What A Week!

I had a great time at the PASS Summit of 2009. I met too many people to keep count of and I can’t list everyone here for I know I’ll forget someone. Thank you if I met you and if I didn’t… Darn it! We’ll have to meet in 2010, I will do all that is in my power to be there.

I learned a lot and in the coming days and weeks I hope to have some blog posts inspired either by conversations or lessons that I learned in the various sessions and post con I went to with Itzik.

A thought

I was in Warren Thornwaite’s session on Dimensional Modeling with the Kimball methodology. It was eye opening to this, mostly DB Engine/OLTP, Database Administrator. I have read the lifecycle book and was familiar with the Kimball approach but hearing things explained helped the understanding immensely.

One neat thing that Warren did was have an exercise involving the audience. It was a simple one to identify dimensions, grain, info, etc. for a fictitious problem. The problem was PASS Summit inspired… It was a technical conference that wanted to track speakers, sessions, performance of speakers, rooms and attendees. The stuff PASS cares about for the next session.

As we were working on the issues, I felt the light bulb burning in my head. It’s a few days later and the bulb is still burning which means It’s either a good idea or I have deluded myself and am about to be laughed at. Either way, here goes..

“PASS Dog Food”

This year at one of the key notes we saw a really neet series of map mashups provided courtesy of Jorge Segarra (Blog/Twitter) who, sadly, was not at the summit. Seeing that and playing Data Analyst/Architect in Warren’s session got the hamsters in the head spinning:

Why not play with Microsoft technologies/betas/CTPs/TAP Tools for the benefit of the PASS Community?

What I mean is: Let’s play and learn. PASS has a lot of business problems that the SQL Server tool set would help with. There are a lot of aspects of the technology we could use to help with future summits, typical day to day PASS needs and expose folks to areas and technologies they may not be in their full time roles.

For example:

• Today every room has a room monitor handing out sheets, bullying people for sheets on our way out and perhaps counting attendees at a session(?). It would be fun to get something like the RFID tags that marathon runners have into the badges handed out. Put readers into the session rooms and keynote halls. Don’t track the individuals, give them blind IDs for privacy. Have a database and BI solution tied into Sharepoint with Power Pivot, 2008 R2 (or perhaps SQL 11 CTP tools, etc.). Actually track the attendance at sessions, allow people to use their ID to submit reviews and track all of that in a database. In realtime we could see graphs and charts of attendance by track, by topic, by speaker, by level, by time of day, etc. We could slice and dice, pivot and analyze the data to learn what is and isn’t working. PASS could use that info for the next year.. Plus it would be fun.
• The Abstract Selection committee gets spreadsheets of speaker reviews to look through for past speakers when working on abstract selection. Spoke in a few years? Look at a few spreadsheets. It’s clunky and it’s a bit outdated. We could use these databases and reports to properly aggregate the data and see the trends. We could also help prefill information for the volunteers about speakers. We could even understand trends in who votes, who doesn’t for BoD positions. We could understand who needs to be marketed to better, and how, for future summits.
• Chapters could use mapping/geospatial information to better understand where there people are coming from, where there are large numbers of SQL people who are known to PASS but not coming to local meetings. Perhaps there is an area for a new user group.

Really the possibilities are limitless and it’s strange but I keep thinking of BI type applications. I am sure there are plenty of other uses for the technology that PASS, as a community, interacts with. It would be fun to do some proof of concepts/white papers about how we used the technology for ourselves.

Anyway I’ll stop rambling. Am I way off? Do you think it would be fun to branch off into other areas with the tools you use on a daily basis and help a great organization like PASS at the same time? Add a comment and tell me you agree or tell me I’m nuts. I don’t sit on any boards, volunteer for PASS when I have the time and don’t have any louder voice to PASS than you do. So I don’t know if anything would come of it but I wanted to share it.

