A Note to the PASS Board of Directors

I just read with dismay that Mindy Curnutt has resigned. That’s a big loss at a time when the future of PASS is in doubt and we need all hands engaged. The reasons she gives for leaving with regards to secrecy and participation are concerning, troublesome, yet not really surprising. The cult of secrecy has […]

The Future of PASS

2020 has been a tough year for PASS. It’s primary fund raiser – the PASS Summit – was converted to a virtual event that attracted fewer attendees and far less revenue than the in-person version. Going into the event they were projecting a budget shortfall of $1.5 million for the fiscal year ending in June […]

Notes on the 2020 PASS Virtual Summit – Part 5

Thursday evening, writing a few more notes. Felt like I struggled more to stay engaged and attentive today, which is above average for day 4 of a 5 day event, for me at least. About 3 pm I went for a long walk and listened to a presentation, that worked out well, it was stuff […]

Serious Thoughts About PASS

Back when Covid started I guessed that this might be yet another live-or-die challenge for PASS. PASS is heavily dependent on Summit revenue and uses it to fund all the other stuff. Looking at the most recent budget notes (see the PASS blog) there’s a forecasted shortfall of $1.5m and that’s if they hit their […]

Vote in the PASS Election

If you login to pass.org AND have previously met the criteria to vote this year, you’ll see this. Click the button and you’ll be off to the voting page where you can pick three candidates from the slate. I haven’t endorsed anyone this year and I’m not going to announce my choices either. Read 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 […]

PASS, Meetup, and Sponsors

I’ve always been in favor of trying to use the PASS tools and web site as much as possible, but it’s hard to argue again the discoverability of Meetup. Certainly we get people joining the list via PASS, but we seem to get more new people that actually attend via Meetup. Meetup isn’t free, but […]

Reasons to Serve on the PASS Board of Directors

A few weeks back I wrote Some Thoughts on How To Prepare to Serve on the PASS Board of Directors. The responses I heard, especially during the Summit last week, had two themes: Recommending that much preparation will deter many candidates from running/is the bar for serving really that high? What is the value in […]

PASS Summit 2019 or Microsoft Ignite 2019?

It turns out that the 2019 Summit and Ignite will be held the same week in 2019, see this post from Grant for details. It’s definitely a terrible situation for PASS, either compete to some degree (perhaps more for speakers and MS employees than attendees) or try to exit a contract and find a new […]