Presenting | Facility9

From Tables to Objects – Follow Up

Jul 24, ’09 9:14 AM

First off, I want to say thank you to the Central Ohio .NET Developers Group for giving me the opportunity to speak last night. I really enjoyed it and I was glad that I could share some of the things that I’ve learned with such a great group of people.

Everyone at CONDG was very welcoming, as they always have been, and the questions from the audience were fantastic. It’s always good to hear that I’m not the only one who has run into some of the scenarios I mentioned in the presentation, and it’s also always great to hear real life success stories from developers who have made use of the techniques that I’m speaking about – in this case NHibernate.

I have to take this opportunity, as well, to think my host, admin, and brother who took time out of his evening to make sure that the presentation resources automatically posted on time through WordPress. Unfortunately, they didn’t post on time and he looked into to the problem to make sure that the resources would be there by the time the presentation was done. So a big thanks to Mike for keeping things running and going the extra mile to make sure the resources were available for everyone to download when the presentation was over.

97 people were able to make it to the presentation. If you weren’t able to attend and would like to see this presentation, let me know. If there’s enough support I can either schedule a LiveMeeting to do this presentation again one evening, or I can record it and make it available online for viewing. Let me know in the comments or send me an email and let me know.

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It’s Always About You

Jul 14, ’09 12:16 PM

I’m in the process of finishing up a presentation for the Central Ohio .NET Developers Group, and this got me to thinking about how I structure my presentations. Luckily, right around the time I was musing on this subject I ran across Jeff Atwood’s article Who Needs Talent When You Have Intensity? (which lead to Users shouldn’t think about YOU).

I’ve long held the opinion that a good presentation is one that is immediately useful in your day to day work. After reading Jeff’s post, and Kathy Sierra’s post that Jeff linked to, I’m revising my opinion.

A great presentation helps the audience do their job better.

Thinking back over the presentations that I’ve given in the past, the ones that I’ve felt were the most successful, and the ones where people have given me the best reviews, have been the ones where I’ve gotten out of the way and talked about how to do a better job rather than how I did my job well.

One thing that I have long held is that it’s okay to say “I don’t know” but only when you follow it with “talk to me afterward and we’ll figure out how.” Ultimately, when presenting, it’s the presenter’s job to help the audience learn the subject matter. If the presenter doesn’t know, that’s okay. But, it’s important to make sure that the audience is given an avenue to find the answer – either through an email follow up, a follow up later that day, or follow up by the next day of class.

My final thought is that Kathy Sierra hits it right on the head: “Too many learning experiences and books leave the learner feeling impressed as hell with the instructor/author, but… stupid.” The learning process is about the student, not about the teacher. When I think back to the past few presentations that I’ve attended, the presenters haven’t included themselves more than a few times. On the rare occasions when a presenter has said “I”, it has been in the context of “I made this mistake a lot until I got the hang of this. Here’s how you can avoid this and why”. When they include themselves, presenters aren’t talking about how great they are: they’re exposing when they made mistakes and how everyone else can learn without having to repeat that mistake.

In the end, the only thing that matters is that the audience is learning.

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July Presentations

Jun 30, ’09 2:35 PM

I know of three presentations coming up in the next month that I thought I’d share with everyone, if only because I’m involved with all three.

The first is Andy Leonard’s presentation on Incremental Loads, Change Data Capture, and SSIS 2008 in scenic Columbus, OH. The event takes place at 6:30PM on July 9th at Battelle for Kids. Lest you think Andy will be in Columbus, he will be presenting via LiveMeeting. This means that you can attend via LiveMeeting!

Presentation the second is Aaron Alton’s presentation on Simple Data Change Tracking in SQL Server. This is a virtual presentation that is happening on July 15th at 2PM Eastern.

Finally, on July 23rd I will be presenting at the Central Ohio .NET Developers Group. The event starts at 6:00 PM and it located at Microsoft building on Polaris Parkway in Columbus, Ohio. My presentation is titled From Tables to Objects: Making Your Database Work With You – it’s all about using database features to enhance the quality of your ORM. There is no LiveMeeting available for this, but I will either be recording via Camtasia or else will record it after the fact.