Ahh.. One more ramble. All of the Virtual Chapters could be involved. The Professional Development chapter could use some of the business problems as a way to help show how to formalize business documentation, set expectations, document approaches, etc. The BI virtual chapters could work with the BI tools to help implement the requirements, etc. It almost sounds like kids playing office. Maybe it is? But I think it would highlight the fruits of the virtual chapters, the fruits of the Microsoft technologies we all love to work with and provide a learning opportunity for anyone who wanted to help. I am not a BI developer, for example, and I would enjoy helping build out a warehouse or reports or implement Power Pivot functionality.

“PASS Cares”

I was walking upstairs to go to bed (internal clock is still partially adjusted to PST from the summit) and another thought forced me to open the laptop. Not only could we sort of work together as a community on some PASS initiatives but wouldn’t it be neat to help some charity organizations?

The MVPs showed great leadership and selflessness with tier Deep Dives book and all royalties going to charity. Why not build on that?

I think it would be neat to see a partnership where Microsoft would give/donate licenses for some of the tools we work with to registerred non-profit charity groups. PASS could help provide some hands. Again folks in the community can learn, step outside of a comfort area and an organization could benefit from having the help. Maybe Microsoft could even give us some “technical advisors” from the product teams/SQLCAT teams to jump in on an every other month conference call to discuss the progress and feedback? I don’t know, now I am really rambling…

Alright.. I’m really done now Sleep calls. I’ll schedule this for Tuesday publication. Feel free to comment and tell me what I was missing. I’ll be keeping the “Things I learned at PASS” tag on future posts involving glimmers of knowledge gained last week.

Live in NH, Maine or Northern Mass?

I have been toying with the idea in the back of my head to get a user group setup for SQL Server folks a little closer to home. I love the New England SQL Server users group (NESQL) that Adam Machanic (twitter,blog) runs. I have been to several meetings and the speaker list blows you away. The quality is great and one of the sponsors has recently become a vendor at my company because of their sponsorship (they have a product that fits and exact need at my full time job and they were sponsoring on a night when I was dealing with trouble with that area… had them come up to do a demo and we were hooked, working out great.. see sponsorship does work both ways…  I am sure our account covered their pizza costs and them some.. but I digress, surprised?) and the availability of Microsoft folks is handy.

It’s just a 1.5 hour drive from work and then a 1.75 hour drive home with no traffic. So, I have been thinking of trying to get something going to augment those meetings up this way. Perhaps alternate meetings between Portsmouth, NH and Portland, ME each month.

Please comment below if you live in the Seacoast of NH, ME, northern MA (Peabody North on 95, northern end of 495.. Looking to meet in Portsmouth, NH) and you would be interested in attending, speaking or helping run a users group. I am putting this feeler out to see what kind of interest there is.

A few more thoughts to chew on:

Not Competition

There is NESQL in Waltham that meets regularly. There is the NH SQL Server Users group in Nashua that also meets regularly. I am not looking to compete with these events and will do whatever is in my power to not schedule conflicts. I will still likely go to a fair amount of the NESQL meetings and want you to have the ability to also.

If the community up this way between the Portsmouth, Concord, perhaps Manchester, Newburyport/Peabody/etc in MA is large enough to get meetings together, then I think doing this is a no-brainer. The drive from Portland to Waltham or Nashua is brutal on a Thursday night.

If it becomes too much or a competition point, I just don’t want to do it. Why disrupt things at a great, active local user community?

Inspiration

I have been thinking of this for awhile but simply thinking of it. Never acting. Some talks with Andy Leonard (Twitter, Blog) had me thinking. Then seeing his presentation at the SQL PASS Conference on user groups and how he successfully setup and runs several user groups in his area (web) had me thinking, I can do this. I asked a question about distance in the class, my paranoia and fear is disrupting a great community and the consensus in the room seemed to indicate the location spread is far more than enough to think about another user group. Thanks, Andy, for the pep talk.

