FirstTimers Cheat Sheet

FirstTimers Cheat Sheet

Let me start by saying that I have been there. Standing in a room or strangers, wanting to reach out to them, add them to my network, but unable to do so. Why? Why couldn’t I? Well, that would take way too long to blog about. So let’s just skip to the how.

Let’s start over. Why do you go to PASS Summit? To Learn and To Network. Learning is easy. Attend at least 1 session while at the summit and I guarantee that you will learn something. It’s the second part that causes some of us to stumble.

Let’s break down networking. My own definition is to add individuals to my network of individuals that can help me in my day job, my tasks. Notice that I said add individual(s). This entails more than one. Multiples. Many. You get the picture. People. Humans like you.

How can we do this quickly and easily? I’ll show you 3 easy steps with several ground rules associated with these steps. First, back to the definition. Adding individuals to your network. These will be bonds that you create with another human, adding them to your toolbox of skills to accomplish your tasks. This is a selfish goal. But to accomplish this, you must be unselfish. You must reach out to them and be interested in them. Some people you may have very little in common, while you will find others that you have many points of interest connected. This is ok. They all go into your networking bucket. All. Stick them all in there.

Ground rules

For the next 3 steps, I want the following rules to apply. Do not talk about yourself, unless asked. Do not dismiss the individual during any of the steps. In between steps you may have to break the contact. This is OK. Contact can be reestablished later. Learn how to be genuinely interested in their responses to your 3 steps. I didn’t say pretend. Actually become interested. This is part of the unselfishness on your part. If all that happens is that you learn about them, then the goal has been accomplished. You may say to yourself that they know nothing about you. That’s ok. The goal here is for you to add them to ‘your’ network. Selfish goal, but accomplished by unselfish means. Become interested in each response. Become enthralled in what makes them human and a database professional and everything in between.

Steps

What I want you to do here is to memorize these steps. If you cannot do that, then write them down on a cheat sheet. I want you to ask the other humans the following questions.

• · Who
• · Where
• · What

When do you ask the other humans these questions? Whenever you find yourself near an individual for more than 10 seconds, turn to them, look them in the eye and ask them these questions. Realize that there are 3 and that a break in contact may occur in between any of these questions, and that is ok. Let it happen organically. But these are the questions to ask. Remember to be interested in their responses, and do not simply wait for a break to talk about yourself. In fact, do not talk about yourself, unless asked.

Who

Look them in the eye and ask them ‘Who are you’? Do not look at their name badge. This only tell them their name. You may forget this anyway. Try not to. But this is not what you are asking. You want to know who this person is. Let them tell you, in their own words. This is a nice simple ice breaker. It’s like asking a date out for a drink instead of dinner. Thus allowing an out if it’s not working out and they are trapped in a longer event than planned for (dinner). This is short and sweet. ‘Who are you’? It may sound brusk and you may alter it as needed to fit your personality. Point is that you are engaging them, and asking about them. DO NOT TALK ABOUT YOURSELF, unless asked. Remember that you are adding them to your network. They may not be adding you back. That’s ok. It may happen, it may not. It’s OK. Remember to be interested in them. ‘Who’ they are. Learn from them. Let them go on and on about themselves. I bet you will find that they are experts in talking about themselves. It’s one of my favorite topics.

Where

This digs a little deeper and can be several questions, depending on how it’s going. Where do you live? Where are you from? Where do you work? Each of these questions opens up a plethora of responses and follow up questions. As organically as possible, let these happen on their own. This section of steps can become rather large. Be ready to take the time and be interested. Remember that you are still forbidden from adding your own information at this point, unless asked. (I bet you will be asked and this will allow the other individual a chance to find out the same things as you are finding out, and thus add you to their network as you are adding them to your own). As you find out another piece of info, try to dig a little deeper, or make a connection.

