Allen Kinsel - SQL DBA

SQL Server, PASS, and other data mishaps

PASS Program Update #3

By Allen Kinsel, 4 months and 17 days ago

Its been a while since I wrote an update about whats been happening in the PASS Program Committee.  I just havent had time to write about it with all of the work thats going on in addition to my regular day job.  Hopefully Ill have time now to do a better job at this!

The annual content survey was sent out and the results are in, I'd like to go on record now and say, Im not a BI user/admin/developer.  We took the BI questions from last year's survey (which were obviously from 2008).  Unfortunately, while going through them and updating the questions I didnt reach out to a BI person and get a gut check for the BI questions.  So we wound up with some out of date info in that section.  I swear we like BI @ PASS, I just goofed, there's not some secret conspiracy, and YES to the 1 of you who asked, I do read all of the comments .  The good news, for those that asked, the survey results will be released as soon as we can get them collated and readable (any day now)  **UPDATE** The survey responses are here there are definitely some very interesting tidbits to be mined from this.

We are making progress in working on several projects, from redoing the speaker resources, to developing a new system to house the speaker evaluation data.  As with all things volunteer driven, these tasks are taking time but thats not unexpected.It has to be better than this

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Developing Better SQL Speakers

By Allen Kinsel, 5 months and 9 days ago

I've been focusing on different aspects of speakers and their interactions with PASS lately.  Id like to expand on that and take a large detour.

The AHA Moment

last week while going over some ideas and upcoming changes to the PASS Program Committee with my PASS boss, Jeremiah Peschka I had what I think is a great idea, and Id like to throw it out here and see If I cant help get it off the ground.

Speaker Development

It seems like a lot of the suggestions I've been getting lately with regards to the program haven't really been relevant to the problem I was trying to solve.  At first I thought I wasn't explaining myself properly or I was writing in the same manner my brain works (all over the place) .  Then It donned on me, maybe I'm trying to solve the wrong problem.  (I know this was definitely one of my greatest moments of clarity).  In a lot of what we do in the program committee we're really not positioned to help speakers grow perse.  But, speakers still need help, they still want to refine their craft, learn new tricks, etc.  I know I for one would love to get started speaking but, while I can tell who is a good speaker, I certainly don't know how they got that way, surely they weren't born with it!!!

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Convincing your boss to pay for your training

By Allen Kinsel, 6 months and 7 days ago

 

Things are tight

It seems like budgets are being cut everywhere, and IT training seems to be one of the first places cut.  In an earlier post I outlined where you could get a lot of valuable training for relatively little cost.  In this post I will explore a few methods that have worked for me over the years to get your boss to say YES to paying for you to refresh your fountain of knowledge.

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PASS TPS #1

By Allen Kinsel, 6 months and 21 days ago

TPS reports, love them or loathe them, they are a necessary thing for most of us working in corporate America.  I firmly reside in the loathe camp, Just ask my boss.

In this case though, I've decided to start putting out regular updates about what Ive been up to for PASS.  I hope the benefit is 2 fold, 1 to allow a greater transparency into what happens behind the scenes and more importantly for me to have a place to reference what we did and when!

Summit 2009 wrapup

We sent out quite a few different surveys during/after the 2009 summit, some of them are listed:

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Call for Program Committee Volunteers

By Allen Kinsel, 6 months and 29 days ago

Spidey 300x225The 2010 PASS Program Committee Call for volunteers is open, We're looking for the usual assortment of people to help shape the summit in 2010.

Abstract Reviews

Ever wanted to have an input into which sessions are actually chosen for the summitt?  The group of volunteers who do this are chosen from these applications. Its a very challenging endeavor but also very rewarding.

Special Projects

There are literally dozens of separate projects that need to happen every year in order for the Summit to come together appropriately.  Things like setting up the mgmt software, reviewing the ppts, reviewing the chosen abstracts for grammatical errors etc.  These people will also be chosen primarily from the applications received

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