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.

I’m home from PASS Summit 2019, recovered from the travel, and in the post-Summit “I miss #SQLFamily” funk. Time to recap the week, maybe a bit differently than it’s been done in the past (at least by me). Not going to get too far into the technical stuff because what was thrown at us was a bit overwhelming, and it’ll take a while for it to all soak in. I’m going to tell the story of my Summit 2019 experience through shoutouts to the folks I connected and reconnected with. Let’s see how this format works out.

This is my second post in a series which I hope will help you (and me!) prepare for the upcoming PASS Summit November 4-8, 2019 in Seattle, Washington.

Networking, Networking!

Where the Real Benefits From Summit Are Realized

One of if not the most valuable parts of PASS Summit is the networking opportunities. People keep talk about it everywhere. Network, network, network. Usually it’s in the context of finding jobs but this is an important skill to have even if you’re not going anywhere!

It’s time once again to prepare ourselves for the endurance test that is PASS Summit, November 5-8. I’ve participated in the Summit Buddies program the past two years, but am taking this year off from it. Instead, I’m collecting information I’ve sent to to my buddies ahead of past Summits and posting it here on my blog, in hopes that it helps folks out. This is going to be broken down into a couple posts.

Probably a bit late getting this posted but I will be speaking at the March 5, 2019 meeting of the Rochester SQL Server User group (RSVP link). I don’t have a great title or abstract for the talk (yet!), but here’s the gist:

The relationship between DBAs and developers has a long history with challenging moments. Some developers see DBAs as roadblocks. Some DBAs see developers as rogues bent on destroying the database server’s performance. I’ll be presenting both technical and non-technical tips and tricks to help build a better understanding between developers, DBAs, and SQL Server.

Carlos Chacon (twitter) was kind enough to have me back on the SQL Data Partners Podcast to talk about my experiences with managing 8000 databases on a single instance and upgrading to SQL Server 2016. He, Kevin Feasel (blog | twitter) & I had a great conversation in which I may have gushed a bit about dbatools. Then we wrapped up with the SQLFamily questions as we didn’t do them on my previous appearance last year.

My album of people and events at Summit 2018. Somehow a number of photo opportunities were missed!

[foogallery id=“1880”]

In addition to being an amazing opportunity for both technical and professional development, PASS Summit is a #sqlfamily reunion and a huge networking event. Catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, finding out who’s doing what with which technologies, etc.

This is one of the few times each year I’m anything even approaching a social butterfly and I’ve had one or two people ask about my schedule so we can plan meetups. Summit is so huge that you have to plan these things. You can’t count on randomly bumping into people around the convention center or city, and if you happen to spot someone you really want to meet, you have to take advantage of that opportunity the first time it presents itself.

A few weeks ago, I teased good news.

just got some good news. can’t wait to share it

• Tweet by me at Fri Jul 20 16:42:28 +0000 2018

One person hypothesized that I’m joining Microsoft (it seems to be the thing to do lately) and another jumped to the conclusion that I must be pregnant. Both creative responses, but not quite correct.

I’ll be at PASS Summit 2018!

So much to do!