Before I go on to the last step, realize that we have said nothing really about databases, our skills, our goals, our talents, our favorite or least favorite piece of the database world. We are getting to know the human. Remember that they are 1^st a human like you, second an IT professional, and third a database professional. There are many things you can have in common before you actually reach the database professional stage of information gathering. Hopefully before this stage even occurs you have forged enough bonds with this person, built up a relationship of trust and added them to your network, regardless of whether they are in BI, DBA, Development, Contracting, etc.

What

This question gets more into the nitty gritty and you start seeing where you overlap in skills and talents. Some sample questions for this stage are ‘What do you do?’, ‘What brings you to the Summit?’, ‘What do you hope to gain out of this Summit?’, ‘What is your favorite part of SQL Server?’, ‘What are you good at?’, ‘What are you not so good at?’, ‘What do you hope to be better at?’, and so on. Add here as you see fit. But the point of this section is to learn more about them. As I have said before, you are here to learn about them. Where possible, refrain from telling your own tales and wowing them. Let them ask you. It will happen. It’s human nature. But by you showing a genuine interest in their skills, in them, you forge that bond that will elevate this person into your upper echelon of helpful networked individuals.

Once you have exhausted these initial questions, realize that that may be the end of this interaction. You may or may not have made a friend for life. Time will tell. But it is important that you break away before it becomes awkward. Let this happen organically, naturally. Remember to not monopolize their time. Selfishly, you are here to form bonds with as many people as possible; adding each one to your network. Sticking it out beyond usefulness does neither of you any good.

Let’s Pretend

You find yourself standing next to me in a hall. You turn to me, without looking at my badge, and ask me ‘Who are you?’ I will probably grab my badge to double check the name, and then tell you my name. I will then probably do the same to you, asking your name, while still looking you in the eye. My eye will then wonder to your name badge to see it visually, as I attempt to burn your name and face into my memory. Sometimes this burning succeeds, other times it does not. But I will always remember this interaction with you.

Next you ask me ‘Where do you come from?’ For me, this answer requires a bit of time. I come from California. That’s where I was born and raised. It’s part of who I am so I will answer with this bit of information. But I will also tell you that I am from Utah, as this is there I live now. With this information you have a plethora of follow up questions. You can ask me about where in California I grew up, why I left, if I know Fresno, where your uncle lives and you visited once. I will tell you that I do know Fresno, and have visited friends of our family many times. In fact, they live in Clovis, nearby to Fresno. Since I opened up more information about Fresno, feel free to dig into this. At this point you realize that you know someone that lives in Clovis, and ask me if I knew them. Why not? I may know them. You’d be surprised. Next you may ask me about my living in Utah. Here you can be adventurous and ask me if I am ‘Mormon’, or even more adventurous and ask me how many wives I have. This will lead to some interesting discussions. Maybe you only want to ask me if I have visited Lake Powell or Zion National Park, or if I snow ski? Realize that you have not said you do any of these things. You are asking me about me. You may want to ask ‘Where do you work?’ This too will open up a plethora of follow up questions. See the pattern here? You are not talking about you. You are asking about me. Letting me go on and on about me. It’s one of my favorite topics.

You get the idea. Start small. Grow organically. Let the networking happen easily and efficiently. Stick to these simple questions and branch out when you feel comfortable. Learn about them. Add them to your network. Remember this interaction. Make as many of these as you can.

When you find yourself having 10 seconds near another human, lean over, look them in the eye, and then ask them Who, Where and What. You may have just found a friend for life. At the least, you may forge a bond with another human that can be added to your network. Goal accomplished.

Meme Monday

Tom LaRock started a Meme Monday challenge.

Write an 11 word or less blog post.

Today’s meme is “Write a SQL blog post in 11 words or less”

I wrote Multiple...

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It's Monday! Again!

Fine!?!

Let's get through this quickly and efficiently!!

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Hello Monday. I wonder what jobs failed over this last weekend?

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Good morning SQL Monitor. What did you see happen this weekend??

swwug 2011

I have been invited back to present for the SWWUG vConference in April. I will be flying down to Tucson on March 8th and recording my 4 sessions. These are not the exact titles, but from the top of my head.