I’m not going to do this by myself

I know a few other active SQL Serverites in the area and I will be reaching out to them. I also know of a great consulting firm in the area I have done some side work for. I may reach out to them about some help/advice/sponsorship. I don’t want to make this a “Mike Walsh Users Group”, in fact I just bought a domain for “SeacoastSQL” (.com/.org).. I want this to be about a community of SQL Server users growing together, helping new users, nurturing new speakers (which I hope to become in 2010) and helping local companies by improving the quality of the SQL Server workforce.

As such, I don’t want to formulate a group around me and on my own. I would like to look at setting up a business entity of some sort with a small board and have a passionate community help grow it. If it is grown by more than one person some event in my life or career won’t kill the entire initiative.

Send a comment here, send me a note from the contact us page and let me know if you want to help out.

Balance Speakers

I want to get some good speakers come up here. That means we need to have a budget for it and I am prepared to reach out to sponsors once we form the right entity, or perhaps as we form the right entity. I want experienced folks who have spoken, wrote books, and know their stuff.

I also want to encourage folks who are thinking about speaking but too afraid to submit an abstract to get up and speak. The audiences at these user groups range in experience and even a guru should be watching a presentation to see what new approach or insight they can glean. I want you to speak. If you live in the area and have been doing something with SQL then you probably have a topic to talk about. Let me know.

When?

I am a busy guy. The when depends on who helps me, what kind of experience we have finding sponsors, becoming affiliated with a Microsoft and/or PASS type of organization and what sort of speaking schedule we can get. It also depends on what kind of feedback I get from friends, colleagues and their networks. I am hoping sometime in 2010, Q1/Q2.

That’s it. Consider this your early warning and a request for a quick bit of feedback (can’t do polls with this blogging setup, at least I haven’t yet figured it out) in e-mail, comments or on twitter (mike_walsh). If the interest dies down, the group dies down. If there is enough interest (at least ~10/12 people to start talking) then this will get off the ground.

I hope to hear from you and in the meantime, if you want to carpool down to Waltham’s meetings each month (second Thursday of each month) from Portsmouth or a park and ride between Portsmouth and Waltham. Let me know. I would love to help someone get down to a meeting that has never been. You get a LOT and it’s free (even get pizza )

Last week I posted about getting together with other Christians while at the PASS Summit this year. We have a good core group formed and we will be meeting throughout the conference.

I was originally planning on being there for Sunday evening but there was a death in my wife’s side of the family (her grandfather). It was expected as he was in hospice care after a long battle with cancer and COPD. He knows the Lord so while we mourn his passing, I am excited for him at all the sights He is seeing now. The funeral is Monday morning, and I will still be going to PASS, I will just miss Monday’s events. I will be arriving at the Sheraton sometime around midnight Monday. So no meetings with me on Sunday or Monday but I hope folks get together bonded by a common faith on those days still.

Two “Tracks”

There are two purposes to the Christian meetups at PASS. I wanted to talk about them both briefly

Track One: Prayer and Fellowship

One is the initiative I was talking about with some SQL Tweeps who I knew to be Christians. (I won’t name names, I am sure they are alright being named but that is up to them to do in the comments ). This is what I highlighted in my other post.

This will be a time for Christians (I described a definition for this on the other post as well) to get together and share prayer needs. Lift up the summit and attendees in prayer. Open the Word of God and read some passages and have some informal ad-hoc (not the bad kind of ad hoc involving horrible queries run amock) discussions about what we read.

When?

Throughout the Summit. I am now not arriving until Monday night but starting each Tuesday morning I will be in the lobby at the Sheraton Seattle with my Bible and some Tea (I hear there is a coffee shop built in to the Sheraton, I’ll try and stay near there). I will try and be there between 5:45-6:30 each morning (though Tuesday I may leave a bit early to register and not wait in lines).

There will also be informal meetups as we bump into each other but if you are around, want some fellowship, and to hang out with another one of us Bible believing types send a tweet out with the hashtag #passprayer. I will be looking at that link. Or add a comment here/shoot me an e-mail (mike at this blogs domain).

