Sqlfamily

T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party hosted by a different community member each month. This month, John Sterrett (blog) asks us:

What are you doing, or what can we do to encourage younger people to get involved in the SQL community while increasing the number of younger speakers?

All week, my phone has been reminding me (via photo memories) of the amazing experience I had at PASS Summit 2017. This can mean only one thing - PASS Summit 2023 is less than two weeks away!

I’ve written a lot about Summit in the past and many of the posts I’ve written about getting ready are still applicable today, so go check those out too.

Content and Scheduling

As always PASS Summit is delivering a ton of amazing content - an embarrassment of riches! And the topics are getting more and more diverse every year. Which is excellent because in the coming year(s) I, like many data professionals, will be asked to work across a variety of tools and platforms and not just the handful we’ve been using for a decade or more.

First Things First

Thank you to everyone who attended my session “Answering the Automator’s Call with Automation.” My slide deck and demo code are now available on my Github.. This was a new session and I’m pretty happy with how it worked out. I wasn’t sure if it would “land,” even after doing my run-throughs at home. Now that I’ve delivered the material to real people and had a conversation or two about it with folks, I’m feeling much more confident.

As I write this, it’s the weekend before PASS Data Community Summit 2022 and depending upon when I finish, it’ll post either shortly before SQL Saturday Oregon, or in time for folks to read it on SQLTrain en route to Seattle. Summit has snuck up on me this year and far more than any other year, I’m feeling woefully unprepared.

A couple months ago I delivered a short (15 minute) presentation at work about the importance of having a good professional network and how I’d found mine. As I was developing it, I had to keep redirecting myself as the theme would start trending towards how great the #SQLFamily is. To be fair, that’s what inspired the topic in the first place, but 15 minutes of stories about my friends is not what my co-workers signed up for.

This weekend was SQL Saturday Albany 2020. This was my third time attending the Albany event, my second time presenting, and my first virtual SQL Saturday. As always, Ed & his team did a terrific job with organizing it. Communication for both attendees and speakers was excellent, and as far as I can tell, everything ran very smoothly.

My Presentation

I presented Keys to a Healthy Relationship with SQL Server in the 3:30 PM session block. I’ve uploaded my slides to the SQL Saturday site. This is targeted primarily at application and database developers and I had a pretty good-sized turnout for the session. I promised folks answers to questions they asked in the session so let’s address those right now:

Just because we aren’t all together in Houston doesn’t mean we can’t have a #SQLRun at this year’s Summit. It might even be easier for some folks as there’s no luggage space/weight limits, jet lag or a late night out on Tuesday.

So here’s the deal. A while back, I created a SQLFamily group on Strava. If you’re not already a member of the group, no problem - anyone can join! You can even sync your activity from Garmin and some other platforms if you track things elsewhere.

A little while ago, Ray Kim (blog | twitter) asked a few folks who organize SQL Saturday events a few questions for his blog. The results are in and he’s compiled them all into one big post.

Check it out: What goes into organizing a #SQLSaturday? From the words of #SQLFamily

Last week (as I write this), Kevin Hill (blog | twitter) released the first episode of his new podcast Data Bits. I enjoyed listening to it and said “hey bud, if you need a guest sometime down the line, give me a shout!”

Well, “sometime down the line” turned out to be just a few days, and we recorded on the evening of March 4th amid a little craziness in both our houses. I always enjoy catching up with Kevin and our hour-long conversation could easily have been three or four. We talked tech, not tech, career stuff, and of course #SQLFamily.

I took a bunch of photos at and around Summit this year, including more selfies than in years past - I’m getting better about it! For a few more photos, check out my earlier Summit Photowalk post.