As happens occasionally I had a stack of books on my desk that needed to be put away, and as I went to do that ran into a small challenge – no more space on the shelves. I need to get another bookcase, but as I looked at what I had realized it was probably time for a pruning session. I went through and pulled out some books that I had but didn’t really like, plus some on SQL 2000 that I don’t much use for anymore, and then went through a bunch of back issues of magazines, setting aside some of the SQL Server Standards and putting most of the rest in the ‘gotta go’ stack.
I could perhaps sell some of this stuff online, but I doubt I’d make enough to justify the time. Or I could recycle them, at least give the paper another go around. But before I do that I’m going to offer them to the attendees at the next oPASS meeting. Plenty of people still on SQL 2000, magazines still have good content, hoping that someone – maybe everyone – will find some value in things that I don’t use on a day to day basis anymore.
It would be great if user groups could support a true ‘library’, but I don’t know if the logistics would work out very well – anyone tried this in formal fashion?
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).
Announced in the past week or so, Microsoft has released an update to Codezone that expands the focus beyond just the developer community to members of Culminis and PASS. For PASS members and prospective PASS Chapters they can elect to host with PASS (preferred, but optional), host at UGSS, or host separately. Each group will have to assess the pros and cons of the choices. My take is it's very nice to see MS trying to make it easier to start groups.
New stuff at http://www.ugss.codezone.com.
Scott Klein invited me to speak to his group in West Palm Beach, so I'll be going down on May 7th, 2009 to do a presentation and also to do my evangelist thing for SQLSaturday (Scott is setting up to do one in August, details soon). If you're in the area the address is 301 N. Olive Ave,West Palm Beach, FL 33401, and it will be held in the McEaddy Conference Room on the 12th floor.
As I mentioned last week I drove to Miramar for the South Florida Code Camp, arriving in time for the Friday night speaker party that we (End to End Training) hosted, and spent a great three hours just talking shop. Saturday morning I went over about 7:30 to see how things were going, no line at registration, plenty of people already moving about. Had about 8 sponsors on site, probably more than were web only. Everything started smoothly and host Dave Noderer seemed unstressed - a good sign! I spent a couple hours in the morning heads down on a project I needed to get done, then spent some more time wandering and looking in on sessions. Lunch was the standard pizza & soda, but I saw quite a few hit the on site cafeteria (snack bar?) and I got take out from Subway.
My session was right after lunch, I did my presentation on statistics to a crowd of just over 30. Had some good questions, and more DBA's than I expected - probably half the audience, more than I usually see at a Code Camp. I left to head home about 3:30, it's a long drive and I wanted to get home at a decent time. I had a follow up email from Dave, more than 800 registered, verified more than 650 attended. Truly amazing to get that many people to attend an event, I wish Orlando Code Camp (coming soon!) would grow to that size.
The only negative I heard was a few people got cold pizza, but even they were still smiling. Everything else seemed smooth to me, both as an attendee and as a speaker. Wait - one thing; Dave, next year can we have real half and half and not that yucky powdered stuff?
The fifth annual South Florida Code Camp is coming up this Saturday, Feb 7, 2009, at Devry University, 2300 SW 145th Avenue, Miramar, FL 33027. This will be my second time attending and I'll be doing a short presentation on SQL Server Statistics. It's a huge event, they have 700+ registered as of today and 72 (yes, 72) sessions scheduled. Dave Noderer is the lead for the event and does an amazing job of making a large event look easy to do, I'll be glad when I attain that state of enlightenment.
I'll be catching up with DotNetNuke Dude Stan Schultes, XML pro Scott Klein, and a host of other speakers that I don't see as often - it's about three hours from Orlando to Miramar.
Come say hello if you are attending!
If you're organizing a first time community event like SQLSaturday finding speakers is one of about a hundred tasks, so typically anyone that volunteers to speak makes it on the agenda. At most you'll have to pick to decide which of a couple sessions submitted by a speaker you want to accept. First time out I agree with that because getting it done is the ultimate goal - you learn some lessons and then decide whether you dare to try again.
I actually like the idea of featuring a lot of local/first time speakers and we've tried to support that with SQLSaturday. The downside of first timers is that the lack of experience often does hurt them (and you to a degree), but where else would they get the experience? As long as attendees have a couple other options if they don't like their first pick the world continues without too much pain. If you're running a one or two track event then it's definitely riskier to have unknowns, but sometimes you have no option (and I still like featuring local speakers).
