February 1, 2021 at 5:26 pm
While there is brand recognition with SQLSaturday, I propose that SQLSaturday forms a part of an overall community-led hierarchy (based on one of Steve's suggestions), where Data Saturdays is at the top and covers not just the Microsoft Data Platform (and under which SQLSaturday can be a part), but also other vendors that nominally fall outside of the Azure Data scope, including AWS.
February 1, 2021 at 6:18 pm
Personally I like this suggestion from William Durkin and thought this would be a good place to re-record it here:
https://twitter.com/sql_williamd/status/1355570240076316672?s=20
William Durkin
@sql_williamd
·
Jan 30
Suggestion: just merge the two brands. The SQLSat brand is strong, the backend is weak/dead Datasaturdays are truly "open" and owned by the community. The backend is not SQLSat and therefore better by default. Problem solved, workload of "what should we do" is reduced Win-win
February 1, 2021 at 6:53 pm
My two cents: if the SqlSaturday name can be kept, by all means keep it
No problems giving presentations on SqlSaturdays for themes not 100% sql, I myself gave some of them on Python on Sqlserver, many eons ago 🙂
SqlSaturdays were not exclusive
February 1, 2021 at 7:04 pm
I like all these ideas, especially William's.
Keep 'em coming.
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February 1, 2021 at 8:32 pm
First, kudos for Redgate for sharing the past PASS content and for being ethical with the data. That was a really positive thing for the community. Thank you.
I've always been in favour of open sourcing SQL Saturday. I look at projects like dbatools and am full of admiration for what the community can achieve in the open, when it's led by brilliant, community-focussed maintainers. I was really excited when Data Saturday started and had high hopes for it following in that vein.
I would love Redgate to talk to the Data Saturday folks and to see both groups working together to create a new SQL/Data Saturday that takes the best of both, in an open, community-driven format. As for exactly how that works, frankly, that's for Redgate and the Data Saturday team to work out between them.
When PASS died, out of a love for the community, the Data Saturday folks decided to step up and shoulder the burden. I believe that they deserve to play a leading role in the future of SQL/Data Saturday.
February 1, 2021 at 8:35 pm
First, kudos for Redgate for sharing the past PASS content and for being ethical with the data. That was a positive thing for the community. Thank you.
I've always been in favour of open sourcing SQL Saturday. I look at projects like dbatools and am full of admiration for what the community can achieve in the open, when it's led by brilliant, community-focussed maintainers. I was really excited when Data Saturday started and had high hopes for it following in that vein.
I would love Redgate to talk to the Data Saturday folks and to see both groups working together to create a new SQL/Data Saturday that takes the best of both, in an open, community-driven format. As for exactly how that works, frankly, that's for Redgate and the Data Saturday team to work out between them.
When PASS died, out of a love for the community, the Data Saturday folks decided to step up and shoulder the burden. I believe that they deserve to play a leading role in the future of SQL/Data Saturday.
February 1, 2021 at 9:56 pm
I have an opinion and obviously I have a biased view as Gianluca and I were the ones who put Data Saturdays together. We turned it around quickly as there was a need and we always want it to be community focused, lead, developed and run.
As the front of the repository states
This repository has been created as a place for the community create a set of tools and single point to enable people to run small regional events with little outlay or set-up difficulties to have open, transparent discussions on how it should be set up and utilised.
We created a simple solution, hosted on GitHub Pages, built by GitHub Actions. We hoped to be able to share ideas, tools, knowledge and provide a simple site for an event utilising other tooling for things like submissions learning from event organisers like Data Grillen, New Stars of Data and others, We gathered together a number of diverse people from around the globe to be leaders, leaders not as in being in control, this is what I asked
Again, just my opinion but I hope that you can be leaders, not in a “This is the way we should do this” but by guiding, focusing, questioning, listening, enabling, ensuring good practice and good behaviour, so that this moves forward in the way that we all feel that it should.
If, that is what the community wish as a place for their events, then I believe that Data Saturdays is an excellent place for this. It will require people from the community to be involved and to help make it something great. (hint - Come and join in!)
So, my views are as follows. SQL as a name for an event does not include the other technologies that we interact with in the Microsoft Data Platform world. I adored SQL Saturdays, I supported them all over the world as an organiser, speaker and volunteer but maybe their time is done. I am definitely not saying forget about them but maybe an archive is a good place for SQLSaturday.com rather than a reboot
I ask that Redgate listen to the people. I know that they are doing so, this forum is a great example of that and I have been involved in other conversations too.
I ask that Redgate consider Data Saturdays in their considerations of what they do with SQL Saturday.
I definitely ask that people give their views and a decision to be made by canvassing those people, not just the ones who will write a post here but also via other methods too. This is a chance to have your say
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February 2, 2021 at 12:03 am
I am in the Washington DC area. I work for a small organization and a novice IT person. I absolutely LOVED the SQL Saturday events, which I've been to ones over the years in Richmond, DC area, and even Philadelphia. I was able to not only learn from the many seminars, but got to meet such helpful IT people from various organizations. I hope Redgate or someone can continue these wonderful training seminars.