Documentation. You know you love it.

Data file sizes.

Profiler / Traces

DBA Tasks

At this point, Documentation has been completed, and actually practiced as a presentation already. The others are nearing completion. I had set a goal to have them completed by this last weekend, and failed to accomplish that goal. I have a bit more work to do on some of them. But most are already well planned and created. Just need to be fluffed up at this point.

One of the tools that I used to help me was a mindmap software where I simple was able to link ideas together and list them all out. I used a couple different versions of the software, and a few different computers, including my Galaxy Tab, to simple brainstorm with myself and come up with the skeleton for each presentation. I believe that I will actually use this document in the the Documentation presentation, as an example of how to simply start documenting. Its been a work in progress, and the mindmap software allows me to simply keep adding ideas to the map and utilize those when the time comes to flesh out the presentation.

I'm nervous and excited, as always, as the date approaches. I love the creative process, I love actually presenting, I love teaching and talking and always hope that i can do a descent job and help folks. However, its still a nerve wracking process. Once its all done, I always appreciate the effort put into it, the experience as much as I do that its over. Its a funny process to look forward to something that scares you, kinda like a rollercoaster. I keep getting back in line for another ride, but am scared while in line and on the ride, yet I always return to the line and ride.

SQL Saturday 66

This started out as a simple review of the SQL Saturday 66 in Colorado Springs. Then it needed some back story. Then it simply became a novel. So, enjoy, or jump out now. Your choice.

Sometime last year, I decided that I would try to get to some regional SQL Saturday events. It didn't know exactly how I would accomplish this, for there were a couple obstacles standing in my way. The first was time.

The second was money. Those were the big ones.

Time was hard to come by, as it seemed that I didn't really have a lot of time to do professional development since it consistently seemed to be impacted by work. Ironic that I was unable to learn about skills that would help me in work, because I really needed to be at work instead...

Money was a difficult resource to acquire and use for this type of venture. Its benefit is obvious. Its a great education and networking opportunity to attend any SQL Saturday event. Yet it was always difficult to come up with the slush money to fly myself and get a hotel, car and anything else needed in order to go to somewhere else for a couple days.

Let's keep it simple, and keep it to those two obstacles. Time and money.

If I was one of the lucky ones, those that work at a company that has a vested interest in attending an event such as this, I'd be lucky to be sent, with expenses covered. This is an obvious win win for company and employee. I, however, am not one of those few lucky ones.

There are also those that are in the consulting gig that see their attendance at these events as a business expense to drum up potential business for their own company and skills. This is a noble gamble to bet on yourself, all the while giving back to the community as you do. This is a win win as well. I am not one of these either.

I'm just a working stiff, like many of the other DBAs and Database Developers out there that attend these events. However, something changed in my life a couple months ago. A job change changed everything. I now have more discretionary time that allows me to attend an event like our beloved SQL Saturdays. So, the time element was relaxed and I decided to simply throw the money part out the window. After discussing it with my CFO, she and I decided that we'd spend the money to fly me to a location and spend a couple nights. I can keep it cheap, and doing so would allow me to learn, grow and experience professional development on a budget.

So, I looked at the events coming up, and thru my hat into the Colorado Springs SQL Saturday event. It's close by, and I know some of the folks from the area. I am also the Regional Mentor, so it would be good for me to meet more of the local SQL people and get some face time with them as well as their leaders in the community. From my house to their home is about a 10 hour drive, and with the gas prices as they are, it would be 6's to fly or drive as far as cost went. However, there is a significant cost to spend 10 hours driving, instead of 2 hours flying. So a choice was made to fly to Colorado Springs. A couple nights in a hotel would be $50 or so, maybe $100 each. This isn't too bad of a cost. But its still a cost. I had a few opportunities to cheapen my hotel cost with a few options that presented themselves to me. One was to rent a cabin with Chris Shaw (twitter|blog) and split the cost. Another was to split a room with some local community people. Another was to stay with a good friend that lives in the area. Since this last option was going to give me some good time to catch up with a good friend, i chose it and made arrangements to spend the night at his place. In order to get there with enough time to hang out, I decided that I needed to fly out a bit earlier (1:50pm) instead of the later time (8:00pm).