If you look at why people want to speak at events it runs the range; striving for MVP, building the resume, consultant trying to market themselves, or just giving back. Maybe even a combination of those. Nothing wrong with any of them. Speakers donate their time in return for at most a decent polo, attendees get good value, and they don't have to be pure of thought to give a presentation. Soapboxish perhaps, but speakers and other volunteers do a lot of good at these events.
An interesting side affect of our success with SQLSaturday in Florida has been a bit of a decrease in SQL content at the Code Camps. I'm not sure that's a good thing. Developers are a big part of SQL, and I imagine most of you would agree that any time we can help developers grow their SQL skills we all win. If you look back at the sessions at the Code Camps though, I'm not sure they are as developer focused/friendly as they might be. Pick any topic and you'll get a few attendees, but given a minimal footprint it seems like it makes sense to try for a tighter focus.
So, with that really long intro done, all of that has been in my thoughts as I got ready to build a SQL track for the upcoming fourth annual Orlando Code Camp on March 28, 2009. Is it possible to do a better job of targeting developers, or do speakers just do what speakers like to do? Here's what I sent out to every SQL speaker that had participated in one of our Florida events:
"I’m emailing you because you registered as a speaker for a SQLSaturday at some point. The Orlando Code Camp is coming up on March 28th at Seminole Community College in Lake Mary (north of Orlando) and I’ll be leading the SQL track for the event (consisting of 6 sessions). Our goal for the event is to provide SQL Server focused content that would be useful to the average developer that is using SQL Server as their primary database. For example, we might target new TSQL features, basic maintenance, simple performance tuning tips, database design, etc. Remember that our audience is developers. Most are not DBA’s and won’t be interested in anything beyond the basics of the DBA world. There are a lot of that speak about SQL topics, so competition for the six slots may (I hope) be fierce! The intent is to seat plenty of developers in your session, so write it to make it attractive to them and I’ll pick the best variety. Please submit a max of 2 sessions. Also, I encourage you to consider bringing in a less experienced speaker to present with you even if it’s only to work the slides and do simple demos – help build the next generation of speakers. I’d like to get speakers selected as soon as possible, so we’re going to aim for closing the SQL track call for speakers by Feb 13th. More details about the event are available at http://www.orlandocodecamp.com/. Please call or email me if you have any questions. I look forward to hearing from you."
"I’m emailing you because you registered as a speaker for a SQLSaturday at some point. The Orlando Code Camp is coming up on March 28th at Seminole Community College in Lake Mary (north of Orlando) and I’ll be leading the SQL track for the event (consisting of 6 sessions).
Our goal for the event is to provide SQL Server focused content that would be useful to the average developer that is using SQL Server as their primary database. For example, we might target new TSQL features, basic maintenance, simple performance tuning tips, database design, etc. Remember that our audience is developers. Most are not DBA’s and won’t be interested in anything beyond the basics of the DBA world.
There are a lot of that speak about SQL topics, so competition for the six slots may (I hope) be fierce! The intent is to seat plenty of developers in your session, so write it to make it attractive to them and I’ll pick the best variety. Please submit a max of 2 sessions. Also, I encourage you to consider bringing in a less experienced speaker to present with you even if it’s only to work the slides and do simple demos – help build the next generation of speakers. I’d like to get speakers selected as soon as possible, so we’re going to aim for closing the SQL track call for speakers by Feb 13th.
More details about the event are available at http://www.orlandocodecamp.com/. Please call or email me if you have any questions. I look forward to hearing from you."
I've had some good feedback and one negative, probably about average. We'll see what happens over the next couple weeks while the speakers consider what (and if) to submit. But I thought I'd ask you - do you like the idea of making the standards just a little higher, a little more focused, while still looking for ways to support newbies? Or should it be Survivor-ish, and the best/most experienced always get to speak (and pick their topics too)?
The fifth annual South Florida Code Camp is being held on Feb 7th. They've got a huge schedule of sessions, probably the biggest you'll see at a free event. This will be my second year participating, I'll be giving a short presentation on SQL statistics and spending the rest of the time catching up with people I usually only see once a year. Definitely worth attending if you're in the area, or even if you have to drive down from the Orlando area.