I believe I was invited to a few vendor get togethers and I will likely make an appearance at some of those but if you are looking for something to do, fellowship tops passing out my new moo cards, I’d rather spend time with you and the Lord.

I might even try and sneak over to Mars Hill church while there if I can find it and make it work.

Why

Why not? I love working with SQL Server and am incredibly excited to meet other SQL Server tweeps, SQL Server MVPS (at the BoF lunch will be a good spot for that) and mingle with industry experts. I am excited for the sessions, the chalk talks and spending time listening in on questions people have at the Ask The Expert areas.

Even still, my identity comes from who I am in Christ – a part of God’s creation, uniquely formed in my mothers womb by a loving Creator. One who doesn’t deserve the glory of Heaven but will receive it because God loved me first and proved by sending Christ to pay for my sins.

Just because I am away at a conference doesn’t mean I can’t hang out with other people who believe likewise. I’ll have fun with all people from all walks of life and all faiths at the sessions, events and mingling in the halls. I’ll really enjoy meeting you during #sqlbingo (I’m a square!) regardless of what you believe. That being said, I am excited to meet brothers and sisters in Christ in a few days.

Track Two: A Great Idea

Brian Moran reached out to me at the same time I was thinking of the first “track” above. His note explaining his idea is below. We will be stealing some space at the breakfast hall Tuesday morning and Lunch Hall Wednesday during lunch hour. This is not sanctioned or endorsed by PASS, we are just going to be talking about this at the tables we all sit at during the public meals.

I’ll let Brian explain his own idea with notes from an e-mail thread about it with him:

<Brian Moran>

Concept:

“You’re a subject matter expert, a community leader, an expert. You’re a technical evangelist. You know how to save the lost and convert them to your chosen technology. You’re also a Believer. Jesus has an instant ROI, the best SLA’s in the business, and offers an infinite number of 9’s of availability. Can you use your existing evangelism skills to save a few souls for Christ?”

Why:

I was at a men’s retreat with my church a month or so ago. The speaker served in the mission field; specifically in predominantly Muslim countries. The man was bold in his faith. I’ve been a Christian for 16 years and have never been bold in sharing my faith. Frankly, I’ve had little if any fruit in my life until recently. During the men’s retreat I felt convicted in my lack of evangelism. But it occurred to me that I’m actually very good at evangelism. I’ve been doing it in the SQL Server space for 15 years. I was persecuted and laughed at by my friends in the Unix space back in the old days so I’m even used to suffering from my evangelism efforts.

It occurred to me that if I had technical evangelism skills that could be used in better ways; perhaps other people did as well. My guess is that if we play a technical evangelist version of ‘7 degrees of Kevin Bacon’ that the top SQL Server TE’s in the world can probably touch the top TE’s in every major technology niche around the world. Could God use hundreds of influential technology and business leaders becoming more bold in their efforts to share their belief in Him? Probably

I spoke to a few people and there seemed to be some interested in exploring this concept further at PASS. I don’t anticipate this being any sort of formal ministry. We won’t need staff and donations. We don’t need radio shows, but let’s keep the door open on podcasts. We’re technologists after all. J

I really don’t know what this idea might lead to, or even if it’s an effort that God wants us to pursue. Please consider joining us for a time of prayer and discussion to explore how and if God wants to use this concept.

Where and when

We’ll be meeting during PASS. We’ll have two sessions. Breakfast on Tue. Lunch on Wed. You don’t need to attend both. Exact times TBD. We’ll meet in the PASS meal area. I’ll update the invites with specific time/location info as that is set. Please feel free to invite anyone else that you think may be interested. I’ll add them to the appointment if they contact me directly so that they can get updates to the appointment as they are made.

</Brian Moran> 

Current times: (Tuesday AM 7-8 for Breakfast and Wednesday Lunch 12:15-1:15)

So I hope to bump into you at PASS for any reason. If you are interested in either (or both) of these tracks send me an e-mail and I’ll get you added to the e-mail thread. Or simply comment here and I’ll reach out to you. As always you can find me on twitter.

