'll be talking about the Query Store and I'll be doing a presentation for PASS since this is a milestone event. The first SQL Saturday event in Boston was #34, six years ago, which I helped organize. It's been quite the journey. I'm going to SQL Saturday Madison on April 9th. I'll be talking about the Query Store and how to automate your database deployments.…
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18Dec 2015 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Speaker of the Month: December 2015

PASS, Professional Development
The hardest presentations I've ever given in my life were not to large audiences or in big rooms. They weren't even when I had to present in front of people that I respect and admire (although presenting in front of Paul Randal (b|t) & Kim Tripp (b|t) gives me pause every single time, not sure why). I don't mind presenting all day sessions. In fact, I love the all day format. Nope, the hardest presentations for me are five minute lightning talks. They're brutal. They're unforgiving. You have to stop. You only get five minutes to tell people whatever it is you're going to tell them. Then its over. I've done three lightning talks. One of them, a rant on backup testing, I've given four or five times. The others all died…
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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…
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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.…
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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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02Oct 2015 by Grant Fritchey 5 Comments

Speaker of the Month: October 2015

Professional Development
Working on my third year of "Speaker of the Month" posts now. The good news, I haven't run out of people to award it to. Most months, if I've been able to go to a community event or two, I have three or four candidates.  Same this month. Speaker of the Month for October 2015 is Rob Volk and his presentation, Revenge: THE SQL, at SQL Saturday Las Vegas. What can I say about this presentation? Let me start by saying that you never, ever want to make Rob angry. Next, I think Rob needs a hobby that will help him turn his mind away from EVIL. Next, Rob has to be one of the smarter people that I know. Next, Rob is very funny. Oh yeah, and there was…
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04Sep 2015 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

Speaker of the Month: September 2015

Professional Development
Feast or famine. The last several months I just haven't seen that many speakers, let alone that many community speakers. Then, in the last month, I've seen a ton. Contests being what they are though, someone has to win. To everyone I saw speak at SQL Saturday Oklahoma City and SQL Saturday Omaha who doesn't see their name here, apologies. I saw great presentations this month. The winner though is Ryan Adams (b|t) and his presentation: Backup and Restore Tips and Tricks. Ryan started off great, walking around the room, looking people in the eye has he talked and using the slides as a guide, not reading from them at all. He had a bunch of slides that visualized different aspects of backup and restore. I really loved the one…
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