I bought Real Leaders Don't Do Powerpoint by Christoper Witt ($15 at Amazon) on a trip, Powerpoint catching my eye and then deciding it was something I needed to read. It's not anti-Powerpoint, it's more about passion and messaging, something I've come to appreciate in both business and politics. For me the essence of the book was that to be a good to great leader you have to be able to communicate well. Some of that is body language. More of it is selling ideas and your ability to make to them happen.
You could call it speech writing and it wouldn't be wrong. As a blogger/writer there is value in shaping words for the desired impact, to me it's easily a step harder to write words that you or someone else will speak and then deliver them with the value add that only a good speaker can do. First you have to have a message, one that you're passionate about. Then you have to learn to deliver it in a way that opens doors instead of closing them.
Technical speaking is on the opposite end of this - there we're trying to portray complex ideas in a way that others can follow and learn from with typically no attempt to inspire or challenge. Technical speaking is far more teaching than speaking. Not bad, just different.
To give you a feel for the book, in one chapter the author talks about being yourself, being bigger and louder, being passionate, and being dramatic. If you don't see value or challenge in those, you won't enjoy the book. On the other hand, if you want to start down the road to real speaking, I think this book is a start and is approachable. Not sure? Think about speeches from history you admire. Was it the message or the delivery? Would it have been as good if you delivered it?
I've read it once and set it aside to read again later in the year. For now it's theory, at some point I think I'd like to try it.
One of the labs I frequently do with students is to design a database for a training business, something which I know something about and can add some challenges as the lab progresses. Students tend to either under or over normalize, though of course that's all in your point of view!
As we work through it I remind them that the cost of development goes up with each join. Yes, SQL Server is good at joins and most of write them without problem, and yes, a normalized database is a good thing. But. As a total guess, I'd say that each join adds at least 10 hours work to a project. Remember that in most cases joins require another form/page/control/screen to support it administratively (you do build admin tools don't you?) and those take time - time to design, code, build, test, revise, deploy, etc.
So let's say you're in the common case of needing to get something to market very quickly that is as good as possible, but time to market is a key factor. As you think about joins affecting design and build time, you can take two approaches - omit building the form/page that allows you to use it/maintain it, or deliberately denormalize the design in key places to help you gain time.
The key...is the key places.
Here's an example. As we arrive at a close to final design I typically see that most classes add a locationid and a corresponding location table - this is to indicate where each class will be held. In my particular case 90% of classes are held in Orlando and location isn't huge, but that could change, and I wouldn't argue it's bad design. The other thing I see that is most often missed is they treat the student as a login and capture demographic data for the student, but fail to capture what is for me key data - the employer at the time they attended the class.
Which of those is easier to fix later? Converting a location varchar(200) to a lookup table, or amending the design to capture employer per class attendee? In the latter case we may have lost data we can't recover, in the former we may have junked up data ('Orlando', 'Orlando, FL', etc). I'd argue that if you had to take a shortcut, do it on location. At worst we have to massage the data to convert it later, and even for reporting now it's not likely to cause huge problems.
To recap, there are two points here. One is that you have to understand a design with 100 tables is going to cost a lot more to build than one with 10 tables, up to you to move the slider. The other is that a really good architect/DBA can help decide which tables to remove when someone sets the slider to something besides 100 so that you can evolve the design with the least amount of pain. There's probably something to be said for creating the full 100 table design, then from that reducing it to the x table design for speed. Think of it as designing your dream house, then building it with 3 bedrooms instead of 6, you'll add more when time and funds permit.
I'm flying up Friday afternoon to participate in SQLSaturday #7 which is being led by John Baldwin and his team of volunteers. I visited the user group there about a year ago and while there we discussed the possibility of a SQLSaturday - it's nice to see a seed planted them finally bloom! Looking forward to seeing Robert Cain and Stuart Ainsworth again, and meeting a lot of new people as well (working on my networking skills). If you're in the area hope you'll come visit, hard to beat a day of free training.