From time to time, I blog about my faith here. I am really moving those posts over to my site where I talk about my faith, thoughts on liberty and other personal topics, A Believing Patriot. From time to time I will cross post here and since this post has to do with my SQL life and my Christian life (really, everything has to do with the latter, or it should at least) it makes sense to post here. As always, read on if you like, I won’t be offended if you choose not to and I hope you give me that same courtesy.

Away from home != Away from God

We jump on a plane, spend some time enjoying the company of some great people from the SQL Server community. We learn in sessions, learn through listening to chalk talks and questions in the pavilions and Ask The Experts lounge. We can even go to a vendor/community gathering or two and enjoy the company and networking with some great SQL Server resources.

But… As a Christian, I don’t want to leave my faith behind this year. I don’t want to let my witness lapse, let my time of fellowship lapse. I want to have the best time I’ve ever had at SQL PASS. That means I want to absorb as much knowledge, networking, socialization and fun as ever. But… In order to have the most fun as I’ve ever had, I long to spend some time with other Christians. With other people who are not only part of a SQL Server community but part of the body of believers, the family with Christ at the head.

So I will be going with my Bible (always travel for one: makes for good reading on the plane, good conversation starter at times and spending time with the Lord helps set the tone for each day), my knees (alright, a metaphor.. I pray standing,sitting and sometimes lying down.. never really kneeling) and a desire to hang out with other believers.

>= Bible & Prayer

(in number, not importance )

As I was thinking about this, I was talking to some other people in the SQL community that I knew, or suspected, to be Christians. Why don’t we try and get together at PASS was the conclusion we came to together. So we started looking for places to meet to organize a prayer breakfast or get together. A few ideas of where to meet were shot down and we started deciding to sort of wing our meeting location or at least kept putting off finding the official location. We are mostly all going to have our Bibles and we’ll likely all be praying but now we will get to meet and worship together.

So having my Bible and Prayer is great but adding to it fellowship is even better. Glad the others agree.

Where Location IS NULL

So we don’t have a location at this time. I am going to check with the hotel I am at (Sheraton), look for a church downtown or some other location. Worse case scenario has us just meeting in a hotel lobby, someone’s hotel room, a corner (unofficially and not sponsored by PASS) of a lunch or breakfast room, etc.

Once we have a location I will either send out some tweets #passprayer, update this blog or send you an e-mail (add a comment below or send me an e-mail)

GROUP BY

We already have a handful of people interested and I believe that number will grow based on some comments from others. If you are interested in having some time of fellowship, a time to remember Christ while at a conference and a time to pray for those at the Summit then contact me and I will add you to our e-mail list.

CROSS JOIN

A really neat thing happened earlier this week. A praise-worthy event. As I was busy on other priorities, this kept falling lower on my radar. Well it was clearly high on God’s radar still. I received an e-mail from someone I definitely knew from SQL Community (one of the gurus out there who really knows SQL and PASS). He was given my name by someone else in the community who knew I was a Christian. This guy was looking to find other Christians to get together with at PASS and beyond to focus on Christ together while at the conference and beyond. It was a great e-mail to read, it had a personal story and testimony from this person and I could see his heart was reaching out to do the Lord’s work while staying strong in SQL.. Combining the two.. A Cartesian product of sorts

I eagerly replied and am really looking forward to meeting him and those he was reaching out to. Not because they are geniuses in the SQL field (though some are ) but because they are people who are my brothers and perhaps sisters in Christ. They are people who I will get to spend all of eternity with, great to get to know some of them down here. They understand my work field as well which is great. We can discuss Scripture through SQL Server illustrations and work horror stories and combine our love for SQL Server and our love for Christ. Exciting indeed.

Execution Plan

We haven’t built an official structure to our get togethers. I see them as times of prayer, Bible Study and devotion. There are no rules and this isn’t some exclusive club. I can’t speak for everyone that I have talked to but we seem to agree on some basics… Anyone is welcome to join us, we aren’t looking to have a time of debating denominations, politics, etc. If you are a Christian or want to know more about what that means and meet some folks who are, you are welcome to join us.

