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What the heck are you people talking about?

Jun 7, ’10 8:00 AM

The call for speakers is closed and the selection committees are about to begin reviewing the abstracts. Before they get started, here are a few little pieces of trivia about the sessions.

Keep in mind that I have done minimal cleansing on this data so it’s going to be a bit messy and unreliable for anything apart from entertainment purposes.

Raw Numbers

There were 574 sessions submitted this year by 209 speakers working for a total of 163 separate companies.

Out of a total of 127 job titles, the most common one was “Consultant”. Or, it would be until you take into account the different variations of DBA, Database Administrator, etc. Taking that into account, 20 of you are some kind of DBA.

If you want to get a bit fuzzier about the numbers:

  • 17 of you are an engineer and are probably measuring something with calipers right now
  • 12 of you identify as a manager
  • 12 of you think you’re a developer
  • 27 of you claim to be a consultant
  • 11 of you work in B.I.
  • 32 of you claim to be architects. You draw squares and arrows to represent work.

All of you work for a total of 163 different companies. Unless some of you can’t spell your company’s name right. Then you may work for fewer, I’m not sure. The data, as I said, is dirty.

The Submissions

The average length of a session abstract was 617.7 characters or 99.19 words with a standard deviation of 243 characters and 39 words. Out of all the presentations, 187 have never been presented before. They may very well be 100% fresh in November when you arrive.

Here’s the distribution between the different levels:

  • 100 Level (Novice) – 109 sessions
  • 200 Level (Intermediate) – 239 sessions
  • 300 Level (Advanced) – 178 sessions
  • 400 Level (Expert) – 44 sessions
  • 500 Level (Advanced Expert) – 2 sessions

Pre/Post Conference

42 total pre/post conference sessions were submitted. That’s a lot of competition for a few slots.

  • 14 were B.I. (9 for architecture and 5 for reporting/delivery)
  • 13 relate to DBA work
  • 12 relate to application development
  • 3 relate to professional development

The only conclusion I can draw is that very few of us are prepared to talk about our careers for a single work day. Are you playing Legend of Zelda at work all day? What’s up with that, guys? People making a living talking about this kind of stuff.

Spotlight Sessions

There were 58 spotlight sessions submitted and I’m afraid to say that your day jobs faired even worse in this section.

  • 20 were DBA related topics
  • 15 were development topics (this better not be all IronPerl … I mean PowerShell)
  • 13 were somehow related to B.I. architectural whatnot
  • 5 were related to B.I. reporting and delivery. Apparently these guys are too busy making money to talk at the PASS Summit for 8 hours.
  • 5 of you thought that you could talk about your job for 90 minutes. Good for you. That’s long enough to get to the good parts in Krull or watch any number of amazing kung fu movies.

The distribution is starting to skew a bit here. If we combined the BI tracks it would look a lot more like the pre/post conference situation.

Community Sessions

Here is where you guys clearly shine. You submitted a whopping 472 sessions. That’s an average of 2.25 per person. While not bad, you could have submitted 4. I’m just saying that maybe next year you should pick it up a little bit.

  • 137 application development topics. We’re number 1, we’re number 1
  • 135 DBA topics put this in at a close second.
  • 113 BI architecture topics
  • 48 Professional development (you can talk for 75 minutes about your job, but not 90?)
  • 39 B.I. reporting topics. I think these people really must have jobs to do, because that’s not a lot.
Comments (3)

The Missing Speakers

Jun 1, ’10 6:38 PM

Allen Kinsel (twitter | blog) and I have been fielding a draft email back and forth this afternoon. Rather than bore you with the backstory, here’s the body of the email:

After we heard from a few Microsoft employees who work outside of the normal speaking groups, we decided to do something about it. We’re asking you, and anyone else you know who falls into this category, to submit your sessions during the community call for speakers. This is our way of making sure that you don’t slip through the gap. Please pass this on to any of your colleagues who may find themselves in the same situation.

One last thing: The Call for Speakers ends Saturday, so you will have to hurry.

http://sqlpass.eventpoint.com/cft/

Why would we do this? Microsoft have their own call for speakers, right? They do, but it’s a Microsoft internal process – we can only make suggestions about the final speaker selections.

Here’s the deal – there are some speakers out there that we feel are an important part of the community, speakers who are outside of the normal Microsoft speaker track. They aren’t on the product development team, they aren’t architects, they aren’t general managers at Microsoft. These are the DBAs who keep Microsoft’s databases running, CSS/PSS, and other DBAs out there in the trenches. Most importantly, they’re also members of our community.

