Join the PASS Summit 2010 Program Committee

Just in case you didn’t see it, we’re looking for volunteers for the 2010 program committee – the team that evaluates all the abstracts submitted which in turn leads to decisions about who gets on the schedule…and who doesn’t! It’s fairly intense work from what I’ve heard, but a great way to participate in the […]

Growing the Pool of SQL Server Speakers

In a nutshell, I’m interested in growing and diversifying the pool of speakers that focus on SQL Server. You might ask why, is there a shortage? The answer to that is…in some areas. For example, when Greg Larsen set up SQLSaturday #11 in Tacoma we really struggled to find speakers. But that’s not all of […]

Who Would You Like To See as a PASS Summit Keynote Speaker?

Note: These are my opinions and don’t reflect the official views of PASS, just my thoughts! I’ve been to every PASS Summit since 2000, and we’ve only had a few great keynotes. Many that were ok, a few that were horrible, and only a few – such as the one by Dr. Dewitt in 2009 […]

PASS Update #23

January has been a slow month for me as far as PASS involvement, I show about 10 hours logged for the month, most of that on calls or email. I’m still thinking on the speaker bureau project and expect to send Rushabh some early options in the next couple weeks. Work on the online store […]

SQLSaturday & PASS – More Details

Yesterday I posted the news that SQLSaturday is now owned by PASS, today I’d like to share a bit of the history behind SQLSaturday and why we thought it made sense for it to transition to PASS. I’ve promised my friend Andy Leonard an “exclusive” interview on some of the details and with luck you’ll […]

Andy on Twitter

Just prior to the 2009 PASS Summit I posted about giving Twitter a try, and thought I’d report back on some thoughts after having tried it off and on for a couple months. I went into it biased, thinking it made sense for events and situations where the ability to reach a group quickly made […]

PASS Summit Survey – Check Your Email

Not sure if it went to the entire PASS mailing list or just those that have attended a Summit, but you should have received today an email with the subject “Location of PASS Summit: Your Feedback Needed By January 19” that has a link to a survey about your preferences for the location of the […]

PASS Update #22 (Speaker Bureau – Call for Comments)

One of my big projects this year is to build a speaker bureau, so in this post I’m going to write about some of the ideas I’m hoping to include – and then get some input from you! The Goal: Build a centralized list of speakers that can used by Chapter leaders, community event leaders, and […]

oPASS & Livemeeting

One of our goals for oPASS in 2010 is to host 12 meetings instead of our usual 6. That doubles the pressure to find speakers of course, so we’re going to try to use Livemeeting to compensate and see what happens. We would still prefer to have all our speakers in person, but at least […]

PASS Summit – Where to Hold it in 2011

Bill Graziano posted some thoughts about the merits of East Coast vs West Coast placement of the Summit. He did a fair job on the main points and I encourage you to read it and post your thoughts. Now for my own! One thing Bill omits is that for many of us, we combine the […]