SQLRally, Pre-Cons, and Taking Risks

Before I get into my thoughts, go vote! Here are the options this year for the SQLRally pre-cons: BI Sessions: http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/PreConsforVotingBI.aspx DBA Sessions: http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/PreConsforVotingDba.aspx Developer Sessions: http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/PreConsforVotingDev.aspx Misc Sessions: http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/PreConsforVotingMisc.aspx Here is the voting link. Voting closes 8 am PST on November 2nd, 2010. For those of you not following along already a “pre-con” is […]

Do You Have Other Opportunities Open?

Imagine you’re talking with a recruiter about a position that seems like a good fit and during that conversation they ask “Do you have other opportunities open?”. What’s the right answer? And what is the underlying intent? In general I’m in favor of honesty, but I’m also in favor of being employed! If you say […]

SQLSaturday National Blog Sponsors

With SQLSaturday #49 we tried something I call micro-sponsors, charging $5 for a blogger to sponsor the event. It’s a way to do brand building and to contribute in a fun way. It’s not a huge amount of money, about $4.50 after the merchant fees, and I think for Orlando we netted $50$60. At least […]

PASS 2011 Budget Posted

Bill Graziano posted our 2011 budget today. This runs from Jul 1, 2010, through Jun 30, 2011. I hope you’ll review it, and consider reading my thoughts on the budget process as well. It’s not easy reading. That’s not intentional, it’s just a lot of detail. Dig in, ask questions! If you look at the […]

SQLSaturday #62 in Tampa on January 15, 2011

So far SQLSaturday Tampa will be the first SQLSaturday of 2011, and the first one I’ll be attending in 2011 as well. I’m going to try to attend one event a month, the try portion meaning there is a terrible temptation to do more (as in all of them) and that sometimes as much as […]

Saying Thank You

I was just writing a thank you message to our speakers for SQLSaturday #49 and wanted to write down a couple thoughts about that. The SQLSaturday tools remind us to send a thank you note and even suggests text, but whether you modify the boilerplate or write something from scratch, it’s worth doing. Does a […]

Minutes of the September 2010 PASS Board Meeting Posted

Please take a few minutes to review the September 2010 minutes (login required). We just had our October meeting on October 14th, those minutes should be available by the end of next week at the latest. I know it’s not a thriller, but it’s worth five minutes to understand what we’re discussing each month.

SQLSaturday #49–The Poster!

Over the past few months I’ve been thinking that we don’t do enough to celebrate the people and the effort that goes into a SQLSaturday. From an attendee perspective it doesn’t look very complex (nor should it), but for an organizer it’s a massive amount of work, and it wouldn’t happen without a lot of […]

SQLSaturday RoundTable at the PASS Summit

We’ve made great progress with SQLSaturday this year; reaching new cities, a successful handoff to PASS, and a lot of enthusiasm going into 2011. So where do we go next? PASS HQ was about to find meeting space for 100 people on Monday, Nov 8th, so that we can sit for two hours to discuss […]

SQLSaturday Session Evals & Networking

Below is a screen shot of our current speaker/session evaluation form. Simple and to the point, I think it gives the speaker some decent feedback and places a minimal burden on the attendee to fill it out. Here in Orlando we have the speaker collect them and then draw one as a prize winner, usually […]