You probably know some of them – they’ve spoken at the PASS Summit, at SQL Saturdays, and at user groups. They’re highly rated speakers and they’re valuable members of the community.

If you know someone who falls into this group of people, pass this message along. We are working to make sure that this year’s PASS Summit is the best one that we’ve had and we know these people will make it even better.

Thank you.

Comments (5)

Submitting a Winning Abstract at PASS

Apr 27, ’10 7:09 PM

For those who couldn’t make today’s presentation, or those who could but want to hear Tim Ford and Buck Woody trashing Wisconsin, I’m pleased to share with you both the slides and the recording of today’s presentation. Or rather, two recordings.

The Powerpoint

The Presentation

Submitting a session to the PASS Summit really isn’t terrifying. What’s terrifying is being accepted and being faced with the prospect of speaking… I kid, I kid. There’s nothing terrifying about it. You put together an abstract, revise it a few times, and then submit it. When you submit an abstract you’ll want to put together a list of objectives – problems that you’re going to solve for the attendees.

Well, that’s about all there is to that. If you have questions, post them in the comments. I can’t tell you what PASS is looking for because, well, I don’t know. It’s based on a number of different things and depends, in part, on your abstract itself. So, write some abstracts, give them a once over, and submit them to PASS.

Want some more ideas about writing abstracts? Look no further than Brent Ozar’s blog post How to Get Readers to Pay Attention.

Want to know more about public speaking? I would suggest Confessions of a Public Speaker.

Comments (6)

Submit to PASS!

Apr 26, ’10 8:00 AM

The call for speakers is rapidly approaching and to help everyone get ready, we’ve got a special treat for you. Chuck Heinzelman, of PASS Board of Directors fame, has agreed to put on a presentation - Intro to Speaking At PASS: Creating a Winning Abstract (If I Can Do It, Anyone Can!).

What’s the point of all of this? Well, we all have problems writing abstracts, especially when we first get started. Good abstracts are key to getting your talks accepted at events. You could have the greatest presentation in the world but nobody will know if you can’t write an effective abstract.

Tune in on Tuesday 4/27 at 12pm Central time for this LiveMeeting event. Members of the PASS Program Committee will be online to answer your questions.

Comments (1)

Free SQL Server Training in April

Mar 30, ’10 10:00 AM

I’m going to be speaking at a few events in April. I bet you want to come visit and hear the crazy sounds that I’m going to be making!

Thursday April 8th – Columbus, OH

Fundamentals of SQL Server Internals

The Abstract: Want to know what makes SQL Server tick?
Ever wonder what SQL Server is doing when you run a query?
Ever wonder which parts of SQL Server are responsible for specific functionality?

Jeremiah Peschka can’t promise answers to every question, but he can set you on the path to knowledge about the inner workings of SQL Server.

Location: Battelle for Kids – 1160 Dublin Rd Suite 500, Columbus, OH 43215

Time: 6:30 PM, but you can show up at 6:00 PM for refreshments and socializing.

The Details: This is a fun little romp around SQL Server’s internals. This isn’t intended to be an exhaustive introduction. It’s supposed to be a fun look at how SQL Server works internally and give you more information to get around.

Saturday April 10 – Richmond, VA

I’m speaking at SQL Saturday 30 in Richmond, Virginia!

Fundamentals of SQL Server Internals

This one starts at 8:30 in the morning, so bring your coffee!

A Dynamic World Demands Dynamic SQL

The Abstract: Dynamic SQL is a misunderstood and much maligned part of a DBA’s tool kit – it can be used to solve difficult business problems, respond to diverse data needs, and alleviate performance problems. Many DBAs reject dynamic SQL outright as a potential source of SQL injections, being poorly performing, or just for being a hacky solution in general. Not so! Jeremiah Peschka has been making extensive use of dynamic SQL throughout his career to solve a variety of problems. He’ll set about dispelling these misconceptions and demonstrate how dynamic SQL can become a part of every DBA’s tool kit.

The Skinny: I sometimes catch flak for this, but I use a ton of dynamic SQL on a daily basis. It’s the only way I could possibly build some of our most complex reports. Frankly, dynamic SQL can perform just as well as anything else that you’re doing so why not take advantage of the tools at your disposal? Come along and learn more.

Saturday April 17 – Chicago, IL

Double whammy! You can travel to Chi-town and see me present both of my talks again but in reverse order!