We had our first oPASS meeting of the year last week with about 18 attending. Jonathan Kehayias was our featured speaker, doing a a nice presentation on common performance issues. Always a topic of interest, and we had lots of good questions during the presentation. I also spent about half an hour leading a discussion about the value that PASS might/should bring to DBA's and about networking. On the PASS side I think everyone wants to find value, less clear about how to provide that value. As I discussed some preliminary ideas about blog aggregation and discovery most agreed that it would be useful - but not compelling! The networking discussion was by far the most interesting. I've written about networking several times recently with more to go, so this was also research - where to go next? As expected every sees networking as a good idea, but only a couple believed they were effective at it.
One question I was asking in the conversation that continued after the meeting was "does the average DBA really need to network (outside of their employer)?" Not as easy a question as you might think to figure out! More soon on that.
The meeting also was a reminder that networking conversations can pay dividends in the strangest ways. We moved around to discussion of social networking, and my friend Kendal asked whether the PASSPort had an API to allow tools to connect to it (because he uses such a tool to consolidate his social presence). I don't the answer yet, but if not I can see it being a challenge - most social networkers are fairly serious about their networking/tools.
Our next meeting is March 11, 2009, no speaker scheduled yet. We always need speakers, if you're interested in visiting with us drop me a note.
I decided to attend to see how the group was doing and learn a little more about Dot Net Nuke (DNN). Meetings are held on the other side of Orlando from me, but with a 7 pm start time I missed most of the traffic and had an easy drive. The location isn't hard to find, but is also easy to miss at least at this time of year with it being dark early.
The meeting was pretty typical user group; big conference room provided by a corporate host, sign in sheet, some free magazines, and food courtesy of Vaco this time (pretty good food, though a few complained about the heat given off by the food warmers...can't win some nights!). Will Strohl got the meeting started on time and did a quick run through of group news and upcoming related events (though he didn't list my own SQL group meeting next week!). He also had a camera set up to stream the meeting--------------------
Featured speaker was Stan Schultes, well known in the Florida community and based out of Sarasota, probably about a 2 hour drive to the meeting location. He started by talking about some of the changes in the just released DNN v5, and then did a very basic install to set the stage. From there he went through all the steps needed to create and load a custom module. Can't say I walked away a DNN expert, but I did get a greater sense of the capabilities and some nice tips on DNN development (use IIS rather than the VS web host, develop on a server OS, code against a production install rather than load all the source code each time). He also mentioned one point that caught my interest; in v5 it's apparently possible to delegate sending newsletters without making the person a site admin. I can see that being handy for user groups at least, and probably a lot of other scenarios (and I need to find out how PASS is solving that issue for chapters/user groups).
Info on the user group at http://orlando.dotnetnukeug.net/Default.aspx, more info about Stan at http://www.vbnetexpert.com/.
My friend Will Strohl leads this group and asked for help getting the word out. I'm planning to attend.
URL: http://orlando.dotnetnukeug.net/WhatsNew/Events/tabid/91/ctl/Details/Mid/428/ItemID/16/Default.aspx?selecteddate=1/6/2009Speaker: Stan SchultesTopic: DotNetNuke 5 Module DevelopmentWhen: Tuesday, January 6th @ 7:00-9:00 PMWhere: ABC Fine Wine & Spirits, Inc. Corporate OfficeAddress: 8989 South Orange Ave., Orlando, FL 32822Description: Stan Schultes will begin with a quick technical overview of DotNetNuke, and a discussion of why you might build a custom DNN module. Demos will include how to install the DNN portal on a development machine, and how to install a custom module into the portal. Then we'll dive into setting up Visual Studio 2008 for module development and demonstrate how to install a module source package and run it in design mode. Finally, we'll walk through the process of developing a custom module using the sample module to provide details, and we'll see some development tips & tricks along the way. This is a 300-level session - some experience with DotNetNuke will be assumed.
I attended the Tampa Code Camp this past weekend. It was located at the Kforce Building in Tampa, a very nice facility, good parking, and only a couple blocks from downtown Ybor City (lots of stuff to do) - this is also where the Tampa SQLSaturday will be held in January 2009. Attendance looked to be around 200-220, which seemed to be down somewhat from previous years but still easily a success.