Alan
February 2, 2021 at 1:28 am
Merge it.
People (like me) have strong ties to SQL Saturday. I think it was the first time I ever felt at home with a group of people. During a time of change and the idea of it going away, having that association can only be helpful.
On the flip side I love the idea of the openness of Data Saturday. For 20 years I've never been able to attend the big conferences and it was def a barrier for me.
To the point of Rob Sewell - sign me up to where I can help.
February 4, 2021 at 7:04 pm
Apologies for the delay. Holiday this week.
Branding and marketing are important and key. While SQL Saturday doesn't seem as inclusive or wide reaching, it has strong branding and support from not only attendees and speakers, but vendors. Rebuilding that is not easy, nor quick. As someone that has been a part of this process in many ways, branding really matters.
As an aside, what does Apple have to do with computers? Nothing. The brand, however, is incredibly powerful. In short, I have seen MongoDB, Oracle, etc. at SQL Saturday events. Renaming this doesn't seem necessary.
However, I like the idea of what Rob and William have leaned towards with a merge, potentially a hierarchy. I like the idea of a DataSaturday toolset/site, that maybe lists/links to SQL Saturday and other brands (DataScienceSaturday, RSaturday, etc.).
I do think that someone will need to make a decision on this at some point, and likely there will be disagreement. We can't merge datasaturday and not merge datasaturday with SQLSaturday. I don't know how to gauge feelings and interest. Perhaps a poll/vote? Welcome to hearing how we can bring some of these discussions to a close.
In terms of input, adding items here, and at the DataSaturday repo (https://github.com/sqlcollaborative/DataSaturdays/discussions), is helpful.
February 9, 2021 at 2:03 pm
I have to admit that this is an opportunity to be more inclusive than to just SQL Server. In addition to on-prem SQL Server, I also work on both SQL Server and PostgreSQL in Amazon RDS. I also find myself working in other environments such as Oracle, Netezza, DB2, and RedShift. The interesting thing is that the basic fundamentals of RDBMS skills apply across the board. Sure, there are nuances and differences in the respective environments, and understanding that allows one to appreciate the various strengths and weaknesses each platform has.
It's rare these days to have a place that's purely dependent upon a single platform. Learning skills in other platforms allows one to be more flexible and therefore more marketable! Just something to consider for upcoming SQL Saturday and PASS Summit sessions!
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February 9, 2021 at 2:58 pm
I have seen talks at SQL Saturdays on:
I think there is plenty of variety, but not necessarily marketed. That might be the challenge here.
February 9, 2021 at 3:41 pm
I believe one of the main issues with that is the name, and that makes it relevant to a Data Saturday / SQL Saturday discussion.
"SQL" Saturday is a popular brand within our existing echo chamber. However, the tech industry is significantly bigger than the #SQLFamily. I expect that "SQL" actively puts off a lot of folks from outside the old "SQL Server" bubble, since it is overwhealmingly associated with "old-school" relational databases.
I think most people would agree that by branding an event as "data", rather than "SQL", it's far more likely to attract a broader set of content.
February 9, 2021 at 4:33 pm
Branding is important, and I certainly see a benefit to "genericizing" the name. One thing to keep in mind:
"SQL Saturday" rolls off the tongue. It's catchy, and alliterative. "Data Saturday", not so much.
But, whatever the name, I look forward to the end result, which I believe will be great. Thanks to those involved!
February 9, 2021 at 4:49 pm
“SQL” pronounced “Sequel” rolls off the tongue because we’re used to it. In the outside world, a lot of people spell out the letters or pronounce it differently. We are making a lot of assumptions in this thread about name recognition and branding as it relates to us, because we have the curse of knowledge. Please keep that in mind.
In my opinion, and as previously stated, the SQLSaturday brand holds value for historical reasons, but without any action on the part of Redgate *soon*, the value is slowly diminishing. That means they are under the gun to do *something*, or their investment is meaningless.
We can talk endlessly about what works and what doesn’t work but until we’ve either done some market research it’s just a guess either way.
Speaking personally, I am biased towards breaking from the past (i.e. PASS as an anachronism). Steve is biased towards keeping SQLSaturday, both as an original founder and as a Redgate person, and that makes perfect sense! I’d also do that in his shoes.
There is common ground here and we will find it, and that means considering what the general public thinks. Unfortunately as evidenced by PASS’s failings in getting the general public engaged, there are maybe a thousand active members of the community in total. No one else really cares what it’s called or when the events are. Just invite them and they’ll come. Co-branding exercises can get around that problem. Marketing is a solved problem in that you need a marketing team and marketing words. Redgate has that in buckets (and a design team).
So, between the ~1,000 of us out of 300,000, what is best for the community? That’s the conversation we need to have.
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