A Dynamic World Demands Dynamic SQL

Bring your dancin’ shoes we’re getting that party started at 9:00 AM right after the welcome and keynote.

Fundamentals of SQL Server Internals

Less dancing, more learning this one goes on at 3:00PM. Hopefully your brain won’t be full by this point in time. If it is, I suggest that you empty it.

Comments (2)

Goals for 2010

Dec 31, ’09 7:12 AM

Thomas LaRock thought it would be fun to tag me in yet another round of blogging bingo, this time to answer the question “What are you Goals and Theme Word for 2010?”. To tell the truth, I have not made any kind of New Year’s Resolution for a number of years. I usually review my goals on a regular basis, but let’s put them out here for everyone to see.

Theme word? I don’t have one, “f*%#ing rad” is two words, thank you very much.

Communication

Become a Better Writer

A long time ago, I went to college for four years, took out a bunch of loans, and got a degree in English, Non-Fiction Writing. I did exceptionally well in my English classes and did even better in the writing classes. I love writing and, frankly, the quality of my writing has not been up to par recently. I want to change my focus as a writer this year. I want to switch from writing short, highly technical, blog posts and change to creating longer article and essay length pieces. There’s nothing wrong with shorter, technical, posts but that is not where my interests lie. I want to focus on improving my writing so I can effectively teach more advanced concepts through writing as well as through public speaking. I was a good writer before and I’ll be a good writer again.

Become a Better Presenter

I have no doubts about my abilities as a presenter – I have a lot of room for improvement. Over the course of the year I’m going to team up with a number of people to improve my presentations. I want to get better at better content and delivery as well as meticulously practicing my presentations until I can deliver them in my sleep. I know that a lot of improvement comes from repetition and I would like to speak at least six times this year. With my current upcoming speaking schedule, that shouldn’t be difficult at all, but we’ll see.

Self-Employment

I don’t intend to be self-employed by the end of 2010, but I plan on being well on my way. How am I going to get there?

Writing

I’m writing stronger blog content. That’s not going to be enough. I want to get my name in a more places – magazines, guest blog posts, paid content, white papers, and a book. I’ve been shopping an idea around to various publishers and I’m hoping to have a book written and finished by the end of 2010. None of these things pay big bucks, but they all add to the bottom line.

Consulting

I haven’t done much consulting in the past, of course it was difficult when my day job was being a consultant – there’s an expectation that you will bring the business back to the company. Things have changed, I’m a full time employee now. My employer and I have had the talk – I’m allowed to do consulting work as long as I don’t help out our competitors.

This year I will take on several clients that require a small amount of time (10 – 20 hours each) every month. This isn’t to replace my existing job, this is to supplement it and provide additional income. Before I go completely solo, I want to have a substantial savings buffer built up and doing work on the side makes this a lot easier. I don’t plan on going at it alone – I’ve discussed this several co-conspirators and we have plans to get started this year.

Personal Ventures

I have an idea for a business that will make me tens, maybe even hundreds, of dollars. I plan on fully pursuing this over the course of 2010. Honestly, I have incredibly high hopes for this business and we have already thought of multiple ways to monetize our business. That’s not to say that it’s sure to happen, I have a lot of hard work ahead me, but I’m looking forward to it.

PASS

As many of you know, I was elected to the PASS Board of Directors and subsequently put in charge of the Summit program portfolio. This is the heart and soul of what I want to do over the next 12 months. I am going to make sure that the 2010 Summit program committee has my full support and that we’re can make the summit the best event possible.

Inky Mess

This is a personal one: I want to finish both full arm tattoo sleeves this year and, hopefully, start on my legs.

Once again, I think I’m supposed to pick victims. I’m going to pick Matt Nowack, Rick Kierner, Jeff Blankenburg, and Jorge Segarra

I also want a chainsaw on my hand like Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness. That would be f*%#ing rad.

Comments (5)

SQL Server Presenters on Twitter

Nov 25, ’09 8:00 AM

I put out a call a while back for a list of SQL Server presenters who are on twitter. A fair number of people responded. I kept it quiet because I was busy doing my day job, but I was secretly plotting… Plotting to put this list together and share it worth the world! (evil laughter)

Not only did I put this list on my blog, I also put it on twitter. Behold, my SQL Server presenters twitter list.

I will be trying to maintain this list as more people come get on twitter and become willing to share their twitter info. I wish that I could give this twitter list over to the community to maintain, but I am more than willing to take list maintenance on until there’s a way to trade list ownership on twitter.

