In the next few months, I’ll be giving a couple of talks on SQL Server business intelligence.  For October, I have the pleasure of presenting for SQL Lunch, a new online learning series pioneered by Patrick LeBlanc.  On October 12th, I’ll be discussing ways to leverage SQL Server Report Builder 2.0 against your existing SSRS infrastructure to allow users to create their own ad-hoc and published reports.

Also, I’ll be visiting the Ft. Worth SQL Server User Group on November 18th.  I’ll be discussing Intermediate SSIS, demonstrating some of the more complex tasks and transformations and demonstrating how to leverage these tools to assist with challenging ETL scenarios.  Hope to see you there!

I’ve been mostly offline for the last ten days or so, cutting back on blogging and forum participation and mostly staying away from the Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook circles.  We’ve had 3 of 4 family members who have fallen ill in the last week (myself included), and we’ve been prepping for the baby with improvements to the house and lots of pink purchases.  But I am still around and engaged, doing some real work behind the scenes; as Mark Twain said, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”. 

I do have several SQL Server-related projects in the pipeline.  I’m working some articles for SQL Server Central, including a series on how to get started with scripting in SSIS (thanks to Steve Jones for the suggestion).  I’ve volunteered to be a technical editor for the SQL Server Standard, the recently revived print magazine that is now run by PASS and will be published as an online magazine.  I’ve also volunteered to work on a CodePlex project spearheaded by Jorge Segarra that will help to identify Protected Health Information (PHI) assets within healthcare organizations to insure compliance with HIPAA.  Also in the mix is an add-on for the PASS website that will allow the aggregation of SQL Server-related blog posts, a project that will hopefully be ready for testing this week.

Looking forward, I've volunteered to be a speaker at the SQL Lunch series, and for my first presentation I will be discussing ways to integrate Report Builder 2.0 into your SSRS environment on October 12.  I'm also on the lookout for speaking opportunities for 2010, and am actively working to bring SQL Saturday to Dallas in January or February of next year.

More to come soon!

As you’ve no doubt heard or read, the call for nominations for the PASS Board of Directors is open until September 3.  If you’re active in the community, have leadership skills, and are committed to growing the SQL Server community, a position on the board may be right for you.  Terms are 2 years in length and do require some travel, mostly to Seattle.  It does require commitment, but you’d have the opportunity to shape the future of the PASS organization and the SQL Server communities that are a part of PASS.  If you’re up for the challenge, I’d encourage you to submit your name for consideration.

I’ve spent some time talking to Andy Warren, a current board member, and he’s encouraged me to run for the board.  I am very excited about the possibility of being a part of the PASS leadership, and do plan to make a run for the board – just not this year.  I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire right now, on the home front (a baby due in October and a possible move to a new home) and in my profession (job uncertainly due to my company being bought out).  I’m certain that I could make a worthwhile contribution as a PASS board member, but as this is a huge responsibility, I have to insure that other goings-on in my life will not keep me from giving 100% to that effort.  I don’t think this is the year for that.  (I know, excuses, excuses…)

I’m looking forward to seeing who is selected by the nominating committee.  Those who I would like to see have either already self-nominated, have said they aren’t interested this year, or recently went to work for Microsoft (I won’t mention any names on that last one).

Well, perhaps not a whole new identity, just a consolidation of multiple facets of my online persona.  For several years now, I’ve maintained a personal website (www.timmitchell.net) and a professional website (www.bucketofbits.com).  The personal site, an old Community Server install, consisted of a neglected personal blog and a few family pictures, but sadly had been untouched for nearly a year.  On the BucketOfBits.com website, I had published links to my recent blog posts and downloads from my presentations.

So, to simplify administration and to consolidate my online footprint, I’ve decided to merge both sites under the TimMitchell.net domain.  This site will be a (mostly) professional site: I’ve imported the professional content and links from BucketOfBits, and I’m cross-posting my SQLServerCentral blog there as well.  For the content that is purely personal, including pictures of the kids and some random thoughts that have nothing to do with SQL Server/technology/career, I’ll maintain my “personal” identity on Facebook, which I’ve found is better suited for that purpose. 

