Virtual PASS

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Virtual PASS

Don Sharp

SSC Enthusiast

Points: 172
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February 1, 2021 at 5:28 pm

#3839732

One complaint I had about the last virtual Pass is that too many of the sessions seemed to be more canned sales pitches rather than truly useful information. I would like to see more technical sessions with things I could actually learn and use in my job.

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artilugio SSC-Addicted Points: 450 More actions · Answer 1

If the next SqlSaturdays will be virtual ... count me out

Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 398694 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks for the feedback. Nothing personally to add here. Just letting you know that someone is reading this stuff.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt

Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

jack a hummer SSC Veteran Points: 222 More actions · Answer 3

What about the Summit recordings that we paid for and were promised access to for a year? Are they lumped in with "all free access"?

For my part, do not mind if vendors create information, I always like to survey the tools available even if I do not have an immediate need. Maybe a seminar with a product orientation could be organized in a separate category. In any event, there were lots of seminars on lots of topics. Thanks.

Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 398694 More actions · Answer 4

The rough plan at Redgate is, get all the PASS material out there, ASAP, and all of it for free. Now, devil is in the details, as always. But that's the rough plan.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt

Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

supercyberal Grasshopper Points: 10 More actions · Answer 5

Does Red-Gate plans to create a new name for the "New PASS"? Also, are we planning to be MS agnostic so we can include other SQL-Server players like AWS, GCP or are we still thinking into the MS mantra of focusing mainly on Azure?

Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 398694 More actions · Answer 6

No plans in any direction that I'm immediately aware of regarding naming anything. More to come on that. As to the technology, again, no plans just yet, but I'd put safe money down it's going to be much more agnostic.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt

Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734459 More actions · Answer 7

Apologies for the delay in responding.

We are not creating an organization or a PASS 2.0. We bought the assets, and we are looking to run conferences in the future. Likely virtual this year, but hopefully live events in the future.

For the content from the virtual summit, and other PASS content, we are looking to upload and release it, but curating and organizing this will take some time. The company that hosted the virtual summit still has that content available if you attended the Summit. Your login will still work.

Re: canned sessions and sales pitches, I'd be curious what/why you think this with examples. Many sessions were pre-recorded, which is a cost/stability decision for virtual events. PASS has usually tried to prevent any sales presentations, outside of Microsoft, so I'd like examples.

We are certainly not looking to make this a sales pitch.

Aaron N. Cutshall SSCrazy Eights Points: 8992 More actions · Answer 8

I began presenting for SQL Saturday in 2012 with focus on fundamental skills to help guide new people and to help refresh skills for more seasoned folks. This has been quite successful and appreciated by my attendees. This is especially true when many first-timers attending a SQL Saturday event do not return. Years later after much prompting, I began to submit sessions for PASS along the same vein.

I have noticed in the past few years at PASS that there is a strong prevalence to have sessions focused solely upon new features. While I do feel that they should be covered, it seems that sessions on fundamental skills (especially for new people) were largely ignored. Nearly all of the sessions I submitted for PASS were ignored with one exception and even then it wasn't a first pick but a fill-in. I think it was accepted only because I had "Big Data" in the title during the years that everything was "Big Data" related.

Certainly there should be a focus on hot topics and current trends. I'm not disputing the need for that. I just hope that for the next PASS Summit that there will be room for the fundamentals as well. There are huge numbers of first-time attendees each year that do not return again and I can only surmise that it's because too many of the sessions are at too high of a level to be useful. Without good foundational level sessions to help them, they get lost and never return.

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sqlrv
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/sqlrv
Website: http://sqlrv.com

residentx Old Hand Points: 330 More actions · Answer 9

When you do a virtual summit, can we spread it out over the month and have each day focused on a specific area of SQL Server/Azure?

Example, I want to hear about SQL SERVER ML and Azure SQL Edge. I would like to listen to high quality sessions for 5-6 hours each day. Sessions can go from 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600 (6 hours).

Thanks

annabel.bradford Grasshopper Points: 12 More actions · Answer 10

Thanks for sharing your thoughts here, it's an interesting idea.

November is likely to be a busy month for conferences, so it's likely that there will be lot of content available to consume virtually throughout.

The idea of starting your training at novice and progressing up to expert is a compelling one, and I can see how it would take a chunk of time to get to this.

I'd be interested to hear from others who have experienced a 5-6 hour training class experience via a remote-setting rather than in a classroom/in-person pre-con type setting. How did the experience work for you?

Cambridge, UK
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/abjbradford
Blog posts: https://www.red-gate.com/blog/author/annabel-bradford

annabel.bradford Grasshopper Points: 12 More actions · Answer 11

Here's the latest update which includes info about plans for PASS Summit 2021: https://pass-email.red-gate.com/w/0K8XwhnKXymitvyfgkrNNQ

Cambridge, UK
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/abjbradford
Blog posts: https://www.red-gate.com/blog/author/annabel-bradford

residentx Old Hand Points: 330 More actions · Answer 12

In this format, we can have content to share with customers at all levels and build up the community of experts. Microsoft does it now but now we'll have community driven content that will be more neutral.

Also, content building takes practice and it just allows more opportunities for people to grow. Redgate just has to supply the video templates.

This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by residentx.

mark.dba SSC Enthusiast Points: 130 More actions · Answer 13

Do you plan to make the old SQLSaturday site available, like prior sessions, presentations, etc?

Thank you!

Mark Varnas

SQL Server DBA

red9.com

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734459 More actions · Answer 14

Mark,

The old website is gone. No data or code. However, I have the XML files used for guidebook and have reconstructed quite a bit of the site. I am looking to re-launch that soon, though the look and feel will be different. I'm not a web person 🙁