Presenting at SQLSaturday #48 in Columbia, SC This Weekend

I’m leaving Orlando early Friday morning to drive up to Columbia for SQLSaturday #48 . By the time I changed planes in Atlanta and dealt with a rental car, I figure it was a toss up on time. Longer drive than I prefer, anything over 2 hours gets old for me in a hurry, but […]

Revisiting The West Wing

Sometimes spending some time with your spouse watching TV is right up there with comfort food, the challenge is often finding something that you’ll both find interesting and relaxing. We watched West Wing when it was originally aired, and somewhere along the line acquired the entire set of DVD’s which sat on the shelf unused […]

Upcoming Florida Events

Lots of events in Florida, easy to lose track! The Tallahassee Code Camp is October 23, 2010, details at http://www.tallycodecamp.org/ (nice looking site!). The Tampa Code Camp was just announced for November 13, 2010, and the web site should be live by tomorrow at http://www.tampacodecamp.com.

Don’t Take me (too) Literally

Years ago I was part of a heated discussion about the ability/inclination of a team I was on to build a requested feature. The ‘other team’ insisted on 100% accuracy, something that just wasn’t possible – a point we considered both obvious and easy to demonstrate, and we wanted to understand what to do in […]

Do You Have Influence? Part 3

I talked about the basics of Influence in Part 1 and Part 2, today I’m trying something harder, showing you how to deliberately use your hard won influence to evoke change. Earning influence is perhaps not simple, but it’s an easy enough formula to understand. The risk is low. Not zero, but if you’re reasonably […]

Orlando – Reminder to Register for SQLSaturday #49

We’re less than 30 days out from SQLSaturday #49 and we’re working hard on the logistics. Speaker gifts ordered, lanyards this year instead of stick on badges, Jack working on a deal with our after party location for great appetizers, and all the rest of the stuff that goes into making things run smoothly (or […]

SQLRally After Hours

One of the things we’re trying to do at SQLRally (May 2011 in Orlando!) is support and grow the social events that happen after the close of the official program. How do we do that? I’ve got a couple ideas, hope you’ll send more: Provide an ‘after hours’ page on the SQLRally web site (coming […]

On Vacation

I’ve hit that point where it feels like I need to work longer and harder to keep up, which is the signal for me that I need a break. I’ve got a couple meetings later today, and then I’m offline for the rest of the week to recharge, no big plans, just doing a few […]

PASS Update #43

Last Friday saw the end of the 2010 PASS election and it was very nice to find out I had been re-elected, with Douglas McDowell (also re-elected) and Allen Kinsel being the other two winners. We had more than 1000 ballots cast, about twice what we had last year. Aside from the not minor pain […]

SQLSaturday Event Leaders – Reserve Your Date for H1 2011

We’ll try to push this out through multiple channels, we’re trying to forecast dates to give those thinking about events (but not yet committed) visibility into which areas/dates are already committed. We won’t set up the event until you submit the formal event request, this is only to reserve the date. We’re also using this […]