Wes is a friend acquiring via networking and community involvement - another success story! He's based in Tampa and has been involved with the past two SQLSaturday's in Tampa. His blog - Databases, Structures, and the Damn Data Itself - is one I enjoy because he talks about life as a consultant, and he brings to the conversation the background of a economist. He's not a frequent poster this year, perhaps once or twice a month, but it's always something I enjoy reading and typically goes beyond pure technical matters. If you get the chance worth well spending an hour talking with him.
I've been using Snarfer for a while now, preferring an offline reader so that I use a few spare moments to catch up on reading without having to plug in the air card. It works well enough, but lately I've been wanting something better, really driven by one idea - Snarfer doesn't encourage me to post comments. Comments are the feedback all blogger's love, me as much as the next person. I don't need - or want - to comment on every post I read, but I comment on maybe 1 in 50, and that is too low. In Snarfer I have to click the link to see the original article, scroll down, sometimes click another link for comments, and finally write something. Not that hard, but that minor road block inhibits rather than encourages me to comment.
I've been starting to look, and at the same time I ran across this post by Dare Obasanjo (interesting blog too) about RSS readers being modeled after email clients being broken,which was a follow up to a Slate article called Kill Your RSS Reader. Not sure they have the answer, or an answer that fits me, but there is something missing. I follow about 200 SQL blogs plus another 30-40 on various topics. I don't read all of them every day. Some I read every post, some I scan the titles and only read what looks good. Definitely at times it's information overload. I don't have an easy way to mark something directly for follow up except to email myself the link or copy/paste it into a task.
I can see there being three categories for me:
Features I think I want:
I'm not much interested in sharing blog lists as far as a social feature, but definitely ok with sharing or finding with blog posts. Seems like so far the emphasis is on just managing the feeds and making them visible, not doing something more with them. Or maybe I'm either using the wrong tool, or the wrong viewpoint. Would I be better off with a handful of Google alerts?
Today in the United States we celebrate Memorial Day, the day we remember American casualties of any military action. Though many worry that we lose sight of the meaning of holiday as it also seems to mark both a three day weekend and the beginning of summer, I think those people died so that we could enjoy both and would ask us to use the privilege well. That said, go to a parade if there is one, or if you haven't paid your dues lately, go for a walk in a veterans cemetery and think about the cost we've paid for the right to do what we want today.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes ($14 at Amazon) was a book I picked up for travel, though at 928 pages it's not a travel sized book. This starts almost at the beginning with discussions of radioactivity and the state of physics at the start of the 20th century, and introduces in turn all the people that end up being major players in the development of fission and the atomic bomb as well as nuclear policy (Fermi, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Szilard, Groves, Rutherford, and of course, Truman).
I won't begin to say that I understand atomic physics, but I enjoyed the standing on the shoulders approach that brought about great leaps in the early 1900's all the way through 1950. Fission was a dream, and the hurdles to it were considerable. I think one fun/scary part was the first atomic pile (reactor) that was built in Chicago. I remember it vaguely from some bit of history, but they built this in pretty low tech fashion, hiring football players to stack the carbon blocks needed. When they began testing they had a control rod and a meter, and they just kept pulling out the control rod until the pile went critical. They had a hacked together fail-safe system, but in truth it was one very smart guy managing a chain reaction by telling someone to raise/lower a control rod. Luckily he was smart enough, or Chicago could have become a bad place to live.
When it moves into the Manhattan project era the scale of the problems and solutions is staggering to me. Over the course of a couple years we built every type of process there was for creating weapons grade uranium and plutonium. The cost ended up being equivalent to the US auto industry in size and spend, more than $2 billion in 1940's dollars. They basically solved the problem by saying if you could get an ounce or whatever of material from a single million dollar plant, just build a 100 of them to increase production.
