Our call for speakers for SQLSaturday #151 in Orlando closes on July 31, 2012. We’ve got room for a handful more of speakers. I just saw Eddie Wuerch send in some abstracts, who else will come to Orlando?

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Just about a year ago PASS hired Karla Landrum to fill the vacancy of the Community Evangelist and that marked in my view a sea change for the organization – it was the first time we had someone in that role that was passionate about community and was part of… Read more

I talk to people about career planning and professional development quite a bit. It’s common to find them wanting to grow, but unsure of how, and more unsure of what is worthwhile. One of the things I recommend most often is to give a presentation at one of the community… Read more

The Tampa IT Pro Camp will be held September 22 at New Horizons in Tampa (different location than last time). It’s the weekend before SQLSaturday Orlando, so I’m just going down for the day (and breaking my no back to back weekend rule for the first time this year). I… Read more

I took a break from work today to look in on an informal event a friend was hosting at his office. It was designed to get his team closer to his customers within the business, do some on site immediate assistance, and in general try to make sure they knew… Read more

The question was posed on Twitter recently (or perhaps more along the lines of “why can’t we”), suggesting that our current/default hashtags of something like #sqlsat151 might be more useful and more marketing friendly as #sqlsatorl or #sqlsatorlando. I thought I’d share some thoughts in longer form than Twitter allows,… Read more

Back in February I did a presentation for MagicPASS that ran long, maybe 30 minutes over the time allotted. It annoyed me to be so far off, but overall the group seemed ok with continuing and so we did. I thought about it some then, but it wasn’t until I… Read more

If there is anything better than a SQLSaturday it’s a SQLSaturday with a choice of great pre-con speakers. This year we’re pleased to have Stacia Misner and Kevin Kline presenting all day sessions on Friday September 28th. Spend the day with either of them for $99. Ask the boss, even… Read more

Quick notes from the MagicPASS meeting:

• Kendal Van Dyke still the king when it comes to explaining what’s going on with community, SQL, and even Windows 8 (if only he still blogged!)
• Dinner was macaroni and cheese with ham, salad, and chocolate cookies. No same old pizza here!
• Jose Chincilla

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With both Steve Jones and I done with our summer break, we’re ready to continue with several experiments we’ve been thinking on for a while, and to do that, we need mentees! See this post for details.

Want to be a mentor? Fill out the short application and we’ll have… Read more

Most applications connect on whatever the default port is, typically 1433 for SQL, though it’s common to change that to something non-standard as part of security efforts – making it just a different port that all SQL traffic uses.

From a pure SQL perspective that’s fine. We can usually identify… Read more

I’ll be back on the road again in August, heading up to Cleveland for SQLSaturday #164. It’s my first time in Cleveland and I’m looking forward to seeing a new city and meeting some new people.

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I’m a little late posting this, but I had two sessions accepted out of four I submitted. I’ll be doing Building Your Professional Development Plan which is a tweak of the session I’ve done the last few years (and which gets very good comments!) and a brand new one, Learn… Read more

Nine more speakers we’re pleased to say will be joining us for a fabulous SQLSaturday in Orlando!

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Overall I find the site to be useful and responsive, but sometimes I see small things that I wish were different, or wish were there, so I’m sharing the ones I’ve noticed lately – maybe they’ll make it on to the backlog!

• Schedule Page. Before the ‘real’ schedule is built…

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More speakers from Florida! Scott Klein lives in Seattle now, but we still consider him an honorary Floridian according to Rule 7, section B of the Orlando speaker selection guidelines. You’ll note we also have two speakers who have elected to conceal their faces on LinkedIn, we don’t know yet… Read more

Here are a few things I’ve found/had sent to me recently you may find interesting:

• Most Common GRE Words. 400 words in multiple choice format, care to test your vocabulary? Good stuff when you’ve got a few minutes to kill!
• What the Shuttle Booster Saw. HD video from…

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I’ve thought about writing on this topic a couple times and was reminded of it again when I read a great post called Group Think and Risky Shift. It’s worth reading, twice.

Let’s start with a definition, borrowed from Wikipedia:

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within groups…

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Three more added to the stellar slate of speakers for SQLSaturday Orlando, we look forward to seeing you soon!

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We’ve selected 10 speakers so far, today we bring it to a fabulous bakers dozen with three more – all based in Florida.

We’ve also added Kevin Kline and Craig Purnell to the list of speakers that have submitted abstracts – the selection committee…

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