Hey Kids! Let’s Put on a Show at the Old Barn

Azure, Database Lifecycle Management, DevOps, PASS, SQL Server, T-SQL
Alternate Title: I'm traveling a bunch. Let's get together and talk. A bunch of trips and presentations coming up, so I thought I'd share. First, I'll be SQL Saturday Omaha for my first time ever presenting in Nebraska. I'm excited to add this state to my list (which is almost over 40 now). If you're not doing anything August 15th, let's have a chat. Next, fingers crossed, I'll get selected to fly back to my home state, Oklahoma, to go to SQL Saturday OKC. These guys put on a great event and hey, it's Oklahoma so how can it be bad. I hope they announce soon. I need to schedule my flights. This one is on August 29th. September also has several events. First, I'll be at SQL Saturday Las…
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Speaker of the Month: June 2015

Professional Development
With my travel schedule, I don't always get out to events where I can see a community speaker. Sometimes, I just see pros. That's the case this month. Instead of skipping the month entirely, which feels wrong, I've decided to do a special award. Speaker of the Month for June 2015 are all the speakers (except me) on SQL Cruise Mediterranean 2015. I've said it before and I don't mind repeating myself, SQL Cruise changes people's careers. There are a lot of reasons for this. The number one reason is all the work that Tim & Amy Ford do to put together the cruise, create the itinerary, ensure plenty of structured and unstructured time on the boat to ensure intense interaction, and all the rest of the stuff that they…
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Speaker of the Month: May 2015

Misc
When I attend sessions at events, I try to mix it up. I'll go to a session that, really, I probably will never use the information, just to expand my knowledge level a little. I also go to sessions by the masters so that I can try to expand my skill set. I go to sessions on topics that I feel like I know well just to reinforce my own learning and understanding. That's where I got the Speaker of the Month for May 2015, Denis McDowell (t). I went to his session titled DevOps for the DBA at SQL Saturday #380 in New York City. I present pretty regularly on this topic and I've helped build multi-day training courses on it. Seriously, I feel like I probably know it.…
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Speaker of the Month: May 2015

Professional Development
I finally got out to some community events last month and got to see a bunch of great speakers. Not that you don't see great speakers at paid events, you do. It's just that they're usually professional speakers and I want to encourage others when I can. The Speaker of the Month for May 2015 is John Sterrett (b|t) and his presentation Automate Your Daily Checklist With PBM and CMS at SQL Saturday Boston. The very first thing that impressed me about this presentation was how John entered the room and immediately started interacting with the attendees. You see a lot of speakers hiding behind the lectern, fiddling with cables, nervously sipping water. Not John. He was chatting as he set up, immediately getting control of the room. It's a great…
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Speaker of the Month: April 2015

Professional Development
One of my favorite events of the year is the SQL Saturday in Silicon Valley. They've had four of them and I've gone to three (had to miss last year, scheduling conflict). It's a fantastic event and Mark Ginnebaugh (b|t) does a great job putting it together. In fact, this year, we got to listen to Ross Mistry and T.K. Rengarajan have a "fireside chat" for the keynote. For those who don't know, Mr. Rengarajan is just a VP at Microsoft. Yeah, he simply runs the ENTIRE FLIPPING AZURE DATA PLATFORM. That's all. They had a few demos and showed us unreleased code and new versions of SSMS not yet available publicly (including functionality around Query Store and execution plans, my little heart was going pitter-pat). Anyway, if you missed it, you…
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How To Speak At SQL Saturday Events

PASS, Professional Development
The PASS SQL Saturday events are meant to be a place to grow the pool of speakers, provide a mechanism for the speakers to learn, and fulfill the PASS goals of Connect, Share and Learn. So, you've decided you want to start speaking at a SQL Saturday event. Cool. You went to the <Insert Large, Popular, SQL Saturday> event last year, so you submitted this year... and didn't get accepted. Now what? First, submit. You won't get accepted if you don't try. SQL Saturday, especially the big, popular ones, may not be the best place to present for your very first time. In fact, with the large ones, you may not get accepted because people who already have a reputation are submitting to those (we all want to talk to big…
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Speaker of the Month: February & March 2015

Professional Development
It's not a question of scheduling. I just haven't been to lots of community events in the last several months so that I can see community speakers and find one to give an award to. I've been trying. So, we're giving out two awards this month (my blog, my award, my rules). Unfortunately, neither one is going to a full-blown community speaker. Hey, not my fault. I'm trying. Anyway, on with the show. The first award goes to ALL the speakers on the SQL Cruise. That's Jes Borland(b|t), Jeff Lehman(L), David Klee(b|t), and Kevin Kline(b|t). Look, I get it, Tim Ford(b|t), the guy who runs SQL Cruise, goes after top speakers (and, somehow I get in too). But, until you've watched these people present, in the long form sessions that…
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Speaker of the Month: January 2015

Professional Development
I love it that my first post of the new year is going to be Speaker of the Month. I'm really enjoying doing these because I'm getting to attend a lot more sessions at the events I go to in order to get choices. But, please, don't bug me. If I can attend your session, I will. If I can't... Anyway. Speaker of the Month for January 2015 is William Wolf (b|t) and his session "Common Coding Mistakes and How to Mitigate Them" that was delivered at SQL Saturday DC. This was a good session. It was informative. I really liked how Bill (I'm going to use that because it's easier to type and despite looking like the Demon Biker of the Apocalypse, he's a bigger sweetheart than I am) kept…
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PASS Summit 2014 Speaker Idol

PASS
For the first time ever at the PASS Summit, a competition was held to select a speaker for the 2015 Summit. This competition was organized and run by Denny Cherry. You can read all about what he thought of the event right here. I was asked to take part as a judge. I was on the panel for all the preliminaries and then sat in the room for the final. Here's what I thought of the event. First off, thank you to the PASS organization for taking a chance. This is a deviation from the way things have been done. Trying new things can be difficult, but the organization stepped right up and supported this addition to the rich pageant that is the Summit. Second, I want to thank Denny…
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Speaker of the Month: August 2014

Professional Development
Speaker of the Month is now officially one year old. I went back and reread my first post. The goals were for a relentlessly positive experience. Reading back through the twelve posts, I feel like I hit that mark pretty well. Yes, I've always pointed out places where improvements can be made, but I think I've done it in a constructive and positive manner. Plus, I'm picking your session (if you get picked), as the best session that I saw that month, which is pretty darned positive in and of itself. I also promised it would be random and arbitrary. Mission accomplished. I've considered wrapping this up. I did it for a year, just to see what the response would be. I didn't have much more of a goal in…
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