I reviewed several different platforms, including the Mojo Portal, DotNetNuke, and WordPress for this consolidation project, and decided to roll out BlogEngine.net, a C#/SQL Server blogging platform.  It was easy to deploy, is relatively simple to configure or re-engineer, and supports multiple themes for when I get tired of the same old layout.  It supports cross posting of blogs, and the setup to cross post my SSC blog over to this new site was very easy.  Thanks to fellow Dallas-area SQL guy Lee Everest for giving me some pointers on this platform.  The visual layout is as plain-vanilla as it gets, so I may spice it up with a new theme once the dust has settled. 

As always, feedback is welcome.  Let me know if you find any problems or have suggestions.

For SSIS developers, the need for proper documentation is crucial.  However, the built-in object for documentation, the annotation, is difficult to use.  It doesn’t wrap text, doesn’t support varying font styles in a single instance, and doesn’t offer spell checking.  Further, all annotations are “at large” and are not attached to a particular object – they are associated with a specific task or component only by the location in which you place them.

If you’re like me and would like to see improvements to the SSIS annotation tool, consider visiting Microsoft Connect and offering your vote and feedback on a couple of items:

Connect Item 483132 – Suggestion to improve the SSIS annotation tool by adding rich-text capability.  I added this item this morning.

Connect Item 216927 – Suggestion to allow linking of annotation to a specific object (task, component, etc.).  This one has been out there for a while but only has a few votes.

I received my evaluation summary from the SQL Saturday event in Baton Rouge earlier this month.  This was the first event in which I did more than just one session (and back-to-back sessions at that), and I’d just gotten over the flu as well, so I was a little nervous about how I’d present, but all told it worked out well.  I’d like to see the “Average” column empty with respect to session content, but was glad to see the majority of instructor ratings in the “Excellent” column.  I was fortunate to have Steve Jones in my scripting session, and he’s planning to send me a few notes on things I can do to improve.

Session Title: SSIS: Beyond the Basics

Summary Comments

Session Title: SSIS Scripting

Summary Comments

In a blog post a few weeks ago, I wrote about social networking in the SQL Server community.  I was inspired by being witness to a colleague posting on Twitter about being unexpectedly and suddenly thrust into the open market of looking for a job.  His network responded immediately, rebroadcasting his message and exponentially widening his circle.  It seems like SQL peeps are starting to come around to social networking, but if you’re a newbie to that arena, where do you start?  Is LinkedIn for you, or is Twitter more appropriate?  What about Facebook and MySpace?  Should you have a presence on all of them?

Now I don’t consider myself a social networking expert, but I have used all of the above listed tools with some success, and am happy to share what works for me.  Your mileage may vary, so don’t take my word for it – talk to others, experiment on your own, and find what works for you.

The first and most obvious professional networking tool is LinkedIn.  This service has always specifically targeted networking as a professional development vehicle, rather than enumerating one’s social contacts.  This is demonstrated by the Reference feature found only on LinkedIn; you can write a recommendation for a professional contact, and can even request a recommendation from a contact.  LinkedIn does not have as many organic social networking features as other services; however, what it lacks in features, it makes up for in legitimacy, and anecdotal evidence suggests that this is the primary destination for those intent on using social networking for professional purposes. A new feature added recently is a status update, similar to the one used by Facebook, and is a nice touch for impermanent notifications (I use this to notify my contacts when I post a new blog entry).  As for my use of LinkedIn, I include as many people as possible; I make it a point to add most everyone I meet through my work, and I don’t think I’ve ever turned down an invitation.  My opinion is that if you only use one networking site for professional contacts, use LinkedIn.

Next on the list, and arguably the most controversial, is Twitter.  Depending on whom you ask, Twitter is either a useful tool for brief notifications, or a colossal time sink.  I’m of the opinion that it could be either one, depending on how you use it.  I use Twitter almost daily, keeping my desktop client (I currently use Twhirl, with no complaints) open most of the time.  It’s easy to configure so that I only receive notifications upon messages addressed to me (either a direct message or an @ reply), and I can easily ignore it when I’m busy.  I’d estimate that 90-95% of my Twitter contacts are professional in nature.  I’m a little more restrictive about whom I follow on Twitter; because the noise can become overwhelming, I only follow those people who regularly post interesting information.  I don’t follow everyone who follows me, but I rarely block anyone from following me.  Many corporate networks block Twitter, so you may not have the option to use it during the day, but I’ve found it to be of value to me to keep up with those in my circle.