The whole point of the list is to make it easy to find presenters and presentations, both for the future needs of a user group as well as for your immediate needs (e.g. your speaker cancels at the last minute).

If you’d like to get on the list, hit me up on twitter or shoot me an email via the contact page.

Josef Richberg @sqlrunner
Brent Ozar @BrentO
Thomas LaRock @sqlrockstar
Kendal Van Dyke @sqldba
Tim Ford @sqlagentman
Lara Rubbelke @sqlgal
TJay Belt @tjaybelt
Todd McDermid @Todd_McDermid
Jack Corbett @unclebiguns
Kevin Kline @kekline
Colin Stasiuk @BenchmarkIT
Trevor Barkhouse @SQLServerSleuth
Ken Simmons @kensimmons
Aaron Nelson @sqlvariant
Jorge Segarra @SQLChicken
Joe Webb @JoeWebb
Glenn Berry @GlennAlanBerry
Pinal Dave @PinalDave
Sean McCown @MidnightDBA
Jonathan Kehayias @SQLSarg
Tim Mitchell @Tim_Mitchell
Eric Humphrey @lotsahelp
Artemakis Artemiou @artemakis
Wes Brown @WesBrownSQL
Aaron Bertrand @AaronBertrand
Adam Machanic @AdamMachanic
Jimmy May @aspiringgeek
Rob Farley @rob_farley
Brad Hurley @bradohurley
Rick Heiges @heigesr2
Chris Randall @cfrandall
Stuart Ainsworth @stuarta
Mladen Prajdic @mladenprajdic
K. Brian Kelley @kbriankelley
Arnie Rowland @Arnie1568
Buck Woody @BuckWoody
Ross Mistry @RossMistry
Grant Fritchey @GFritchey
Rod Colledge @rodcolledge
Denny Cherry @mrdenny
John Sterrett @johnsterrett

Comments (4)

LiveMeeting Tips and Tricks

Nov 3, ’09 8:00 AM

As a virtual chapter leader and presenter I end up using LiveMeeting quite a good deal. I also like to attend PASS meetings through LiveMeeting (free learning is free and learning). As I’ve presented and talked to other presenters, I’ve amassed a list of feedback, tips, and tricks for successfully using LiveMeeting.

  • Make sure you’re in a quiet place – You may not notice barking dogs, noisy cube neighbors on speakerphone, or a stereo on in the background, but these things can be distracting for the audience.
  • Lower your display resolution to 1024 x 768 – most people are watching this in a window or on their work computer or both. In my experience, work computers have low resolutions. My personal laptop has a 13 inch display at 1280 x 800 pixels.
  • Reboot your computer and only start the programs you need for your presentation – PowerPoint and SSMS, for example. Close everything you don’t need. Close all of the tray apps you don’t need. Shut down every service that you don’t need. Your computer is doing some heavy duty audio and video encoding and you don’t need anything else potentially eating up your CPU.
  • Increase your Visual Studio/SSMS font sizes to at least a 12pt font.
  • Upload your slide deck – click Content -> Upload a File. Your attendees will get much better results if you just upload the slide deck instead. This will fill their monitor, unlike your display which probably won’t match theirs. The downside: you won’t have your slide notes, so print those out ahead of time. Event when I’m presenting in person I do this, just in case I can’t get my laptop and the projector to play nicely and I have to mirror my display.
  • If you have multiple monitors and you want to share a single program, it needs to be on the primary display.
  • If you’re using the video conferencing feature, turn of any lights behind you and turn on lights in front of you. I also set my desktop background to a pure white background. This will light up your face and make you appear less like a member of the witness protection program.
  • Turn of your cell phone. Ever get a goofy galloping noise on your speakers at home? That’s the magic of GSM. That will play havoc with the audio in your LiveMeeting.
  • Speaking of phones – make sure your cellular or cordless phone is fully charged. Have a backup plan. This, of course, does not apply if you are using LiveMeeting’s audio stream.
  • Use throat lozenges to keep your voice working, especially if you are presenting or recording multiple sessions on a single day. Coffee will not do wonders for your voice.
  • Install LiveMeeting in advance. Preferably several days in advance. It takes about 10 minutes to install on a good day, so give yourself plenty of time.
  • Put a note in the slide notes every few slides that simply says “stop and ask for questions”. At that point in the presentation, click the Q&A button at the top of the screen and click Manage. You’ll see everybody’s questions. Remind the audience that they can ask questions throughout the presentation by clicking Q&A at the top of their screen.
  • If you have two computers, set them both up as presenters, but mute the audio on your secondary one. Then if all hell breaks loose, you can switch laptops and keep going.

