I’ve learned that if you want to make your point, sometimes you’ve got to embarrass yourself stretch your comfort zone – i.e. the StrateSQL Pass Videos. I’ve been “Cheersing” my college buddies for years now, so here’s a collection of cheers to the SQLSaturday #99 Sponsors. Thank you very much for your support – it wouldn’t have been possible without you.
SQLSaturday #99 was last Friday (11/11/11) and man it was really great to be a part of it. I told many people that, for the preparation, I did very little work and spent most of my time learning from Jason Strate and Dan English on what needs to be done for an event such as this. Dan and I were in charge of the sponsors – I sent a few emails to a few people. What really happened was I’d get an email that would have a question that I thought I could answer, by the time I actually started to type a respond, Dan had sent at least one very good response. He would answer the original question, ask a follow up question and make a few suggestions to help the sponsor/potential sponsor – I couldn’t add much value to most of them. It was great to learn from him. Tim Plas, Steve Hughes and Bill Preachuk did a great job on all the other details as well.
One more thing…the guy who asked me about turning off a trigger for a transaction, I came up with a potential solution…you have to alter the trigger and add a table to the database, so if you can’t do that, you don’t have to read the rest of this. If you can do that…you may be able to add a new table, and in the trigger you that you want to turn off, add some logic checking for the existence in of the ID in the new table – if the record doesn’t exist, execute the trigger, if it does, skip the trigger. That way you could just insert records to table when you don’t want to execute the trigger and remove them when you are done. You also keep transactional consistency by not turning off the trigger for the entire table. Just a thought, hope it helps.
SQL Saturday #99 is coming up on Friday – 11/11/11 the last binary date of our lives (thanks to Lara Rubbelke (B/T) for pointing that out last January).
SQLSaturday#99 is a free one day training event for SQL Server professionals and those interested in SQL Server. The event will be held Nov 11, 2011 at Grace Church Eden Prairie, 9301 Eden Prairie Road, Eden Prairie, MN, 55347 (use door 4 on the east side of the building, check in will be inside that door). Note the event is full, but register and get on the waiting list if you would still like to attend. For more information about SQL Saturdays please visit SQLSaturday.com. Follow this event on Twitter with hashtag #sqlsat99, and get news on all our events with #sqlsaturday.
Here are all the links from my presentation on Twitter and the SQL Server Professional that I gave at PassMN (Note here’s the twitter account) on Tuesday May 17th.
Class tonight was about the students putting everything they’ve learned together for one final report. We had a range of guests for graduation (a Grandpa, a couple of mothers, a few bosses, etc). It was neat to see the growth and the appreciation the students gained for each other. People TOUTed it out when receiving awards.
“TOUTing it out” is the acronym/saying used to rememberhow to accept an award:
T – Say Thank You
O – Explain what/who you owe the award to
U – Explain how you will use the award/experience/lesson in the future
T – Thank them again for the award
There were a lots of interesting reports and I’ve been thinking about them a lot since – I strongly recommend taking the class if you ever get the opportunity.
In class tonight, we covered a technique for showing people recognition. I had posted about it before, but we went further into it tonight.
There are a few layers of recognition and they work on different levels. The acronym to remember is T.A.P.E.
The T stands for Things – you can compliment somebody’s things. It’s not too personal, but it may make a person feel good. Think of the T as the outer ring of a target, it usually is least personal.
The A stands for Achievements and it is a ring on a target inside “Things”. If you compliment someone’s achievements, they will probably feel better about themselves than if you compliment some thing they possess.
The P stands for a personal trait. Picture this as the bull’s eye of the target. Complimenting someone’s personal traits will have the biggest effect on a person.
Finally, the E stands for Evidence. Once you tell someone you appreciate a thing, an achievement or a personal trait of theirs, back it up with evidence – for instance an example of their behavior. By showing evidence, it really makes the recognition sincere. For example if I tell you I think you are a hard worker, that’s good. But if I say I appreciate you hard working attitude like you displayed last week when there was an emergency with the server and you worked all night to fix it, that’s even better – more sincere and proof that I’m not just blowing smoke.
This entire process should take about 30 seconds to perform. Although it is quick, it will have a big effect on the person you are showing appreciation for.
The other thing that was very cool to see was the students had to give a report to inspire others. Wow, there was some very good stories told. It’s been very fun and inspiring to get to know the people in class.
This week’s class was focused on overcoming stress. The thing that got me thinking was:
“Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.” – Dale Carnegie
The other thing we talked a lot about was being flexible. We did a few group exercises and one was all using the statement: If we were more flexible with <<BLANK>> it would change <<BLANK2>>.
The Joe Mauer bunt was when one of the first people to share said, “If I was more flexible at being less flexible, I would have a more structured schedule.” It works for him – apparently he’s a very flexible person. The point of the exercise was to think about how being more flexible could help your work.
Finally, everyone had to get out of their comfort zones and perform in front of the class. They had to do some really bizarre and odd things in front of everybody. It was very entertaining and everyone survived. That was the point – you’ll survive doing uncomfortable things.
The highlight of class this past week was learning a tool to disagree with someone – but do it agreeably.
So as someone is stating their opinion, in your mind, you have to figure out the following:
What do I believe about this situation?
Why do I believe this?
What evidence do I have to support this belief?
Then, respond – begin with a cushion. A cushion should:
Let the person know you heard their point of view
Don’t agree or disagree
Opens lines of communication
Avoid using the words: “but”, “however” and “nevertheless”
After the cushion, present your evidence. Your evidence can consist of: (note the acronym is DEFEATS)
Demonstrations
Examples
Facts
Exhibits
Analogies
Testimonials
Statistics
After your evidence is presented, say something along the lines of “This shows me that <<STATE WHAT IT SHOWS YOU>> and there fore I believe <<STATE YOUR OPINION>>”
I like this because you spend 90% of the time telling your story (presenting your evidence) and then based on what you just said, you have shown proof of why you believe something. When working the situations in class, it seemed to work pretty well. Granted we were disagreeing with people who knew what was going on, so it wasn’t too real. I’ve been practicing a bit this weekend, but I’m not very good at disagreeing in general. This is one of those things that I’ve got to keep on working for a long time.
– You get the blue glass cheers!
– You get the clean cut Tiger cheers!
– You get the coffee and mullet cheers!
– You get the money glass cheers!
– You get the cool hat cheers!
– You get the full beard close up cheers!
– You get the long hair, long neck cheers!
– You get the Northwestern hat cheers!
– You get the stocking cap, ‘stache cheers!
– You get the nearly bald cheers!
-You get the clean face, long hair cheers!
– You get the high hat cheers!
– You get the extreme close up cheers!
– You get the hat down business time cheers!
– You get the “Check out my beard” cheers!
– You get Reds Sweatshirt cheers!
– You get the young, shy, no glass cheers!
– You get the too cool to lift the glass ‘stached cheers!
– You get the running cheers!
– You get the White Goodman tough guy stare down cheers!
– You get the bike gear cheers!