Also to be considered is Facebook.  This is much more of a social site than LinkedIn, and somewhat more socially oriented than Twitter.  Most of the people I talk to consider Facebook to be purely a personal outlet rather than a professional networking tool.  I tend to agree, though I do have many Facebook “friends” that are mostly professional.  Facebook is one of the more feature-rich tools, including chat, status updates, personal picture galleries, and a large profile section to describe everything from your relationship status to the music you like, even religious and political views.  Because of this, Facebook is also frequently blocked by corporate proxy servers.  I’m the most restrictive on whom I’ll “friend” on Facebook; I reject invitations from people I don’t know well, and I occasionally prune my list of friends.  Here’s a telling statement: I don’t use Facebook at work, at all.  That should adequately describe how much I value this outlet as a professional tool, which is to say, not much.  For me, Facebook is almost entirely personal.

Lastly, there is MySpace.  To be frank, I never use MySpace any more.  I used to use it a lot for mostly social and family contacts, but the obnoxious features and spyware/virus invasion was too much to take.  I assume that I still have a MySpace account, but I haven’t logged in in months, nor do I plan to in the near future.

Using social networking tools to build one’s professional circle can be valuable, but can take some trial and error to make it work for you.  I’d be interested to hear some other stories of how social networking has worked, or not worked, as a professional communication tool.

After a long weekend of travel and speaking, I’m finally able to put my feet up and get a little time to catch up on things.  This weekend I travelled to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to speak at SQL Saturday 17, and was pleased with how well everything was run.  Patrick LeBlanc, the organizer of the Baton Rouge SQL Server group, was ringmaster for a good group of volunteers and speakers.  There were around 200 people in attendance, and the word-of-mouth feedback was mostly positive.

This event was held on the campus of LSU.  The facility was great but a few rooms were a bit small, and as a result, several sessions were standing-room only. There was no dedicated speaker room, which should be a staple of any SQL Saturday event.  Signage was good, particularly when you consider the size of the LSU campus.  Lunch was from Subway, which was more than adequate, and there were plenty of drinks available throughout the day.  The closing assembly and raffle was a little chaotic at first: some of the volunteers had written a custom web application to select winning ticket numbers for the drawings, which was running very slowly at first, but things came together quickly and the goodies were distributed quickly.  There were fewer books than I’ve seen at other SQL Saturday events, which made the book giveaway quicker (this is generally a bottleneck at the end of the day).

The speaker and volunteer party on Friday as well as the attendee party tonight were well done, with a large separate space for our group each night.  The food and drinks for both parties were paid for by sponsors, a nice touch to reward participants for their time.  The after party had only 2-3 dozen attendees, not uncommon since about 15% attendance is expected.

This event was the first time I’ve done 2 different presentations in the same day.  I discussed SSIS scripting, a favorite topic of mine and one I’ve delivered several times before, including at 2 previous SQL Saturday events.  I also worked in a new presentation, “SSIS: Beyond the Basics” that covered some often underused (and misused) controls such as the For Each Loop Container, the Lookup Component, and the File System Task.  Both sessions were well attended; this group was much quieter than audiences I’ve had in the past, so it’s difficult to judge the impact or effectiveness.  There were many evals that were turned in for both sessions, and I’m looking forward to receiving the results.  I was able to take in Steve Jones’ talk about the Modern Resume, and Barry Ralston’s discussion about PerformancePoint and Excel Services, both of which were well done.

Joining me in this trip was Trevor Barkhouse, a fellow member of the North Texas SQL Server User Group.  He did his own session about deadlock detection, resolution, and prevention, which was very informative. Trevor and I, along with several other members of our Dallas group, are planning to host our own SQL Saturday event in the Dallas area next January or February, so we spent the weekend making a lot of mental notes about this event.

One of my favorite things about these events is the opportunity to spend time with other technical professionals.  I had met Patrick LeBlanc briefly in Pensacola in June, but this weekend I spent several hours chatting with him.  I got to catch up with Steve Jones, who is always enjoyable to visit with, and got to spend a little time with Barry Ralston as well.  I visited with Jamie and Jeff, a couple of attendees whom I’d met in Pensacola in June, and was happy to see these “repeat customers” again.

Thanks to Patrick and crew for a great event! Hopefully we’ll see some of you in Dallas next year.