This decision meant that I needed to ask for a bit of time off on Friday to leave early. This means I need to talk to my boss. In the past, when events of this nature occurred, this didn't always work out well. When work seems more important than anything else, a SQL event falls way short. I was worried to ask, but needed to, and did. As I informed my boss, he started asking me questions. The conversation went something like this.

Me: I need to take off a bit early on Friday to fly to a SQL Saturday event.

Boss: What is this event?

Me: Its put on by individuals for individuals, part of the SQL Community, all over the nation.

Boss: This sounds like a Professional Development event

Me: Yeah... (waiting for the hammer to fall, some excuse why it would be difficult to attend)

Boss: This sounds like something tht we should be paying for.

Me: (shocked) Yeah.

This is the simple version, but they decided to not only allow me to take off a bit early on Friday, but they were intending on paying for the flight and hotel. I was shocked and amazed. Time and money. Solved. Woohoo!!

Off we go to SQL Saturday in Colorado Springs.

Luckily, as the dates approached, my friend Randy Knight (twitter|blog) also decided to attend. This meant that we could travel together and split some of the costs. We headed up to the airport Friday afternoon, and after a moment of slowness as we passed an unfortunate accident, we were again on our way, albeit a bit late.

Once at the airport we cruised thru security, leaving only a single bottle of Strawberry Jam behind that apparently is insidious enough in nature as to not be allowed into the airport proper for fear of use as a weapon of some sort. This bottle was an intended gift for the wife of my buddy, as a thank you for allowing me to spend the night at her house. It was also a bottle canned by my wife at the LDS Cannery, which made it something special from us to them. It was not meant to be though...

The plane ride was uneventful, dumping us into a different version of winter than we had at home, but similar enough to not be terribly different. As I left the airport, and watched as Randy grabbed his rental car and departed, I waited for my ride to appear. Even though it was clear and sunny, I was soon cold, having forgotten it was winter here too. I stand outside for a bit, until i start communicating with my buddy. The text messages and voice conversation soon took an odd turn as questions were posed but unable to be answered to anyones satisfaction. It turned out that my ride was in Denver at the airport as I was standing outside the airport in Colorado Springs. Funny. Even funny to us at the time. A bummer. But funny nonetheless. What a mix up. With all the communication tools that we have and at our disposal, neither one of us seemed able to clearly indicate which airport I was arriving at for this event. Funny. Sad kinda funny, but funny nonetheless.

I end up calling Randy back to retrieve me, as he had a head start to the speaker dinner from the airport already. Luckily he was able to return to get me, leaving the nearly empty freeway to return to the airport with plenty of time to allow the rest of Colorado Springs residents to embrace the Friday afternoon rush hour traffic, allowing us to gain a more full experience of the clogged freeway. This irony was repeatedly brought to my attention by my new chauffeur as we were stuck driving behind residents on their way home from work. We took off, driving north to the speaker dinner. We initially went to Randy's hotel to check in, and I even checked on a price for a room there that night, in case I wasn't able to hook up with my friend for the evening. I then checked on the hotel that I was going to stay at the next night, to see what the price would be for the first night, again, in case. After this, I went to Mr. Biggs to assist with the preparations for the event in any way that I could. It was great to meet some of the speakers and organizers. I already knew Marc Beacom (twitter|blog) from past SQL Community events, and it was great to catch up with him. He was the only person that I already knew IRL though. The others, some friends, others acquaintances, were mostly known to me via twitter already. I got to give Chris Shaw (twitter|blog) a big bear hug to great him as we had become friends over twitter, facebook, Im and email for the past couple years. I have always felt like he was a brother. Funny how our community becomes family. SQL Community -> #SQLFamily.