I will say what I mean by Christian in a moment and I hope this helps set the tone and focus of these get togethers. I am one who believes in a Christ-Centered, Biblical Christianity, while anyone is welcome I hope to keep this focus in mind.

I have mentioned this in a few of my posts that are in the Bible category. I’ll be brief here, I define Christian as meaning:

I have realized and admitted I am a sinner, that I fall far short of the glory of God and His perfect will. It means I admit that I deserve what the Bible says the wages of my sin is: death (hell, separation from God’s love eternally). It means that I believe that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross exemplified God’s love to me (John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”). It means that I realize that I can’t meet the standard of Heaven and fellowship with God (Perfection is the only standard a holy and just God could demand, anything else would make Him a liar and no longer perfect in his nature and attributes). It means I believe that when Jesus died on the cross, He went there on my behalf, in fact He went there on behalf of anyone who puts their trust in Him. Doesn’t matter what sins you have committed, it doesn’t matter how far you think you are from God. The relationship with Christ has nothing to do with your actions but everything to do with his action when we died for you. Finally, it means I have applied His sacrifice to my life and trust Him and Him alone for my salvation and my eternity.

There are many benefits, many answers to prayer and countless testimonies to share with you but that is what it means to me to be a Christian. To be a follower of Christ and one whose sins are “covered” by His blood. I can have daily fellowship and closeness to the creator of this world and I will spend the rest of forever in a close relationship with Him.

It means I have received the gift of one of the most beautiful words in the dictionary: grace (unmerited favor)

Interested in meeting, talking, praying and having fun with us? Shoot me a note, send me a tweet. I really look forward to meeting you and please know that we’ll be praying for a great Summit this year for all attendees, regardless of faith or walk of life. I would love to be able to share my personal story with you and open a Bible with you. I am not going to push this on you, if you find me because of SQL Bingo, we’ll talk SQL and fun Summit stuff. If you ask about my faith, I’ll tell you. If you don’t want to hear about it, well I can’t promise it won’t slip out but I’ll respect your wishes and still have a great time getting to know you.

-mike

“Hi, Mike!”

That’s right. The first step is admitting I am a have a problem. I’m a square. Someone tells a joke, the crowd is laughing hysterically.. I wait a few (too many) beats and add mine. They aren’t…

oh wait! Not that kind of square.. (though the verdict is still out on the other kind… )

Bingo!

So this was a fun week for me in the way of SQL Server “props.” I had two kind of neat things happen, First one of my SQLServerPedia articles on shrinking was apparently included in a “Best of SQLServerPedia” magazine like publication along with 7 other excellent articles. That was a total shock when I opened my mailbox the other day and had a few copies with a note saying “thanks for being a part of this publication”.

Then I had my first “webcast” (it was a panel discussion with voice and powerpoint only) played as part of Quest Connect 2009 (I was a cohost to 3 excellent SQL gurus, learned a lot from hearing them speak!).

Then I replied to a tweet about SQL Bingo by Stuart Ainsworth (Blog/Twiitter) and next thing I know I am told space was available. Now everyone at PASS can go looking for me so they can win prizes and chat with me. PASS excitement is building for many reasons (hope to post one more blog entry on another exciting happening later this week or early next)

I will be posting my whereabouts with the official twitter hashtag #sqlbingo so I hope you look for me, get my pass phrase and then you can say, “I met that square guy Mike.”

Hope to see you there!

Like I have said on my other PASS Summit related posts the past couple weeks, I really look forward to meeting you at the Summit this year. Whether you want to meet me to say hi and talk SQL, Christianity, Chicken Raising, firefighting (though I am no longer a volunteer, I still love to meet others who do and share war stories) or you just want to win extra swag from Quest via the SQLServerPedia Bingo game, that is fine. I still would love to chat with you, talk shop, talk about your family, talk about my faith, talk about whatever it is you want to talk about.

