SQL Server, PASS, and other data mishaps
Volunteer
PASS pass and more PASS
Oct 3rd
As I sit writing this post I realize that in a weeks time Ill be in Seattle at the 2011 PASS Summit.
Like most in the SQL community who are fortunate enough to attend the annual summit I am looking forward to next Sunday. But, unlike most I am probably looking forward to this years summit for slightly different reasons. I’m definitely ready for the plethora of sessions, the great networking and all of the regular things everyone looks forward to (SQLKARAOKE!) but, when you are as heavily involved as I am in leading the Summit Program Committee, just getting it “started” is a huge relief.
For the last four years Ive looked forward to the Sunday before the Summit like ive looked forward to no other Sunday of the year. However this year is going to be different! This year will be my last year of leading the Summit “Program Committee”. Its truly bittersweet for me as Ive really loved doing this but Its time for me to focus on doing other things for our great community.
I plan on handing the reigns of the summit over to _____ after the end of this years Summit. I wish I knew who was taking over so I could tell you, but as it is no one has volunteered and PASS doesn’t exactly have a structure in place to allow for transnational hand off(more on this later). I wish I could say it will be all Rainbows and Unicorns for the next person leading the program committee but, the reality is it is a lot of work. The payoff is quite large though in knowing that you lead a group of 30ish volunteers to do a large portion of the work in making the summit a success but, even with a dedicated support staff (PASSHQ) its still a challenge. After doing every job from the bottom to the top of this small piece of PASS I feel like ive literally “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt”
I’d guess Ive spent at least 10 hours a week on average working on the Summit for the last several years and this year I added on regular PASS Board member tasks and am regularly exceeding those 10 hours a week, unfortunately, its just not sustainable for me any longer. Im happy to spend the time for the community but, Its time for a new challenge and fortunately being on the PASS Board affords me all of the community challenges I could ever need (including figuring out to handle transition within PASS mentioned earlier).
If you spot me at the Summit, feel free to stop over and introduce yourself, I promise not to try and convince you to volunteer to take my PASS job!
Meme Monday — Favorite PASS Memory — Shared Experiences
Sep 6th
Tom (Blog|Twitter) Asked about our favorite PASS memories for this months post. With all that I have going on trying to get the Schedule out for this years Summit, I hadnt planned on writing anything this month but I just read Grant Fritchey’s excellent post and it struck me that I really should write about this one. You see, one of the most interesting things about his post was I actually remember about 90% of the things he mentions.
My favorite PASS memory isnt actually a single memory at all, its actually the conglomeration of all the SHARED experiences I have with all the hundreds(?) of people that I have gotten to know rather well over the years. One of the most important things about our community of SQL professionals that I can never seem to put into words are those “Shared experiences”, they are what makes us unique. Some first timers will listen to the conversations and think “what in the world is so funny” or “really, did that actually happen” or more likely, “what in the heck are they talking about” and I can see that there would be some intimidation factor with that but, the reality is you just have to jump in and start making those shared experiences of your own. While some of my favorite shared experiences are from 2004-2006 that doesnt mean that I dont have some great ones from 2010 with people I had just met. My point really is those experiences (which un/fortunately become memories) whether made at the Summit, a SQL Rally, SQL Saturday, or a local UG meeting are the things that actually tie us together as a group of professionals. Sure, we all talk SQL and geek about it but, without the shared experience factor we’d all just be names behind posts on a Newsgroup/Forum which wouldnt be nearly as much fun!
just choose one
If I had to list a single memory though it would be from 2004, where it all started for me. You see I had just met Pat Wright, and Tom Larock and somehow they convinced me to attend the early morning (7AM If I recall) PASS volunteer session. Im not an early morning person AT ALL so I definelty felt some peer pressure to go but, I can honestly say sitting in that session hosted by Wayne Snyder has probably changed my professional career as much or more than anything else. Wayne is a very dynamic speaker and he had us all believing we could change the world, or at least the SQL portion of it. I really miss those sessions, and wish we could find a way to ressurect them because this introvert would have never become involved with PASS had it not been for that 1 single session (and the encouragement of Tom and Pat) Thanks to the 3 of you for that!
short PASS update aka coming out of hibernation
Aug 17th
Its been too long since I updated this place…. I should apologize or make excuses but, I wont waste your time or mine thinking of them
This week is a busy week for 2011 Summit planning. Some things need direct community participation and Id like to draw your attention to them
- Lightning Talks (5 minute “mini sessions”) Call for speakers closes today at 6:59 UTC (11:59 Pacific)
If you have an idea that you’d like to talk about for 5 minutes, Id encourage you to submit. These sessions were well received last year and I expect the same this year
- Session Preferencing is open until 6:59 UTC on Aug 20 (Aug 19 11:59 Pacific time)
The Summit schedule creator(s) will make extensive use of this to properly size the rooms for each session. There is more art than science to building the schedule but, the more data we have the better.
