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The Highlights:
I was very impressed with the entire event. Paul Timmerman (T) did an excellent job planning and organizing the entire thing. Many thanks to all the volunteers who helped as well – too many to list out and I know I would feel bad when I remembered someone I forgot to mention.
I finally got to meet and talk to grrl_geek, SQLMD, WIDBA, DataOgre, and IngeniousSQL. That was the best part of the day for me. My one regret is that missed meeting SQLSoldier.
I was also very inspired by meeting Andy Yeager (LinkedIn) – the guy is looking to change careers and he wants to get into the SQL server game, so in his spare time he’s been studying, reading and attending events like this. In my spare time, I watch football.
My Session:
TSQL Tips and Tricks
Thanks for everyone who attended my session. It was fun and I was much more comfortable presenting than I have been in the past. I honestly had fun doing it. Next time I will project my voice more or use a microphone – that was the most commented on aspect of my talk in the evals.
Here are the links I mentioned during the session that I would post:
SQL Saturday #149 is coming this Saturday to the U of M campus. The official site for all the information is here. Normally I would be supporting Dabo and the Clemson Tigers, GAC or Coach Kill if I were to be on a campus on a Saturday afternoon, but this promises to be as good or better.
I will be presenting my “Beginning TSQL Tips and Tricks” as well as doing “Topics On A Stick: Networking & Mock Interviewing” at lunch time.
Tomorrow I will be checking out the twitter buzz (#SQLSat149) and making sure I’m following all the attendees by using this powershell script.
Planning
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.
My Sessions:
SQL Community and Social Networking –Roundtable
I had the privilege of being on a panel with Dan English (T), Jason Strate (T), and Steve Hughes (T) for the “SQL Community and Social Networking –Roundtable” Session. The moderator was Ted Krueger (T), so it was a very fun group. Jason’s videos were a hit. Unfortunately Ted was not wearing his sun glasses, so not many people recognized him – joking of course.
Here are some useful links from the session:
TSQL Tips and Tricks
This was my first full fledged technical session – and I thought it went well – no major issues with the demos, I did forget to mention the drag and drop features of SSMS (drag and drop columns from the object browser rather than use select * For that matter drag and drop object names of all types to prevent mistyping), but I did cover the material and I didn’t run out of stuff.
Here are the links I mentioned during the session that I would post:
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.
Dan English (B/T) sums up the recent updates best with his post here:
Other good links from around the information superhighway are:
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.
Check these details out:
Remember – A lot can go on between Thursday and Saturday…
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.
Twitter Basics
The #SQLHelp Hash Tag on Twitter
Tools
Slide Deck
Celebrating Women in Technology
March 15-16, 2011
What is 24 Hours of PASS?
Over two 12 hours periods, there will be twenty four, free, hour long, live meeting sessions on a variety of SQL Server and BI subjects.
More Info
- The schedule can be found here.
- The twitter hash tag is #24HOP
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.
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– You get the blue glass cheers!
