SQLSaturday Automatic Messages

For those who haven’t used the admin tools for SQLSaturday when an event is created there are a set of messages loaded automatically. It’s up the event admin if they want to approve them, edit them, or delete them (one at a time). It’s one of the parts I wrote a long time ago and […]

Using the Announcement/News Part of SQLSaturday

One of the interesting but not often used features of the SQLSaturday tools is the announcement/news (in the admin tools, its Message Center | Announce News) to do mini-blog post type messages that show up on the home page. Below you can see a sample of ones we’ve set up for Orlando this year. One […]

SQLSaturday Orlando 2019 Begins

We’ll be event number 911, set for September 28th at our usual location at Seminole State College. Maybe something interesting to do there as far as a theme. Call for speakers is open and we’re looking for pre-cons (send quickly, we’ll be deciding in the next week or so). I have two personal goals for […]

Notes from Jacksonville, Atlanta, and South Florida

Misc notes: Jax. Ice cream break in the afternoon is nice, but the waffle cones on site make all the difference, the smell is hard to miss! Jax. Rooms in two different locations is harder. This isn’t uncommon (Tampa had a variation of this) and it’s worth extra effort to help people to find the […]

Make Sure You’re Eligible to Vote in the 2019 PASS Election

In order to vote you have to have filled out your profile on PASS.org. Rather than guess, take a minute to login and go to https://www.pass.org/MYPASS.aspx?viewctl=MyProfile. If you’re eligible you’ll see this message at the bottom of the page: If you aren’t eligible, fill in blanks and save until you are! No, it’s not quite […]

Changes to the PASS Bylaws

If you haven’t read the proposed changes yet you should do that first and form your own opinion before reading mine. Thoughts here are high level, not a line by line analysis. The most important change is the dilution of elected Directors. We’re decreasing that from 6 to 4 while increasing the appointed members by […]

The Two Year Plan

Earlier this year as I thought about what I wanted to try in Orlando related to the SQL community and thought about the time commitment, I realized it was also “time” to think about what comes next for me. I came up with this: I want fewer ongoing commitments so I can spent that time […]

Notes from Orlando Code Camp 2019

Notes: Speaker party was well attended which makes it more interesting, the only downside was that the restaurant overall was LOUD, so much so that sometimes you’d have to speak into someones ear to be heard Signs and logistics were good Turns out turkey sandwiches are either really popular or they didn’t order the right […]

Notes from SQLSaturday Tampa 2019

Late notes! Great signs at the event, all hand written on flip chart paper. Cheap and effective, the “different” nature of the signs made them easy to spot Rooms were scattered again. Not much to be done, we take what’s available, but it does add a little bit of friction The acoustics in the main […]

SQLSaturday Atlanta & South Florida 2019

I’ll be in South Florida again this year and will stay over as usual for a couple days of vacation. I see Brent is attending; I’ll have to make sure we’re not scheduled at the same time so that he gets a few attendees in his session! I had not planned to travel outside Florida […]