It's also here that you start to understand why nuclear material is such a big deal. The first bomb (Little Boy) was essentially a gun, they fired one chunk of uranium into another. I won't say it's trivial, but the engineering was doable and then and I suspect easily doable now, the hard part was getting the weapons grade material. Plutonium is a different story, not all is it hard to produce but they opted for an implosion mechanism that wasn't trivial then or now - imagine building explosives that will perfectly and evenly compress a sphere the size of a softball to the density of the sun in a lot less than a SQL millisecond. Note that a "shake" was a term coined during all of this that equates to 10 nanoseconds!
This also shows the challenge of science, sometimes it leads to things that can have negative consequences, but hard to stop discovery from happening. And it talks about the beginning of the arms race and from my reading of it, it seemed almost inevitable. Interesting but sad.
If you'd like to just learn more about the bomb from a simpler perspective try Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy. In that novel terrorists obtain the material and set about building a bomb. It may not be perfectly accurate, but it seemed to me that he did a pretty good job of research to present the story.
I'm glad I read this, but it's a dense read, took me more than 4 weeks of stopping and starting to get through it.
I just finished up my third coaching call with Don Gabor (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) and I think I'm gaining a little ground, but still finding that I have a lot to learn.
We started by talking about some of the information I gathered at my recent visit to the Space Coast SQL Group. Don was interested in how I managed the transition from SQL to networking and I didn't have a really great plan or segue, I just asked if anyone would be interested in talking about it! That in turn generated a discussion about my presentation style which is decidedly informal and based on the idea that if the audience doesn't participate I'm failing, and I don't just wait for them to engage, I ask them questions. Don thinks (and I do as well) that it works well for me most of the time, though I haven't tried it speaking to 500 people.
That brought up the question about whether I'm better at networking and discussion when I'm speaking (a position of authority so to speak) than when I'm an attendee - and I think there is a difference. As an attendee I'm quieter and while still likely to engage with a couple new people, I'm not as "on" as when I speak. Some of that is appropriate, some of that means I need to work harder at networking when I'm "just" an attendee since I'll be in that role a lot more than that of a speaker.
We also talked about my networking credentials. As a SQL presenter I think I can show a track record of using SQL that makes me credible and experienced, but on the networking side...what do I have to show? It's definitely not having x contacts in my network. He suggested starting with some success stories from my own career that center on networking, and to start thinking about publishing something on networking. You could argue that I do that here, but perhaps I need to write something a little longer and less 'follow me on my journey', something that would be useful to the average beginning networker.
One thing you may see from all this is that it's not just networking, I'm having to figure out where this all fits into my game. I'm trying to do more than just boost my network skills, but I'm also not aiming for a transition to a networking coach either. Right now it feels like a rounding out - my technical skills are reasonable, I've got good background in professional development, mentoring, and managing, but I'm weak in sales, marketing, and networking. Have to say I'm not looking forward at this point to fixing the sales and marketing gap!
I've been reading Turn Small Talk Into Big Deals ($13 at Amazon) and it's - to me - harder to work with than the first book. It focuses on figuring out the networking/conversational style of the other person and how to adapt, followed by ideas about how to network in a lot of different situations - reunions, dinner, etc. Our focus has been on the conversational styles, and I told Don I struggle with it because I'm still trying to remember names! Too much going on. We worked on that by him asking about people I've mentioned in our talks and asking me to classify them, then he'd point out why he arrived at a different point based on my descriptions. For example, in general, if someone else initiates a conversation they are typically either competitive or outgoing - so that is a great way to immediately cut the choices in half either way (amiable, analytical, outgoing, competitive).
Still struggled with how to classify and then adapt. How long to assess? What if you are talking to 2 people with opposite styles? Don says that he starts to adapt almost immediately, and came up with an analogy I could understand - a dimmer switch. For amiable people you dial it way down, for competitive you dial it way up, for others or groups you hit the middle of the road. Not perfect, and won't always work, but I can see where being a step beyond the average networker can help you just make the conversation shorter or more effective.