I did a presentation on how statistics affect performance in SQL. The 'room' I was assigned was one half of the cafeteria, another presenter had the other half. Looking at it I was expecting to have everyone struggle to hear/understand, but the layout brought the attendees in closer than usual and the noise turned out to not be a factor. If anything, having attendees within normal conversational distance made it less formal and more fun.
Only a single SQL track (not unusual) but I think we (sql speakers) probably need to have a better focus on what SQL content we do at these events. Just as at any of these events the skill levels and interests vary widely, but I think they fall into two main groups; those that don't have a DBA and so need some coaching on routine DBA tasks (not uncommon to find out they do zero index maintenance), and those that want to understand performance/security together. I think SQL injection should just always be on the agenda!
As always I had some good conversations. Some related to PASS that I'll post separately, I talked with Jonathan Kehayias about career plans & consulting, Bayer White (new blog URL) has taken over the Jacksonville .Net Users Group and the related Code Camp so we talked about running user groups and events, talked with Pam Shaw of the Tampa SQL Group about how she was going to organize the facility for SQLSaturday, talked with Joe Healy about Bizspark, and more!
Biggest complaints: materials for attendees weren't pre-stuffed in the event bags, and the lunch line for pizza wasn't well organized.
Finished up the day with a late lunch at The Green Iguana - if you're in Tampa you should try their Baja Burger!
We had our meeting on November 11, 2008, with 27 people attending. Our featured speaker was Jessica Moss, SQL MVP and BI consultant doing a presentation on new features in Reporting Services 2008. Jessica was very involved in the Florida technical community before moving out of state for work last year, and it was nice that we got to invite someone back that some of our attendees knew. She did a nice job showing off the new features and got the crowd to give up a few questions, but I think for many it was their first exposure to RS, not just RS 2008. All the better, plenty to keep them interested.
Part of the pre-presentation discussion was about the upcoming PASS Summit, and that led (again) to a discussion of PASS and it's mission. Out of that then developed a discussion about what benefits they thought a national organization might bring to them - with few answers. We ended up also discussing certification, and everyone agreed that for a cert to be worth pursuing it had to be perceived as valuable by HR and others outside of IT (to affect the hiring process) and that it would have to guarantee some level of competency. Definitely something I would like to see PASS do, but I think the first part is actually more challenging than the assessment - hard work to convince managers that any cert has real value.
As a user group watcher, what struck me tonight (again) was how the attendee list changes based on topic. Most of the hard core DBA's didn't attend tonight, and some of the regulars did. I agree with managing your time carefully, but I wonder if the increasing focus on a few narrow areas hurts many in their career long term. Could also be that I'm not doing enough to make it more than just technical, to engage them socially as well.
I'm writing this as I wait on a flight back to Orlando after spending yesterday with John Magnabosco and team at the IndyTechFest. I did a presentation on replication to earn my keep, but really I was there to watch the event in action and see if I could add a few ideas for my upcoming SQLSaturday in Orlando. In no particular order:
Attendance was over 450! Just incredible to bring that many in, and will move them to a larger venue next year. I attribute their success to a couple different items:
Nice airport, area seems nice, weather was nice. Definitely thinking about returning next year and spending an extra day to play tourist. I'm hoping I can get John to post some more stuff about the inner workings that have led them to their success.
Perhaps you've noticed a few of the blog changes if you visit via the web rather than RSS. One good change is that it's now single sign on, so logged in SSC members can comment. Aside from that, I had hoped for greater visibility for blogs and an increased emphasis (SSC runs a very distant second to sqlblogs.com). It almost feels like a step backward:
Interesting situation, not many blog posts here so not much reason to put in effort to improving the tools, not having great tools/exposure lessens the potential bloggers. Not sure what the strategy is.
Separately, I'm at the Indianapolis Airport writing this, waiting on Steve Jones to arrive so we can make our way to hotel and the site of the IndyTechFest tomorrow. John Magnabosco has done a really nice job of communicating about the event to registrants and I'm exciting to see how the event is run tomorrow, hoping for ideas to take back to Orlando. If you're attending please say hello, always (well, almost) have time to talk.