- Applications for the Nominations Committee
Lots of hard volunteer work went into the forming of this years process. Please support it by offering your time if you have it to give.
Last year PASS decided to invest in the development of our own tools to manage the educational portion of the summit. This investment has proven to be an excellent idea as it has made running the program a lot simpler. In the past we had 2 or 3 different tools to manage the summit and thats not including the massive amount of excel spreadsheets that were passed around. This would create obvious problems when changes weren’t propagated through all the tools in the same way. In prior years it was a herculean effort to get the Summit program handled on time, this year however it has been markedly easier. Maybe its not herculean anymore but, its definitely still takes a great deal of effort from a large number of volunteers. Additionally, the same system we are using for the Summit in 2011 was used for both SQL Rally’s so in that way, the data and use of the system should start to form one experience for the entire community (speakers, volunteers & attendees) Sometimes its the small behind the scenes things that really make a difference on the admin side that the public may not see and in this case I cant say it enough how thankful I am the past PASS BOD made that decision to invest.
As part of this tools upgrade, we are able to do some interesting things that we may not otherwise be able to do like…
Produce an OData “feed” of event sessions
If your familiar with OData you can try it out here
http://feeds.sqlpass.org/public/events/OratorDataService.svc
If you want to see the Summit 2011 Sessions for instance, try this link. Feel free to give it a try and let me know if you see any issues, but note the sessions arent scheduled yet so those data elements wont be correct
Hopefully having a service like this will open up the data enough that it will be useful to someone out there. We have several internal uses planned for this feed including updating the mobile application we trialed at the SQL Rally “guidebook“ Yes, we will have a fully functioning mobile application for this years summit (and most other PASS events shortly)
Hopefully Ill be able to keep this place updated with something relevant way more often
(edit: somehow I forgot the Nomcom!! oops)
Stepping out and stepping up
Jun 2nd
Changes are coming
Stepping out
For as long as I can remember Ive been involved in one way or another with the PASS Summit.. This simply means I have a short memory because I think I first started with the summit in 2006 or maybe it was 2005. Either way its been a long run at making the premiere event for SQL Professionals a success. During the last PASS Board meeting I let it be known to the other directors that I would like to move on to other things within PASS. I have spent a huge amount of energy over the last few years attempting to remake the processes around the summit education program. Ive worked with a great set of volunteers over the years and together we have had some great success in making the processes better and more “translucent” as my favorite volunteer would say. However, I think its time for a new challenge and Id like to put the same effort into one of the other PASS portfolios. This will also give someone else with a renewed energy and vision a chance to make their mark on the Summit program. This is where I’d like to start the handoff, unfortunately there isnt exactly a line at my door of people wanting to take it from me. So, if you ever wanted to give up your life free time for the good of the SQL community feel free to drop me a line!
Stepping up
At the same board meeting, I stepped up and decided to put my name on the ballot for the PASS executive board. There are lots of rules and regulations in the bylaws about who can run and when, I wont bore you with all the details but, the end result is out of those eligible to run: Myself, Tom LaRock, Rick Heiges and Douglas McDowell are running for the 2 vice president seats while Bill Graziano is running unopposed for President. I admittedly didnt start that week thinking I was going to run for the executive board of PASS but, as it turns out it fits nicely with what I want to do for PASS going forward so I decided give it a shot and run. Hopefully enough of the board will see that I have the right kind of energy to do good in one of the positions.
I appreciate the challenges and opportunity that have been given to me over the years in this community and hope this is merely the next logical step in my service to our community.
Dont Forget About PASS Summit Session Preferencing
May 20th
Changes
This year we decided to try something new and allow any PASS member input into the Summit session selections. Hopefully it will provide good info for the session reviewers to use. They always have a very tough job choosing sessions since there are so many good choices. For instance the DBA review team will have looked over 200 different abstracts when they are done! I hope that the preference results will give them a little more info when deciding between 2 equally good sessions.
Preconference seminars
Dont forget to let us know specifically which precons you’d like to see, these results are going to be used more stringently than the regular sessions so the more results we can get the better!
Hurry
Use of the tool ends today so hurry and log in to the Preferencing site and chose as many sessions as you’d like. There is no limit but, beware choosing too many isn’t exactly helping the situation 
Ill put out an update once the selections are over on how helpful the preferencing info turned out to be.
