Summit2010 | Facility9

Lightning Talk Moderators Needed

Oct 7, ’10 9:00 AM

In case you haven’t heard, we’re adding Lightning Talks to the PASS Community Summit this year. The idea of Lightning Talks is pretty simple:

Every speaker has 5 minutes
Slides are optional
No demos
When the 5 minutes are up, the speaker is done.

So, in order to pull this off, we need three volunteers from the audience. All you have to do is work an egg timer. Whenever a speaker starts talking, you start the egg timer. When they’re done, you cut them off, shoo them off the stage, and then introduce the next speaker. You can think of the job as being like an M.C. because that’s what it is (parachute pants will not be provided by PASS). One bonus is that you’ll get to hobnob with the speakers and/or embarrass when you introduce them. It’s all good fun until someone falls off the stage!

If you’d like to volunteer to moderate one of these sessions, let me know. Send an email to jeremiah.peschka@sqlpass.org. There are only three sessions, supplies are limited. Act now!

Update: I want to thank everyone who got back in touch with me about this, and there were a lot of you. We have our moderators selected – Matt Velic, Lance Harra, and Noel McKinney will be emceeing our Lightning Talks

Comments (1)

Chalk Talk 2010 – It’s not your Senior DBA’s Chalk Talk

Sep 3, ’10 10:00 AM

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Chalk Talk sessions at the PASS Community Summit. These sessions are shorter, 40 minute sessions, and they happen in the vendor expo hall at the Summit. In the past, this has been a Microsoft sponsored event with Microsoft sponsored speakers. These were discussion focused sessions – a combination of presentation and Q&A session.

Guess what? It is a Microsoft exclusive event no longer!

We’re opening up the Chalk Talk sessions to community speakers. There’s a catch, though.

You are currently attending the PASS Community Summit.
You are not speaking at the PASS Community Summit.
You submitted a session to the PASS Community Summit that was not accepted.

That’s pretty stringent requirements. So, what do you get in return? Unfortunately, we can’t offer comp codes for this. But we’ve got something special in store.

Lightning Talks

Yeah, that’s right: Lightning Talks. We’re doing them at the Summit this year. Just in case you don’t know, a lightning talk is a short, prepared talk. We’re going to aim for 5 minute talks. That should keep things moving quickly.

We like this idea so much that we’ve dedicated one session every day to nothing but lightning talks!

All of the details aren’t finalized yet, but we’ll keep you posted.

How Does This Help You?

If you’re not going to get a comp code (BOO!), how does giving a Chalk Talk help you?

1) You get exposure – You can put on your speaker resume that you spoke at the PASS Summit.
2) You get exposure – You’ll be presenting a lightning talk with other speakers and it will be witnessed by a boatload of people.
3) You get exposure – see points 1 & 2

Should I Submit the Same Abstract?

I would say “probably not.” Chalk Talks are a different format than a standard 75 minute session. They’re shorter (only 40 minutes) and they involve more audience participation (a lot more). Feel free to submit similar topics, but be prepared for a different audience and delivery.

We’ll be pushing out an official announcement soon. Stay tuned!

Comments (2)

How I Analyzed the PASS 2010 Summit Submissions

Jun 9, ’10 8:00 AM

Want to know how I analyzed the Summit session data? I exported the data from the abstract selection system into a tab delimited file. Since I use a Mac at home, I used the tools available to me: PostgreSQL.

I loaded the data using the PostgreSQL COPY command to bulk load the report output and then did some data mojo using PostgreSQL. Most of it was exactly the same as it would be for SQL Server with a few differences. Here’s the code that I used:

SELECT  COUNT(*) AS total_sessions
FROM    abstracts;
GO
-- Yup, I used the GO statement separator. This is a byproduct
-- of the client that I use, not because of PostgreSQL.

SELECT  COUNT(DISTINCT first_name || ' ' || last_name) AS name_count
FROM    abstracts ;
GO

SELECT  job_title,
        COUNT(job_title) AS jt_count
FROM    ( SELECT  job_title,
                  first_name,
                  last_name
          FROM    abstracts
          GROUP BY job_title,
                  first_name,
                  last_name
) AS x
GROUP BY job_title
ORDER BY jt_count DESC;
GO

WITH c AS (
  SELECT  job_title,
          first_name,
          last_name
  FROM    abstracts
  GROUP BY job_title,
          first_name,
          last_name
)
SELECT  SUM(CASE WHEN LOWER(job_title) LIKE '%engineer%' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS engineer_count,
        SUM(CASE WHEN LOWER(job_title) LIKE '%manager%' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS manager_count,
        SUM(CASE WHEN LOWER(job_title) LIKE '%developer%' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS developer_count,
        SUM(CASE WHEN LOWER(job_title) LIKE '%consultant%' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS consultant_count,
        SUM(CASE WHEN LOWER(job_title) LIKE '%business intelligence%' THEN 1
                 WHEN LOWER(job_title) LIKE '%b.i.%' THEN 1
                 WHEN LOWER(job_title) LIKE '%BI%' THEN 1
                 ELSE 0 END) AS bi_count,
        SUM(CASE WHEN LOWER(job_title) LIKE '%architect%' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS architect_count
FROM    c;
GO