The last point we touched on was repetition, as it repetitively meeting people. It's interesting that just a simple hello and name exchange this time makes it easier to talk a little more next time, and soon it feels comfortable to fall into conversation. The lesson is that you don't have to do it all on the first meeting, start with a light touch and look for the next opportunity to go a little further.
One more call coming up soon!
I currently write the editorial for the PASS Connector which is published every two weeks as part of my role on the Board of Directors. I'm cross posting those editorials here as well as to the main PASS blog.
As of our most recent update PASS has more than 45,000 members, a number that reflects real growth over the last year and an indication that PASS is moving in the right direction. We’re doing a lot of things better than ever; more Chapters, more Chapter communication, more local events, more Summit attendees, more translucency, more volunteers. That’s not to say we’re done, just that we’ve made positive progress and the challenge is to maintain and accelerate our growth and change.
Setting goals, often ambitious goals, is a good thing because goals focus your energy. One of our major goals for PASS is to reach 100,000 members by June 30, 2010 (or sooner!). That’s an aggressive goal, trying to more than double our membership in just a year. Trying to reach that goal will make us all focus on doing things better and faster, and making sure that we provide lots of good reasons for people like us to join and participate in PASS.
We’re working hard at finding ways to do that, but you also get to play a part in reaching that goal. You’re reading this today because you find value in PASS and in growing your skills as a SQL Server professional. I’m willing to bet that you work with or know others that work with SQL Server, so I’m going to ask that you share your interest in PASS with them. Whether you chat about it over lunch, forward your issue of the Connector, or take them with you to a local Chapter meeting, just make sure they know about PASS. No arm twisting, no sales pitch – just tell them about PASS and share your interest and passion.
As you read this I’ll be attending my second in person board meeting for PASS, and with luck I’ll be enjoying it! As I write this on May 1st I’m looking forward to the meeting because while I certainly haven’t learned it all, I’m at that 90 day mark where you start to have a pretty good idea of who does what, what needs to be done, and can begin making deeper contributions. As always we have a lot of stuff to discuss, ranging from plans for the next quarter to setting the budget for FY 2010 which begins July 1st. I’ve already submitted a preliminary budget for next year, but it will be interesting to see how that gets folded into the final budget. I’ll try to share more details about the entire meeting in a blog post and/or here in the Connector.
Changing topics, a question surfaced on Twitter about transferring registrations for the Summit. Great question, because many companies have things come up as well as staffing changes that might prevent the original registrant from attending. The good news is that you can change registration at no cost! We also have a pretty fair cancellation policy and I encourage you to visit the Summit web site for the details.
And finally, I’d like some feedback about what your thoughts and expectations are with regards to networking at the event. Would you attend a one or two hour class on networking if we could find a way to do that? Would you find some simple coaching guides in your event bag useful? Or are there some specific people you would really like to meet at the event? Post a comment on our blog, or just email me at andy.warren@sqlpass.org.
We'll be meeting at Chipotle in Altamonte Springs on May 23, 2009 at 11:30 am to discuss plans for the next (third annual) SQLSaturday here in Orlando. Both our previous events have gone very well, with a strong showing of 275 attendees last year. That's 275 attendees that got to pick from 40 sessions, had free breakfast, free lunch, and got a nice SQLSaturday t-shirt to boot. So the question is - what to do better or different this year?
Maybe the first question is why I'm asking that question, why not just do what we did last year and leave it at that? Not a dumb question. The event provides a lot of value and we have the formula, why make changes?
One reason is that I'm mildly competitive, and I like to try to do better than I did before. Another is that I like to experiment so that I can share lessons back with others that decide to do a SQLSaturday (thinking about it? contact me!). Right now it seems like we define better as more attendees than last year, or more sessions than last year, or both. Both are challenging goals because we don't have a great facility that scales well, the college that we use seats about 25 to a room, so max attendance per session is around 40 with people on the floor at the back of the room. We can get more rooms - they won't run out - but do we add value from going to 60 sessions from 40?