Soon it was the speaker dinner and time to shmooze, cavort, meet, discuss, talk, enjoy and share. It was also the first meal of the day for me, as I had barely eaten anything for breakfast and completely missed lunch because of the time suck that flying can be. Luckily I survived on some snacks from my bag while on the plane, as well as those incredible Biscotti cookies. Dinner was great and we had a great time talking to new people. One of which, Jeremy Lowell (twitter|blog), was nice enough to allow me, a stranger, to get into his vehicle and deliver to the house of my friend for the evening. Jeremy was headed home anyway, which turns out was about 5 minutes from my end location. So it turned out that it was a win win for us. We talked about SQL, but soon turned the conversation to other random topics that we found out we had in common. Its always amazing to meet people in these events that are just as human as you with the same concerns, ambitions, interests and whatnots. We had a great time talking for an hour. A friendship began.

Once at my buddies house, I was honored to meet the kids. Gifts were given, minus the Strawberry jam which now lives in a trash in SLC airport. Soon we were simply talking, telling stories, and having a great time. We both do woodworking and it was great to see his work space. Later in the evening I was even able to help feed the horses, which made me feel like I was channeling Mike Rowe as I attempted to perform a task I was unaware of how to perform. Standing in the cold Colorado night, helping feed the animals in the snow was invigorating. Fun to do once. Once back in the warmth of the home, it was time to get to bed, so that we could get up early the next morning and make the 1 hour commute down south to the SQL event. Off to bed we went. Me, grateful for the time spent, the stories told, the experiences had and the roof over my head and bed offered within their home. Thanks.

The next morning had us up early to make the commute. After stopping at a gas station along the way, and after purchasing the first cup of joe ever, I was able to make a small effort at paying back my gracious host for the previous nights lodging. We had a great time talking about many many things and I truly enjoyed the time we had to spend together as the sun chased us. Soon we arrived at our destination and got on our game faces. It may seem otherwise on occasion, but we are all geeks at heart and want to simply sit in front of a computer, shunning human contact in all its forms. Attending an event such as a SQL Saturday seems against our nature, but it is such an important part of our Professional Development that we suck it up and go and put on our game faces, getting ready to talk and interact with each other.

Luckily Chris Shaw and the other organizers thought of this and planned to have many networking events that forced and allowed us to interact with each other, getting to know each other. The first event gathered us together in disciplines, into two circles. One inner circle faced an outer circle, one to one. We were to take 2 minutes with each person in the circle and perform some SQL Speed Dating, answering 2 questions. It was a simple exercise and allowed me to introduce myself to 13 people as well as get to know them. It was fun. Soon the sessions were underway. SQL Lurn was ON! Between each session, a networking event occurred. The first I chose to participate in was Lazer Tag. What a rush. This is always such a fun activity and we all seemed to have a blast shooting each other. There was lunch, which allowed us a chance to eat and talk with each other, performing our own networking discussions while cramming pizza into our gullets. More sessions and more networking occured. Lurnin and Networkin. Over and over. It was great, well organized, and well participated in by all.

I ended the day with my session in the last slot. I had participated in Lazer Tag just prior to my session in one of the networking events, which got my blood pumping and ready to stand in front of a group of SQL peeps and discuss Documentation. I believe that the session went well, and we had good discussions. Many speakers attending my session, which was always a bit nerve wracking initially, but enables me as a speaker to engage the audience even better than typically, as these are now friends and family that can be pulled into the discussions easily.

After the sessions, we had one more networking event. We all had to make a trek across the family fun center to the sand box, and retrieve an easter egg. Inside each egg, for each member of the event, a prize awaited them. The organizers had gotten many items to give away and each person received something. It was well received and I believe everyone went away feeling a bit more special at having received a thoughtful gift for simply attending. It was a nice touch.