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Speaking in July

Jun 26, ’09 6:44 AM

I’m presenting again! Woohoo!

On July 23rd, I will be presenting at the Central Ohio .NET Developer’s Group. The fun starts at 6:00 PM. I strongly suggest you bring large piles of money to throw at me.

What will I be speaking about, you might ask? (You’re probably not asking yourself this question because you already know I’m going to tell you.)

From Tables to Objects: Making Your Database Work With You

Time & Location

July 23rd at 6:00 PM, at Central Ohio .NET Developers Group located at the Microsoft building on Polaris Parkway in Columbus, OH

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

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

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CBusPASS Meeting – 2009.05.14

May 11, ’09 12:37 PM

Yup, it’s that time again. Time for you to get your SQL shoes on and head on out to CBusPASS, your Columbus source for SQL Server related information. Apart from MSDN… and the library… and the internet.

When: Thursday, May 14th, 6:30PM – 8:30PM
Where: Battelle For Kids, Suite 500, 1160 Dublin Rd, Columbus, OH 43215

IMPORTANT NOTE: Battelle For Kids has moved to Suite 500, which is on the opposite end of the building from where it used to be.

Food and drinks will be provided.

If you have problems locating the venue, you can hit me up on twitter or via telephone/text at 614.515.0727

Using Cloud-Based BI to Interpret Perfmon & Profiler Results

After learning how to use Perfmon and Profiler to gather performance statistics about your SQL Server, it still takes a lot of time to interpret those results and figure out what’s going on. Microsoft’s SQL Server Data Mining team has built a free cloud-based data mining tool for Excel that can help slice and dice mountains of data and help you make sense of it all.

Even if you’re not ready for BI in the cloud, you can use this same type of tool in combination with a local SQL Server Analysis Services instance. Wait! Don’t freak out – it’s much easier than you think, and you never have to leave the comforting environment of Excel. Even if this doesn’t sound like fun to you, you might want to learn about it because mid-level managers in your company might want to use this technique to analyze sales or customer data.

Attendees will learn how to install & configure data mining in Excel, how to analyze Perfmon data to break the server’s load into categories, and how to use BI to write a performance report about your SQL Server.

Brent Ozar

Brent is a SQL Server Domain Expert with Quest Software. Brent has a decade of broad IT experience, performing systems administration and project management before moving into database administration. In his current role, Brent specializes in performance tuning, disaster recovery and automating SQL Server management. Previously, Brent spent 2 years at Southern Wine & Spirits, a Miami-based wine & spirits distributor.

Brent has experience conducting training sessions, has written several technical articles, and blogs prolifically at http://www.BrentOzar.com. He’s currently writing SQL Server Internals and Troubleshooting for Wiley/Wrox along with Christian Bolton, Justin Langford and Cindy Gross. He’s Editor-in-Chief at SQLServerPedia.com, where he also records video podcasts.

If you can’t attend in person, you can join us using LiveMeeting:

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PASS May Webinars

May 10, ’09 1:00 PM

Do you like free stuff? I like free stuff. We should watch a free webinar sometime.

References to Idiocracy aside, I really like free content. Luckily for us, some very kind people have donated their time to bring their knowledge to the masses via free webinars. Want to see what’s coming up? You can mosey on over to SQLBatman’s website and read all about it, or you can keep scrolling.

This is seriously some high quality content that you are going to be able to view for free. Check with your boss and add these events to your calendar, or ignore your boss and do it anyway. The point is that this is some high quality free training that you can watch from the comfort of your desk!

Introduction to SSIS Custom Component Development

Speaker: Anthony Dangelo
Tuesday, May 12th, 12:00pm ET

You have tried so hard not to write code inside of SSIS, but the day has arrived when you tired of writing the same script task over and over again. Don’t fret creating a Custom Component is not as daunting as you might think. This session will integrate your logic with SSIS Components: variables, pipeline, and events. This session will explore the desgin-time and run-time events, the difference between Syncronous and Asyncronous Components, and debugging techniques.

For dial in information, click here.