I've got a few ideas we'll discuss at our lunch, and I'll share them next, and hoping more come out at the meeting:
I'm sure there's more, right down to deciding what to serve for lunch and all the other important logistics. All comments appreciated, and if you're in the area this Saturday stop by even if to just eat lunch and listen.
For the past couple years I've been using a Targus (I think the model 300 right now) and they've been functional if uninspiring. As I'm sure many of you do, the laptop bag serves as more than just something to carry a laptop, being a combination tool bag and briefcase as needed. I typically carry a power cord, usb cable to charge phone/headset, extra pen, business cards, small audio earphones for plane trips, plus my notepad and pen, plus at least a book and a magazine for any time I'm waiting on someone or something.
The Targus bags I've had have worked, but seem to show wear quickly and the shoulder straps seem to be poorly designed, wanting to constantly twist and no stay shouldered. As for the wear, I don't baby the bags, they get pushed into overhead bins, stuffed under airline seats, thrown (gently) behind the seat in the car/truck, etc. My current one is due for replacement for two reasons; one is it's starting to look kinda ratty, not the impression you want to make on clients, and two, I enjoy good tools and this just doesn't quite fit the definition (though maybe it's just a style thing!).
For years before that I used a Dell bag that was leather and it held up well, only downside was that it was a little extra bulky. This time, looking for solid and something a bit different. I've perused Amazon and ebags.com, looked at the Compusa selection, and even stopped in at Travel Country Outdoors. Interesting candidates so far:
Have to say I'm partial to the Maxpedition bag, industrial strength construction though I wish for less velcro, with the Eagle Creek bag a close second. I think only the Skooba bag meets the TSA requirements for getting through security without taking the laptop out of the bag. A definite plus, but not a deal breaker. Shoes that I didn't have to take off, that would be nice! Prices on these range from $75 to $200, compared to an average of $30-$50 for the run of the mill bags at Compusa that are functional. Current bags are good for about 2 years or so, so on pure price I don't see that I can justify it, I doubt even the best bag lasts 8 years! Still, I need to replace the current bag, so I'll spend a few minutes thinking about it just because I hate throwaways.
While I'm shopping thought I'd ask - what's been a good bag for you and why? Is there one feature you have to have? Wish it was smaller and lighter, or bigger so that it could double as a 1-2 day carry on bag? Found other good sites for browsing the options?
I stopped by Compusa on the way home to pick up a package of blank DVD's and did the 10 minute tour while I was there, always interesting to see what is new or featured and how prices are doing. Two monitors caught my eye, both by I-Inc. One was a 25" for $229, the other was a 28" - yes, 28" - for $299. I've been needing a monitor for a couple months but just hadn't got around to buying one yet, wanting to use my current 19" for a machine that will be moving off my desk at home. But...I try not to impulse buy, so got the DVD's and went home.
Thought about it some more, it was something I was looking for, but which one to buy? In general bigger monitors have been better, going from a 15" to a 17" CRT was a nice improvement, and that trend has continued into LCD's. I currently use a 22" and a 20" monitor at work, and have long found value in having 2 monitors because the way I use Windows is to either maximize or minimize a window, I rarely have multiple windows visible side by side - due to not enough space.
Not critical to have dual monitors at home for me. One reason is that I rarely work at home on my home pc, if "real" work has to be done it's via the laptop while at the dining room table or on the couch, and another is that I've generally had machines running via a KVM and never invested in a better quality KVM that would support dual monitors.
Rambling today am I?
Anyway, $80 difference in price. Not huge, but still, $80. Would a 28" be too big? Would it allow me to actually open multiple windows on screen at same time in a usable way? Same questions for the 25". Isn't there some upper end of monitors being too big when it's on the same desk you're working at?
Went back over Sun afternoon and bought the 25" I-Inc. Has VGA and HDMI, integrated speakers, 2 ms response time, no USB ports. Base screws on to the monitor mount with four allen screws and wrench, both included. Works good enough so far, nice and crisp at the full 1920x1080 max resolution on Win 7 RC, but running below that on my main machine because the video card doesn't support the higher resolution, so haven't really tried it with multiple apps/windows yet.