And just like that, as quickly as it started, it was over. It was such a full day, with so many interesting topics, great knowledge, great networking, that it blew by so quickly. I for one barely noticed that I had been on my feet for many hours, had done a great many different things as well as learned and gotten excited about SQL stuff. It was exactly what was needed. Many thanks go out to the organizers. Great job!!

After the event folks retired to the bar to continue networking. I don't drink, so tend to not spend a ton of time at the bar, but did take the chance to relax a bit, talk a bit, and continue to network and build those relationships started previously. Discussions about the event ensued, Regional Mentor duties were performed with various members of the community, help given to those folks looking to setup new chapters and needing some ideas to get them going, and friendships were continued. It was a great time.

Randy and myself departed, after many handshakes, fist bumps and a few hugs. We took off to go get some dinner and relax before our 4:30 am start time the next day for the 6:00 am flight. Dinner was quick, once we finally found a place, got a seat and got our food. Having forgotten that this was a Saturday night and that many other people also wanted to eat dinner, we were slightly delayed in our own goals. Dinner did occur, bellies were filled and more discussions were had about SQL and other topics. Finally, bed awaited, its siren song calling me to slumber at 8pm, finally falling asleep sometime around 9pm. Rare for me to retire so early, yet needed to make the flight the next morning.

The next morning came quite a bit earlier than I could have expected. Its always funny to drive around in the dark, knowing its morning, yet being deceived into still believing its night. An odd juxtaposition. We arrived at the airport without a problem, albeit at the ungodly hour of nearly 5am. We got thru security easily, except for the TSA groping that occurred. Ironically I tend to travel in a tshirt and sweats, releaving myself of a belt, buttons or anything that would pose a threat to the metal detectors. However, this was the reason the TSA groper choose to use to get close and personal with my persona, the baggy sweats. Funny.

After arriving home a couple hours earlier than I would normally wake up on a Sunday, it was all over. I was home. Early and tired and spent. I laid down and rested for most of the day, getting ready to start my normal work week. Good times, good friends, good knowledge. Forging existing relationships and building new ones. Making the SQL Community into my SQL Family. Thats what I see occurs in these events.

Long live SQL Saturday!!!

New gig, new changes and social networking

I've been at my current employer for 2.5 years. In a nutshell, I am a DBA for a very highly transactional system, a 24x7 shop that takes and processes payment for many different clients. If we have downtime of mere seconds, we loose a lot of transactions. Providing 'Service Delivery' to this system is paramount. Keeping the systems up and running requires a lot of planning, a lot of knowledge of the topology and a lot of time sensitive reactions.

During the past couple of years, I have definitely learned a lot. Skills that will help me forever in this line of work. I have also worked some random hours, long hours and extra hours. Many times I have been known to work the full day, only to find myself working the night as well. This is not uncommon in our line of work. It is understood that if you are supporting a database system, you become the goto guy/gal at any hours of the day or night to help keep your system up and running. You may often find yourself in a situation where your tasks require you to do specific things, and be unable to do other things. Meaning, our job requirements may be detailed for us, and disallowing us from performing certain activities. Roles and Responsibilities, division of duties and all that. These rules allow us to ensure that the right people are performing the right tasks at the right time.

Well, as I wax poetic about our jobs and responsibilities, I realize I got off topic a bit. So, back on track we go. A month ago, at the beginning of November, I received a random email from a Systems Engineer at a company I had never heard of. I have never heard of the individual that sent me the email either. It turns out that I am a secondary link thru the social networking wite LinkedIn. This individual seemed to have the need of a DBA's services, and knew that relying on his connections, may be able to uncover someone that was interested.

Whenever I receive requests of this nature, either thru a person I know, or a headhunter, or from whomever, I always entertain the information. It may be of interest to me, or maybe better suited for someone else. But I may as well listen to the option. If it is interesting to me, I'll follow up. Usually it is not interesting, and I can share this with others that may be looking, or members of the User Group or the local community. So, I entertain any job prospect. In fact, I looked back at my email and saw that about 12 different options had come across my desk in the last year. This is by no means a 'brag'. Most of these options were simply not interesting to me, or even worse, I was not qualified to be interested in them.