This Bingo game should be fun and there are some really cool SQL Server people (well, I should say tweeple?) on the card. Hope I can help someone make that days Bingo shape!

Stuart has the rules and information on the game at his blog here.

Update (10-21): Glenn Allen Berry just blogged about this and he mentioned something I forgot to tell you: at least one of the MVPs asked if they could give away a copy or two of their book. I don’t know if any one else will but one more reason to show up and find out. Though even without the books this is really an awesome way to meet other SQL Server people. Put some faces to names and get some twitter handles and e-mail addresses! “UNITE”

Topics are Finalized

Last week, I introduced the concept of this lunch to you when posting, “Eat Lunch with the MVPs”, well the back and forth with a handful of MVPs and the good (and patient!) folks at PASS HQ is just about done. We have our list of topics for tables!!

Recap

This is a lunch where the attendees can select a table of a topic that interests them. There will be an MVP (and I believe some tables will be staffed by a member of the SQL CAT team) at each table with 9 empty chairs. Pick a topic, get to lunch on time and get to your table. There will be conversation about the topic at the table, a chance to meet others with the same interest, exchange business cards, maybe play some twitter bingo and have a good time.

When I first went to PASS in 2006, the first lunch was a bit awkward at first. I didn’t know anyone, sat a table with some guy named Ward Pond (Blog, Twitter) and had a fun conversation. Worked out well but I was nervous (yeah, I’ll admit it) leading up to that conversation. This may help end some of those jitters and help build our great community at the same time.

This is not my idea. This is a GREAT idea and I applaud those who thought it up at PASS. I can’t take the credit, wish I could. Some folks had replied to me from last weeks post and on the coordination e-mails thanking me for thinking this up or coordinating it. I just saw a call for volunteers put out by Blythe Morrow (Twitter) who works for PASS and answered the call saying, “put me anywhere.” She asked me to help chase people down, go back and forth about topics and report back when done. That’s all I did, the hard part is being done by the people at PASS who work so hard to put this all on. Thank them when you see them!

Remember pick your tables early! Tom LaRock asked me what we were doing for security if any tables got overcrowded. I feared rowdy fans or stampedes. I first thought maybe we could contact a Motorcycle Club to handle security, but then I remembered the stories I heard about Altamont… I think we can use the honor system.

Let's keep our table selection clean, eh?

Enough already.. What are the topics??

Oh.. Yeah. The topics. These may not be final with any last minute tweaks. That being said the topics we have for now (we are all filled up with topics, by the way, great response from the MVPs. There were some others who were unable to make it but are standing by in case we have transportation issues)

See You There!

I look forward to seeing you at PASS. I will probably blog once more about a couple things I plan on doing there and I think I may have made it onto the Twitter Bingo card, so I hope you look for me and catch my “passphrase”. Check out the scheduling tool setup for the Summit. Help plan your itinerary, I believe this lunch will be making it in there, if it hasn’t already:  http://www.softconference.com/pass/ScheduleBuilder.asp

Meet & Eat

In my post last week about where I have been (you know, the one where I promised I would be blogging more), I mentioned that I was helping PASS on a volunteer opportunity. It’s a pretty neat chance for folks to network, learn and watch how different people eat.

Birds of a Feather

The last time I went to a PASS Summit was 2006 and I don’t get to other conferences in general. I guess a new trend is “Birds of a Feather” sessions/lunches. The concept is good: give people a chance to coalesce around a common topic. Conversations will flow, business cards will fly, mouths will move (sometimes in between bites) and perhaps friendships and partnerships will form.

This year, I believe SQL PASS is organizing two Birds of a Feather lunches. One is for Chapter Leaders – each of the chapter leaders at PASS (worldwide, the SQL Server community is global after all) will sit at a table and people going to lunch can sit in an area they want to learn more about or are from.

MVP Lunch

The lunch I am helping with is the MVP Birds of a Feather (BOF) lunch.

