Speaking

I had a great time speaking at the Kansas City SQL Server User Group on Thursday, February 18th. The more I present my Backup Basics with PowerShell and dbatools session, the more I enjoy it. And each time, I’ve learned something new myself.

In one of the demos I show how Restore-DbaDatabase selects and restores the most recent backup of a database when pointed at a directory holding several backups of a single database. Dan Maenle (twitter) asked how the function knows which one is the most recent. Timestamps? Filenames? Really good guesses? My takeaway from the session was to confirm the method in use.

I will be presenting my session “Backup Basics with PowerShell and dbatools” this Thursday, February 18th at 2:30 PM Central Time at the Kansas City SQL Server User Group. I’m looking forward to getting this demo-rich session out in front more of folks to show how easy dbatools makes some of these common backup-related tasks.

Come check it out! Or, if you’d like to see this or one of my other presentations at another user group meeting, please drop me a line!

I had the honor of presenting a new session, Backup Basics with PowerShell and dbatools, at the first Ohio North Database Training meeting this evening. Thank you to the group leaders for the opportunity and to everyone who attended.

Because this was both a brand new session and an attempt at a new way of delivering the presentation, I had a couple tech glitches but things went pretty well once they were understood and ironed out. Definitely room for improvement next time!

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:

For the second consecutive year, I will be speaking at SQL Saturday Albany 2020 on July 25th, 2020. I will be presenting “Keys to a Healthy Relationship with SQL Server” at 3:30 PM.

Abstract

Developers and DBAs have had a long, sometimes strained relationship. Some developers see DBAs as roadblocks standing in the way of getting their work shipped; some DBAs see developers as agents of chaos bent on ruining their perfect database environments.

Thank you to everyone who came out to see my presentation Keys to a Healthy Relationship with SQL Server at SQL Saturday Cleveland. I had a great time and I hope each of you learned at least one new thing.

Here are the links I mentioned in the session, as well as a couple that contributed to some of the things I mentioned.

• Slide deck uploaded to the SQL Saturday website
• Emoji as server object names
• Michael J. Swart’s (blog | twitter) Ten Percent Rule
• Telling Entity Framework to select specific columns
• RunAs Radio #673, Writing Good T-SQL in 2020 with Pam Lahoud and Pedro Lopes

Thank you to everyone who made SQL Saturday Cleveland possible - the organizers, sponsors, my fellow speakers, and all our attendees. Special shout-out to Eric Blinn (blog | twitter) and Paul Popovich (twitter) for finding a way, against all odds, to pull my name three times in the closing raffle.

A few years ago, I wrote about my first experience speaking at SQL Saturday. Recently I had a conversation with one of our first-timers speaking at SQL Saturday Rochester 2020 and realized I should do a follow-up with some additional tips.

Use the FAQ

Did you know that PASS has an FAQ section for speakers on the SQL Saturday site? But don’t limit yourself to that - look through the whole FAQ, you might get some new insights into SQL Saturday.

I presented a few times in 2019, and I’m starting off 2020 with several as well. Here’s what’s on the schedule for Q1.

• 2020-01-06 Yep, ISO8601 format. That’s how I roll. - I’ll be giving a lightning talk at work titled “What Does a Database Administrator Do, Anyway?” This one isn’t open to the general public (though I might tweak it for use at community events), but The Bobs and “It Depends” both make an appearance in the deck.
• 2020-02-01 - I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be presenting Keys to a Healthy Relationship with SQL Server at SQL Saturday Cleveland. This is incredibly exciting while at the same time, nerve-wracking. Cleveland is home to quite a few people who I look up to in the SQL Server community, and being selected to speak there is an honor. At the same time, getting up in front of those same folks…I have to keep reminding myself that they’re my friends, they want me to succeed, and they’re in my corner.
• 2020-03-27 - I will be presenting Keys to a Healthy Relationship with SQL Server via webinar for SQL Professionals of Chattanooga. I met Heather Durham (twitter), one of the group organizers, at PASS Summit 2019, asked if the group would be open to me presenting remotely for them, and a few weeks later we were setting things up! Travel isn’t always easy for me, so if this works well hopefully I can add more presentations to my schedule.

That’s what’s booked so far for 2020. I’m hoping to submit sessions to a few more SQL Saturdays later in the year. Once I get another session worked out I’ll be presenting that (those? we shall see…) at our local user group and hopefully adding them to my SQL Saturday submissions. I’m shooting for couple more lightning talks and lunch & learns at work as well!

It feels like SQL Saturday Albany just wrapped up, but I have another announcement to make. I am proud to announce that I have been selected to speak at SQL Saturday Boston on September 14th, 2019. I will be presenting “Keys to a Healthy Relationship with SQL Server” at 11:15 AM.

Abstract

Developers and DBAs have had a long, sometimes strained relationship. Some developers see DBAs as roadblocks standing in the way of getting their work shipped; some DBAs see developers as agents of chaos bent on ruining their perfect database environments.