So, back to this job prospect. Random email or pointed search, I entertained it, and shot my resume over to this person. Once they received it, they were interested, and asked to see me. I love this part of the process. It makes me feel loved, wanted, and validates my skills and work ethic. This first foot in any door makes you feel alive. You must remember that this feeling also was felt with your current employer, once upon a time. Its fun to feel again and again. But it was once felt, and there were reasons you chose what you chose at that time. Keep these in mind when you weigh the possibilities.

After a couple back and forths, me learning about them, and them learning about me, it seemed we were both interested in each other, and offers were made. This is when those feelings of excitement take an odd turn. All the rest leading up to this is simply flirting and is very exciting. Once an offer comes in, it's game time. The feelings get all mixed up. Remember, you once felt excited about your current employer, and made a decision to begin working there. What to do, what to do....

I spent a couple days agonizing about the pros and cons of each option. In the end, I decided to jump to the next opportunity. The pros of this shop are as follows.

The product that is being sold is to school systems around the country and internationaly. The goal of this product is to teach children to speak and read english. The product uses games and video and interaction to teach. There are databases that produce the learning experience, databases gathering data on what is going on, what users are doing, and so on, databases that are used to report on many aspects of the product. I plan being able to help with performance tuning, data warehousing, data migration, and building out the systems and databases to be more robust systems. I'll get to take the skills I currently have and utilize them in a variety of ways, as well as learn new and exciting things. The systems are all SQL Server 2008 databases, which is exciting to me, as I seem to have been stuck just behind that curve with critical systems being on 2005 and even 2000. I have often wanted to do more work with BI and DW, and this will give me that chance. The company is close by, which will not negatively impact my commute. I have heard nothing but good things from employees as well as families of employees of this new company. The money and other options are similar to what I currently enjoy, and are neither a huge increase or decrease. The company is not tiny, but is not huge either. I have had conversations, as per the interview process, with almost a dozen people and have been really impressed with what I have learned thus far. I will get to attend SQLPASS this next year, as this was one of those options I requested in the beginning.

So, new chapter, new gig. Life will change. Day to day work will be different. Different people will become my coworkers. Lots of differences to come. Its exciting and scary at the same time.

sqlPerspectives guest blogger

Last week, I got a unique opportunity handed to me by Chris Shaw (blog|twitter). He allowed me to review a section of the Deep Dives MVP book that most of you have heard so much press for recently. This was a great chance for me to read from the experts and comment on their writings and insights. As we all know, we are the community. We are the lifeblood of this great SQL Family of folks trying to help others as well as ourselves. We are writing, we are mentoring, we are training, we are working with SQL Server. My first thought was who am I to actually comment on something like this, but that is the Evil TJay that is always trying to beat me down, and bruise my ego. Luckily the Good TJay won out that day, and I agreed to read and comment on a section.

I took this as seriously as my first book report way back in the day. I read it all, and reread it, and as I wrote my comments, read it again. I really wanted to be accurate, through in my perspective, even a story or two from my own experience. In an effort to become a better writer myself, this is exactly the type of thing that I relish. So, thanks go to Chris for allowing me to comment. Thanks to Jeremey Lowell as well for assisting with this small endeavor. People I have never met, giving me the opportunity to grow, what a great community we exist in.

Anyway, without any more flowery language and metaphors, I present the tweet I saw this morning, with the link to the guest blog I produced. I hope that someone enjoys it as much as I did preparing for it, and executing it.

TWEET

DataRealized Blog: @tjaybelt is the sqlPerspectives guest blogger this week! http://bit.ly/9v0Qyf #SQLServer #SQL #SQLBlog #microsoft

I hope to do more, grow more, learn more. You are all part of this experience of mine, and hopefully I am part of yours on occasion.