SELECT  COUNT(DISTINCT company) AS company_count
FROM    abstracts;
GO

SELECT  DISTINCT
        category,
        track,
        COUNT(track) OVER (PARTITION BY category) AS the_count_by_category,
        COUNT(track) OVER (PARTITION BY category, track) AS the_count_by_track
FROM    abstracts
ORDER BY category, track;
GO

SELECT  AVG(author_count) AS author_average
FROM    ( SELECT  DISTINCT
                  first_name,
                  last_name,
                  COUNT(session_title) OVER (PARTITION BY first_name, last_name) AS author_count
          FROM   abstracts
        ) AS x;
GO

-- You might be weirded out by this string_to_array and array_upper.
-- PostgreSQL has an array data type. We're using an array of strings
-- to get an accurate word count
SELECT  AVG(CHAR_LENGTH(abstract)) AS avg_char_count,
        STDDEV(CHAR_LENGTH(abstract)) AS char_count_stddev,
        AVG(array_upper(string_to_array(abstract, ' '), 1)) AS avg_word_count,
        STDDEV(array_upper(string_to_array(abstract, ' '), 1)) AS word_count_stddev
FROM    abstracts;
GO

-- Hey, look at that, we can use a single TRIM function to do all work
SELECT  SUM(CASE WHEN TRIM(BOTH FROM presented_before) = 'YES' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS presented_before,
        SUM(CASE WHEN TRIM(BOTH FROM presented_before) = 'NO' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS never_presented
FROM    abstracts;
GO

SELECT  level,
        COUNT(*)
FROM    abstracts
GROUP BY level
ORDER BY level;
GO

Comments (3)

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)

What I Do At PASS

May 5, ’10 10:00 AM

I haven’t blogged about what I do on the Board of Directors until now. I didn’t think people would be interested in it because there are times when it’s not the most thrilling thing on earth to me – ask your manager to describe the most thrilling part of his job, I guarantee that it isn’t going to be “getting into fights with panthers.” Just in case you don’t know, I’m on the PASS Board of Directors where I am currently the director in charge of the program for the annual Summit. I have expanded that portfolio (using the jaws of life and about 85 gallons of expanding marine epoxy) to include education in general. When I’m not working on the PASS Summit I’m making school children read Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008: T-SQL Programming.

Here’s what I do during my week.

Program Committee

PASS Summit Planning HQ

The PASS Program Committee is the group of people that work to bring you the sessions at the PASS Summit. There are a lot of volunteers involved in the entire process, but Allen Kinsel and Lori Edwards help out on a weekly basis. Many of you know Allen from his previous involvement with the PASS Program Committee. Lori came on board this year to help out running a lot of the projects and teams that come up around the program selection process.

What do we do, exactly? Well, we have a conference call every week. On this conference call we (Allen, Lori, and Elena and Craig from PASS HQ) work through the processes and challenges around the PASS Summit. This year we’ve done a lot of work around changing the vendor we partner with for the abstract submission process.

There are a number of smaller committees for each of the session tracks and pre/post conference sessions. In order to get everything working, we had to re-work the handbook for each of the committees to use to select abstracts. The handbook is designed to help everyone select the best abstracts and outline all of the processes used to select the abstracts.

After the phone call I usually go down to Don Pablo’s for a rockin’ good time.

Certifications

One of the things that I took on when I was elected to the Board of Directors was working on the certification process. A lot of people have expressed dissatisfaction with the current situation. I’ve started working with Microsoft Learning on ways to make the process better. So far we’ve had a few conference calls, emails, and I’ve spoken with a few people in the community about this whole process.

This is slow going, it takes a lot of time and effort to look at what people want, put it together in a meaningful fashion, and then build a plan of action. I know that there’s some frustration in the community around this, I’ve read the forum post on SQL Server Central, I’ve talked to you guys at SQL Saturdays, and I’ve traded emails back and forth. If you want to get involved or if you’ve got an opinion, shoot me an email or sound off in the comments.

Speaking

There are a lot of people in the community who would like to share what they know. But they don’t. I’ve thought a lot about why people don’t get up and share what they know. The best way for me to think about it is to remember how I got started.

I first got started presenting several years ago at a previous job. We held regular lunch and learn sessions because it’s a good way to get people together and it’s a good way to share what you know. After a lunch and learn the organizer would sit down with the presenter and go over the results of the evaluation. This was incredibly helpful. The organizer might not have been an expert presenter, but then again I’m not an expert presenter either. The important part is that someone was there to help me and guide me through those early, introductory, steps.

Where is this leading? I’m not sure yet. Elena, my counterpart at PASS HQ, and I are working on some ideas that we think will bring a lot to the table and give everyone the opportunity to contribute and learn.

Summary

So, there you have it – this is what I do in the 10+ hours a week I spend working on all of my Boardly (Directorish?) duties. It’s a lot like middle management but without the pay or corporate parking spot.

Comments (4)

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)

How can we grow the pool of Summit speakers?

Mar 12, ’10 10:13 AM

Allen Kinsel, my brother in arms for the Summit 2010 Program, posed a question about how to grow the pool of speakers for the PASS 2010 Summit. Allen has proposed that in order to bring in more speakers, we limit things to 1 session per speaker. With 168 sessions across the board, that’s a lot of potential speakers. Currently, we limit things to 2 sessions per speaker.

What are your thoughts?

This poll will close on Thursday, March 18 at 8AM EST and I’ll publish the results in a separate blog post.

[poll id="2"]

Comments (13)

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