PASS elections are just a few days away (from October 14th to October 20th). By now I hope that you’ve taken the time to read my, rather broad, position or Brent Ozar’s interview with me. If you haven’t, take a minute. I’ll still be here when you get back.
Now that you’ve read all of that, let’s move forward. A lot of that is pretty vague. One of my user group members pressed me for more details about what I would do if elected. Let’s just say that he was very insistent that I put my views online before the election.
My views boil down to three things: Knowledge. Growth. Connecting.
Knowledge
A Digression About Certifications in General
First off, let me say that I don’t think that PASS should get involved in the certification game. In the early days of the 21st century there were a number of Linux certifications available. Nobody knew which one was going to be the de facto certification at the time, so nobody got a Linux certification (well, nobody I knew got one). As a result of this cluttered marketplace, no certification had any value. Microsoft already produces certifications – they solicit feedback on how to make the process better. Rather than dilute certification market we should work with them to provide helpful, constructive feedback to make the certification process better.
That was all a sidebar. I’m not here to debate the merits and flaws of the Microsoft certification process. What I really feel strongly about is learning. More importantly, I feel that lasting learning is incredibly important.
Certification Guides
When I went out and took the exams for the MCITP: Database Developer certification, I used a certification guide. But what I found as I studied is that the guide taught me how to pass the exam. It wasn’t teaching me how to apply the exam concepts to the real world. Throughout the certification process, I ended up using the exam guide to guide my learning. I read Books Online about three times as much as I read the certification guide just to shore up the key points.
Most certification guides just prepare you for the exam. Frequently, they aren’t even useful as a reference once you’ve taken the exam. This isn’t to knock certification guides. They serve a purpose – to help you pass an exam. But what I’m getting at is that PASS is in a phenomenal position to create certification guides that meet the needs of database professionals – certification guides that teach the fundamental concepts in a real world context while they prepare you for the exam.
Training
How about training? How do you know that the person training you has any real world experience? How do you know that the person who wrote the training material has any real world experience? I’ve attended C++ programming classes taught by DB2 DBAs who were looking for some extra walking around money. There’s nothing wrong with that. But when you’re investing in your career, or the career of your employees, you want to make sure that there is some real world expertise behind that trainer and his training manual.
Building off of the certification guide idea, I would like to see PASS creating training material that is immediately valuable to community members. Training based on real world situations that has been written in direct response to community needs. If I want to know about the SQL CLR, I know who I would ask via email, IM, or twitter. But those people only have so much free time to answer questions before they’re overwhelmed. Now, if their combined wisdom were put into a training course based on real world usage of the SQL CLR that would do a much better job of training and educating community members than multiple email threads.
Growth
I’d love to see PASS grow. More importantly, though, I want to see the members of PASS grow. Personal and professional growth are key to being happy. How does PASS fit into this?
Speaking & Writing Mentors
PASS is full of the brightest database professionals in the industry. Every time I speak to a PASS member about SQL Server, I learn something new. They’ll smile and laugh while talking shop, but as soon as I ask them to share their ideas as an article or presentation a look of absolute horror crosses their face. Speaking and writing aren’t scary things, but many people are terrified to even try.
I want to create a group of speaking and writing mentors within PASS to work with people who want to get started sharing their expertise with the public. Of course, this isn’t just for people who have never written or presented before. Anyone who wants to improve their speaking and writing should feel free to take part and also to give back. We all have a great deal to offer each other why not take advantage of our collective skills?
Connecting
I’ve said it before and I will say it again – PASS is far more than just the Summit. PASS is a vibrant, global, organization with a wealth of knowledge and it is a shame that many of us only get a chance to share with our local community while we’re socializing at a meeting. Even then, we rarely get a chance to share with other people in our region unless we make a concerted effort to seek them out.
Local Conferences
I believe that it’s important to remember that PASS is more than a yearly international conference. It’s two yearly international conferences. No, that’s not right. PASS is a huge community. Even when you look at my home state of Ohio, there are three PASS chapters in state. That’s more than enough people to put on a regional conference and invite participants and speakers from the neighboring states.
PASS in a wonderful, vibrant community, but we need to build stronger connections locally and regionally if we want to increase the health of PASS as a global organization. Local and regional conferences will also help us grow personally and professionally. PASS members will have more opportunities to hone their speaking skills, network, and increase their knowledge and understanding of SQL Server. We will be able to attract members from the other technology communities and increase collaboration across industries.
Summary
As I said earlier, my views boil down to three things: Knowledge. Growth. Connecting. I believe we have a very strong community right now and that we can take PASS from simply being a great community to being the de facto source of SQL Server knowledge, training, and community.