What I Learned at PASS

There’s a contest going on at PASS looking for answers to “Best Thing I Learned at PASS”. I have been busy enough that I kept putting this on the back burner. But it's time to put in my 2-cents.

Since the contest has a size limit, I am partitioning the story below from the rest of this blog entry.


Contest Entry starts here
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Let’s start at the beginning. I wanted to learn more about SQL Server, and found a local User Group, and attended.

After a few meetings, I got to know a few people, including the President. Having these contacts, and being able to ask questions of these local ‘knowledge stores’ when I needed help was priceless. If the story ended there, it would already be a success story. I had networked and learned. I was a better DBA for it.

But that’s not the end. The President told me that I should go to PASS. Since I trusted him already, I went. My family came with me to Florida, and went to DisneyWorld, as I went to PASS. I remember being alone with people all around me. But I soon noticed tons of people, just like me, wanting to learn. During the conference, I saw a few people that I knew, and recognized some names from books I had read. Soon, I realized that all the people attending and speaking, were just like me. This is the 1st great thing that I learned; there are no experts that are better than me, they are people just like me, they just learned this stuff earlier. Now they are sharing with the rest of us. I too can learn what they know. The quantity of knowledge and contacts I have gained because I attended PASS cannot be measured. And that’s why we are all here at PASS. To learn and to network.

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Contest Entry ends here


I just wanted to say a few more words in regards to PASS summits that wouldnt fit in the contest.

I have been to many PASS summits, as many as my employer has allowed. Some times, my employer has not allowed it. This has been a source of frustration to me. This annual event is where I get to join up with others of my kind, and learn from them. This has increased my knowledge so much. I hope that i get to go this year, and in future years. Regardless of attendance, I am an avid volunteer in various pieces of the PASS puzzle. This volunteerism gives me a satisfaction that i cannot gain elsewhere, especially at work. Its a great opportunity. All should attend and learn and network and better themselves. Then return and repeat.

Social Networking : It does work

Today, as I looked at my RSS feed, I noticed a new tweep (@AdamMechanic) had a funny comment about twitter. He basically said that he had 'swalloed the twitter-colored pill. With reference to the Matrix, and the blue vs red colored pill scene. So, I thought, what colored pill would it be? The first color that came to my mind was my favorite color of all time. Chartreuse. This color has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Many things became painted that color. I would hunt it out and purchase items with it. Then it became a fashionable color, and I started seeing others using it. Many more products were available. This too, like all things, waned and I was left alone again with my favorite color.

Back to twitter, and the comment I made about this being the color of the twitter-colored pill. Back and forth a couple comments flew between me and he about this color, and i learned something new. Apparently, Chartreuse is a color halfway between yellow and green that was named because of its resemblance to the green color of one of the French liqueurs called green chartreuse, introduced in 1764. 1764? This, my favorite color for 20 plus years, a color I had tried to learn about and incorporate into my life, has been around that long and was named after a liqueur? I had no idea. I learned something new. I was amazed.

So, even this has nothing to do with SQL, or may career, it does have to do with the power of talking to people, and being open to learning new things. This technique has been applied to my career and SQL in specific. These are the reasons I blog and joined twitter. But be careful. You must do more than just your career and intended goal of twitter communication to make it work. Expand your communication with others, talk about all kinds of things. Not all the time, but often. Form that ever so slight connection with another human on a level that they can share something with you, and vice-a-versa. Repeat the process with this person and many others.
Then, someday, you tool will have in your toolbox the powerful tool that twitter and social networking can be.

As a side note, later that same morning, I had a simple question that was not SQL related. I posed it on twitter, and got 8 responses 6 people withing 15 minutes. Its like a room full of experts that I can stand in front of and ask a question. Some will respond. Others may not. But you will find that when its your turn to the in the audience, and you can answer, and you do, the answers you will soon need will flow your direction when the tables are turned.

So, join in to the conversation. Speak up. Answer questions. Ask questions. Get involved and tell your tales of how your container of knowledge has increased by your interacting with others.