Sorely tempted to buy the 28" one for work just to see, but will see how this works out first.
It's interesting to watch sizes climb and prices drop, free market at work and some good R&D on costs too. Same as been true in cameras. Now that you can get a 28" monitor for $299 or a 12mp camera for about the same, I imagine the money is in getting people to upgrade. But once you've got that 28" monitor or 12mp camera, why/when will you upgrade again? Anyone see future trends here?
I went over last night to do a presentation to the group managed by Bonnie and Lynn. Had 11 in attendance, very good for a group that only recently started and in a smaller city. Had planned to get over there an hour early for some quality Starbucks time first, but ran late and got there just in time for a quick sandwich and then to the meeting. After the usual group kick off intro, launched into my usual free form not really following the slides presentation style and we had a lot of fun talking about statistics and the basics of query plans. Interestingly, most of the group were more development focused and one was a true novice - and I'm not complaining about that! Evangelizing SQL is always good, and I appreciate those that are willing to spend time learning things that might help them at some point. I was scheduled for an hour but knew that there was extra time available, so we ran about 75 minutes, and then moved into a discussion about networking.
If you've been following my blog you'll know that one of my current interests is networking and I look for chances to poll technical audiences. I asked first mind you, and everyone wanted to talk, so we did. About the same results as I had from the oPASS meeting earlier this week as far as interest and tools. I changed one question, asking first how many are good at networking and only had 2 people say that they thought they were, and then asked how many had received network training - none. I think that's pretty real, some of us have natural networking ability or learned it by working with someone who did. A couple were working on blogs, and I had the usual range of responses about whether to mix personal and professional stuff in a blog, with most opting for a blog to have touches that make it personal (human), to show the person behind the writing. Here again that I think if you start by engaging them in conversation and then talk about networking you get much better results than just asking them to introduce themselves or to each other.
Afterward most of the crowd met up for a drink and discussion, and that was nice as well. Not all groups do that, this one has a nice dynamic and it was nice to feel like part of the group and just talk socially for a while before the hour plus drive home!
Kendal Van Dyke is headed over to present to them next month, and Jack Corbett is going over later in the year (Sep I think).
Our most recent meeting was May 12, 2009, and we had 23 attendees. We started off the evening with news of upcoming events (SQLSat Birmingham, SQLSat Pensacola, Day of DNN) and setting a date for our kickoff meeting for our next SQLSaturday Orlando (May 23 at Chipotle in Altamonte if you are in the area). From there we spent some time talking again about networking, and here is a quick result of the informal survey:
We then spent about 15 minutes actually networking, with the goal that we had to meet three new people. You never know how that will work out, but instantly everyone jumped in and there was this terrific buzz in the room. I think part of it was setting the stage, might not have gone as well if we hadn't chatted about networking first. At about 5 minutes in I called out for everyone to meet their second person and everyone smoothly moved around. I made a couple introductions and tried to say hello to all the new attendees while it was going on, and then it was time for the third rotation. We had only one person who only met 2 people (I think due to the first two being interesting conversations) so we introduced him to a third person at the end. As I think about it more I think it's critical that we do set the stage to tell people that we are all going to do this for x minutes, pulls them into the game. From a user group perspective, I still believe the big win is to make it as much about networking and catching up with friends as it the technical presentation.
We stopped for pizza and soda, and then moved to our guest speaker, MVP Plamen Ratchev. I've gotten to know Plamen well over the past year and he's been a great supporter of SQLSaturday here in Florida, so it was a bonus to have him available to speak to the group. He did about 75 minutes on plan caching, parameter sniffing, and plan freezing. Very nice presentation, some good questions during and after, and I think everyone was pleased with the material. Plamen stayed afterward for an hour to answer questions and enjoy our post meeting social time, lots of good small conversations.
Good meeting, and maybe I learned a bit more about how to facilitate networking, though there is still a ways to go.