Special thanks to Brent Ozar for collaborating on this list of tips. Do you have any LiveMeeting tips that you would like to share? Spread the love in the comments!

Bonus Tip: Use basic fonts for maximum readability – Core fonts for the Web

Comments (2)

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

Sep 29, ’09 9:00 AM

Just a quick reminder that I’ll be speaking at the Richmond Code Camp this upcoming weekend. I’ll be giving two talks… here they are:

Indexes and Other Free Performance Boosts

Time & Location

October 4, 2009 at Richmond Code Camp.

Abstract

The database is often viewed as a major performance bottleneck. There are a number of quick, easy, painless techniques that can increase the performance of an application not just by a small amount, but by orders of magnitude. These techniques includes simple indexing techniques, T-SQL techniques, and general database application design patterns that give great gains in performance. In this session, you will learn how to look at a database to identify these problem areas and how to resolve common issues that you will encounter.

From Tables to Objects: Making Your Database Work With You

Time & Location

October 4, 2009 at Richmond Code Camp.

Abstract

A database is far more than a persistent object store for your application; it is capable of data validation en masse, aggregations, and creating different projections of data. By working with your database, rather than against it, it is possible to leverage all of the capabilities of a relational database to provide rich, high performance interaction with your application through an ORM. This presentation will discuss the finer points of building a full-featured data access layer using an ORM and the features of a relational database.

Goals

  1. Teach attendees about database features that make development easier – including views, sparsely populated tables, and user-defined functions and types.
  2. Empower the audience to solve object relational impedance mismatch using data modeling techniques and database features.
  3. Demonstrate how to integrate the database and object oriented software using a custom designed data access layer.

Comments (0)

Rate This!

Aug 20, ’09 8:34 AM

There are a few people out there in the community who speak. You know who you are, I’ve been to your talks.

Sometimes, at a user group meeting there are forms to fill out where you circle a number and hand in the form and potentially win a prize like a license to Red Gate SQL Prompt or a copy of ReSharper. But what happens when people don’t fill them out. Or they come up with a particularly insightful comment after the fact like “ZOMG, your presentation totally saved my ass today! There was so much useful information in your presentation and I was able to use it and fix my production explosion!” Or, heaven forfend, the feedback forms are lost in someone’s car or they get recycled or whatever.

Enter speakerrate.com. I’ve known about speakerrate.com for a while now, but for some reason it’s always slipped my mind. At devLink I told Kevin Kline about it and he immediately added it to his presentation slides.

So, what’s the value? Well, it makes it a bit easier for people to rate at their convenience. Maybe I’m feeling rushed, maybe I’m in a bad mood, maybe I want to think about what the speaker said for a while before I leave a lasting mark on their speaking record. Maybe I want everyone to know that I got absolutely nothing out of this so called advanced presentation. You can do all of those things.

The point is that you’re contributing, for better or for worse, to the long term reputation of a speaker. Everyone can see what you have to say and everyone can see how the audiences respond to the speaker. All in all, everyone wins.

What does this mean for speakers?

Interestingly enough, it makes some aspects of speaking a lot easier. When you’re talking to a user group leader you can give them a link to your SpeakerRate.com page (mine is http://speakerrate.com/peschkaj). This makes it easy for user group leaders and speaker selection committees see what they’re in for. Likewise, it keeps your record public.

It’s even easier to get feedback. Rather than collecting the forms, waiting for someone to process the new email addresses and maybe go through the comments for their own purpose before typing them up and emailing them to you, you can simply put a link at the end of your presentation and ask the audience to visit the site and rate your talk. Sure, it takes a little bit more time but you can also always tell them the honest truth: your boss is going to shove you in a box and shake it up real good unless you have great ratings.

Most important to me is that it’s a constant stream of feedback on how I’m doing as a speaker. I learned that I took a lot of my knowledge for granted. Now I know what I need to do the next time I give this presentation and I’m going to make sure that I do a much better job. Why? Because one of the audience members said that they didn’t understand some concepts that I mentioned without an explanation. I can now tailor the presentation to include more background material or take out some advanced material. The point is that without the feedback, I wouldn’t have known about these comments and I might have continued to give this presentation with too little background information and too much advanced information.

Note I have not been paid for this, I just think it’s a cool idea

Comments (2)

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