Most of us already know that the SQL Server MVP community is huge and comprised of folks who really enjoy sharing their knowledge, helping others grow and lately folks who really enjoy Bacon. (note to self: suggest to PASS Operations team that Bacon be on the lunch menu for this one)

This MVP BOF lunch is going to be the first full day of the Summit (Tuesday). There will be several tables each with their own MVP “Host”.

I have been reaching out to MVPs over the past couple weeks asking them if they are interested and what topics they may like to talk about (many more contacts going out this week, certain order to the madness…)

There will be 9 empty seats at each of these tables waiting for you and I to sit at.

The goals are two-fold:

1. Meet some people who have expertise in an area. The MVPs are picking topics they know about and will give a quick little 5-10 minute chat on the area. Want to learn about a new area? Want to hear some insight into pet peeves from the MVP at that table?
2. Meet other people with similar interest or learn about a new area. One table topic will be around location based BI in SQL Server 2008. I know nothing about that but I sure would like to know more. Find a topic you are interested in and have a seat, eat and learn about a new area. Exchange some business cards and make some new contacts to bump into later at the Summit.

I really hope to see you at the summit! There are still slots open to register for the summit and it is a great time of learning, networking and growing.

If you are planning on going, I really hope to see you at this lunch (I want to meet you but I also don’t want you to go hungry for the rest of the day ) It will be fun to meet other people and help put names to faces and increase contact lists for people with similar frustrations.

Disclaimers

I am not the one running the lunch or who thought of the concept .(in fact, I don’t know who came up with the concept) I am just helping reach out to the MVPs to coordinate the topics and get the right lists to the right people at PASS. I asked how I could help and Blythe (Twitter) said, how about this???

If you are going, are an MVP and you haven’t heard from me yet, sit tight until the early next week. If you still haven’t heard from me, shoot me an e-mail from my contact us page.

I am happy to be helping on this though, it sounds like a great opportunity. Seems to be a lot of focus on networking this year at PASS. Need help breaking the ice? Check out this video of a great, short presentation. Hat Tip to Brent Ozar  (Twitter, Blog)f or finding and sharing the video link awhile back on one of his weekly link roundups.

I was in a company offsite meeting yesterday so I missed the fanfare on twitter and the blogosphere about the opening of the call for speakers.

Brent Ozar blogged about it, Thomas LaRock blogged about it… Countless others on my blogroll also blogged about it. The bottom line is go to the PASS speaker resources site for more information on what you need to do to present.

I submitted a session to PASS for the first time. Not sure if it will be accepted but if not it’s a topic I have been hinting around about on this blog and hope to present a smaller version to local user groups.. Here is the abstract I submitted for the professional development track:

Iceberg, Dead Ahead!

What does a plane crash have to do with technical skills? You might be surprised…

There are many lessons to be learned from disasters and our response to them. Most accidents are caused not by a single factor, but by a series of seemingly-small missteps. It’s the same in our offices: carelessness or complacency can lead to a resume-altering disaster. Even if a freak accident occurs, training and preparation can make a difference in the outcome.

In this session we’ll dig deep into some real-life disasters and see what lessons we can take back to our day jobs. We’ll explore corollaries between the news stories and those heart-pumping times when our cubes are filled with VPs and CIOs.

Fasten your seatbelts as Mike Walsh takes us on a journey through the headlines in search of a healthy respect for the unexpected.

I hope to dissect a handful of disasters that fall into different categories, walk through what happened in the real world incidents (one of my favorite shows when we still had cable was seconds from disaster, combine that with the background of having been a volunteer firefighter/emt and now working at an insurance company: I enjoy studying disasters.) From there we will look at the correlation to our careers (and perhaps even our personal lives).

I will probably have it be mostly a presentation style but will also do some audience discussions where we can talk about lessons and “action items” to take back to our companies when we head home from the Summit.

(P.S. Full Disclosure: This year I am helping SQL PASS on the program Committee, working on abstract selection. I have recused myself from voting on my own abstract)