Changes at OPASS

I’ve been managing oPASS since we re-hydrated it back in early 2007. Seems like a long time ago! We’ve made some progress and the group is stable, just not growing as much as I had hoped. That could be us, could be the region, hard to know. Jack Corbett joined me a while back as […]

Still More Notes on Networking at SQLSaturday

Had my final follow up call with Don Gabor, took one more run through the networking and speaker stuff (Don went to SQLSaturday #40). Might have some repeats from earlier posts, trying to capture and burn into my brain at least. Less than 50% of attendees had business cards. Some options are to insert a […]

The Value of Blogging – Today on SQLServerCentral

I wrote the value of blogging hoping to highlight the less often discussed value of practicing writing. Too often we look at blogs solely as a branding tool, or as a way to make money, or to get a zillion hits. Nothing wrong with any of those and I wouldn’t even discourage anyone from trying […]

Reducing My Email Workload

I get a fair amount of email in a week; stuff about work, stuff for oPASS, stuff for PASS, stuff for SQLSaturday, various newsletters (technical and other), and a few that fall into miscellaneous – a link to an interesting blog post, an invite to lunch, etc. Lately I’ve been trying to reduce the volume […]

A Chance to Win a Free Trip to the PASS Summit

Passing along this contest from Idera and MSSQLTips. I don’t do many plugs, but it’s a chance for someone to go to the PASS Summit that otherwise would not – and that is a good thing! http://www.mssqltips.com/pass_giveaway_entry.asp

Logo Selected for SQLRally

Hopefully everyone saw the announcement already, either via the PASS Connector or the Twitter announcement, but we have – finally! – a logo: I think it’s pretty good and almost everything I hoped for; simple, clean, emphasis on SQLRally but still showing the PASS association. The one thing we didn’t get was the checkered flag, […]

Registration Open for 24 Hours of PASS

The ‘Summit Preview’ edition, this time around it features speakers from the upcoming PASS Summit with each doing a one hour presentation. This time instead of a continuous 24 hour stream, half will be delivered on Sep 15, 2010 and the other half on Sep 16, 2010. I think you’ll find it to be really […]

Begining Thoughts on a PASS Speaker Certification

Consider this one a thinking out loud post more than most. We’ve had an explosion of speakers in the SQL Server world over the past three years, and more arriving every day. That’s an unbelievably good thing for our community and our profession for a lot of reasons. Almost all do a passable or better […]

MS Lightswitch – Interesting?

MS just announced this publicly last week, it’s a Visual Studio product that seems to be geared towards the not-quite-developer market with a focus on rapid application development. Reminds me a lot of Access if you watch the keynote or demo videos, very fast to set up data binding. I noticed during the demo that […]

Volunteering Equals Karma, Not Cash

One of the things I think we don’t do well sometimes – in generally – is set fair expectations with regards to volunteers on both sides. As the occasional leader of efforts that involve volunteers, what I ask for first is communication and follow through. Skill, energy and all the rest are useful, but good […]