Making the Most of PASS Summit and Similar Events

Events like the PASS Summit aren’t just about education. They are a chance to meet new people, get some distance from the day to day problems of work (and life perhaps), and even have some fun. Done well attendees end the week tired and recharged. How to do that varies by person, by personality type, experience level, skill […]

An Update on My 2012 Mac Air

Typically I want to get 3 years out of a laptop to amortize spending on a premium grade machine. I’m at 4 years on this one and while there is better hardware available now, so far it hasn’t been enough better to drive me to buy something new. I maxed it out when I bought it; […]

SSC Editorial: Does Log Data Belong in a Table or a File?

I think the topic of whether log data belongs in a table or a file would be a great one for a debate format. I think its one of my better editorial efforts because most people will already have an opinion on which is correct/better and will be curious to see if the writing and the […]

SSC Editorial: A Visit to Microsoft

A Visit to Microsoft was posted back in August and I just re-read it. Here’s a quote that might interest you: As a working DBA I heard two things that seemed very positive (not counting the new features and improvements of course). One was that Microsoft sees the ability to offer both cloud and physical options […]

Networking Dinner at the 2016 PASS Summit

Steve Jones & I are organizing our 7th annual networking dinner on Monday night, October 24th in Seattle. We’re changing the formula just a little this year in an effort to work better with the hosting restaurant – it’s hard to absorb 200 people showing up all at the same time. We’ve set up four […]

Notes about Postponing SQLSaturday Orlando Due to the Hurricane

We’ve been monitoring the weather all week, thinking that today was the day we had to decide. We didn’t want to be hyper-cautious and reschedule too early because of the impact on speakers and sponsors traveling to Orlando, nor did we want to want too long and risk them being stranded in Orlando or wasting […]

More on Strengthfinders

This past week I attended a one hour facilitated group session that was a continuation of the Strengthfinders assessment. One part was looking at where our strengths were in regard to four team zones (3 of mine fall into strategic thinking) and the rest was looking at the potential weaknesses that correspond with a strength. […]

The ROI of SQLSaturday for PASS & Decreased Event Funding

Returning to the post about Making SQSaturday Sustainable (see also a follow post about addressing concerns) it mentioned two topics that I wanted to look at more; the ROI for PASS and the decrease in funding to events. For the past few years the standard has been for PASS to sponsor each SQLSaturday at a […]

The End of the BAC–Why?

In a post titled The Future of the BA Community PASS announced that there would be no Business Analytics conference in 2017 and that the new strategy would be multi pronged, focused on local groups and events. I’ve never been a fan of the concept of the BAC so it was with mixed emotions I […]

600 Miles, Limits, Fears, and Possibilities for SQLSaturday

Last week PASS published some new guidance for SQLSaturday that sets a 600 mile rule (has since been updated, still keeps the radius) to keep events from being held too close together and another that reduces the funding from PASS for most events. I appreciate the stated goals, find myself a bit frustrated at the […]