Search results matching tag 'sqlpass'

Upcoming Database Design Pre-Cons

drsql — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:45:19 GMT

In July and October, I will be doing my "How To Design a Relational Database" full day conference in two places. First on July 26 for the East Iowa SQL Saturday, and then for the big daddy SQLPASS Summit in Charlotte, NC on October 14. You can see the entire abstract here on the SQL PASS site. It is essentially the same concept as last year, but this year I am making a few big changes to really give the people what they have desired (and am truly glad to have a swing at it several months before the summit to iron out any wrinkles.)

The first third of the day will be an example driven lecture that will be as tight as I can make it and still include all of the important foundational information that I can pack in. We will talk about the history of relational databases to get a feel for why we have the database environment that we currently have, then terminology, the data modeling process, a practical overview of the normal forms, and a bit about implementation. If it sounds like a lot in two hours, then you are right, but it is information that is essential to understand what we are doing the rest of the day (and hopefully the rest of your career!)

The second third of the day will be the class designing a database "together". I will have distributed a set of requirements for a database for us to design as a class, each person taking a turn to add an element. As we add elements, the class will be able to discuss if the item added is correct or not, simulating a typical meeting with N * 2 opinions from N persons.

The final third of the day will be a small team design session. I will distribute requirements to the class, broken up into several groups, and they will take them and do the design... Probably an hour later, I will take a picture of the design and put it up on the big screen for us to look at and discuss. This is a task I have done each time I have done this pre-con, and it is always interesting to see the several different ways the models turn out. Sometimes I learn a way to think about the problem that I hadn't thought about (and sometimes that is a good thing.)

Along the process of the two design sessions, I will be keeping a tally of topics that we haven't touched on in the discussion so we can hit those topics before the day is over. If we are lucky and the class is active enough, this section may not even need to exist other than to say "goodbye and good luck".

So hope to see you in Iowa City in late July (26), or (and perhaps again for) in Charlotte on October 14th at the SQL PASS Summit.

Why We Write #4 - An Interview With Doug Lane

drsql — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 02:56:22 GMT

My next guest is Doug Lane, who has been blogging for the past few years on his website: http://www.douglane.net/. Doug is also a speaker who has spoken at SQL Saturdays as well as the SQL PASS Summit, and as I write these interview questions was on his way to speak at the SQL PASS Business Analytics conference in 2013. I also liked quite a few of the pictures in his photostream here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58251371@N06/), particularly because I tried the bean bag juggling, though I cannot find the picture anymore.

I have never met Doug personally (so as such have never mistaken him for anyone else), and am only acquainted with him through Thomas LaRock's Rockstar Blogger list, so I am looking forward to finding out more about him from the questions in my interview.

He also once won a SQL Cruise from Idera with this YouTube video:

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1. There was a point in time when you didn't have a blog, didn't tweet, and probably had no public presence whatsoever. And then, one day, you made the decision to put yourself out there. What prompted you to write that first blog entry that got you started?

I had a personal blog about 6-7 years ago but I struggled with it. I did two posts: one about music I listen to while running, and one about a camping trip I took. It was horrible and nobody read it. I'm hoping the internet found a way to bury it alongside my MySpace page.

Then, in late 2010, two things really pushed me to get back into blogging: Brent Ozar's blog and Steve Jones' presentation, "The Modern Resume". Steve convinced me that having a blog was important, and Brent convinced me I was capable of doing it. I'm immensely grateful for their influence. There's no way I'd be writing today without it.

2. We all have influencers that affect our trajectory as a writer. It may be a teacher who told you that you had great potential, or another writer who impressed you that you wanted to be like? Or perhaps on the other end of the spectrum it was a teacher who told you that you were too stupid to write well enough to spell your own name, much less have people one day impressed with your writing? Who were your influences that stand out as essential parts of your journey to the level of writer you have become?

I've heard stories from friends about how they had teachers that told them they weren't cut out for writing, science, athletics, music, and so on. It makes me enormously grateful to have never had a teacher like that. I had some uninspiring teachers, sure, but never one that told me I was destined to fail at something. In fact, several of my English teachers encouraged me to write. There's one in particular I'll never forget. Diana Daniels was my 7th and 8th grade English teacher. For one assignment, she gave me a note that said this:

I still have it. I've gradually thinned out the stuff I kept from school but that one always makes the cut. I still feel good when I read it, even though it's from 25 years ago. Sincere encouragement lasts a lifetime.

I would have LOVED writing for Saturday Night Live, Mystery Science Theater 3000, or Archer. I even chose my college, The University of Iowa, based on the fact they offered screenwriting classes and had a heralded creative writing program. While a writing career for film or television didn't come to be, I'm a firm believer in things happening in the right time and place. I can still write blog posts, presentations, and the occasional ultra-low budget screenplay with a sense of humor.

3. As the years pass, how has your writing changed? Do you feel like it is becoming a more natural process? Or perhaps you get more critical of your own writing to the point that it takes you longer?

Like all writers do, I think I'm getting better with practice. I'm getting better with tempo and efficiency. I'm also getting better at expressing my personality through writing without it resembling a train of thought. I'm a little faster now than when I first started. I don't struggle as much with how I'm going to say something.

On the other hand, I take more time now to make sure what I'm writing is technically correct. I feel like I need to be more accurate and informed on my subjects. When I first started, I thought, "If I miss this detail or that, it's okay." Now I try to make sure the minor details all check out too. As we all know, there's NOTHING worse than being wrong on the internet.

4. Assume a time machine has been created, and you are allowed to go back in time to speak to a group of potential writers, in which you and I are in attendance. What would you tell "past us", and do you think that your advice would change where you and I are in our careers now? Like would you tell yourself that one day you would be sitting here for a rather long period of time answering interview questions and not getting paid for it, instead of doing something else?

First, I'd make sure they were all in a room on the ground floor. Then I'd tell them that in 2013, all of the following will be vastly more famous than even the most popular blogger: a monotesticluar man who cheated like crazy in French bike races, a show about unclaimed storage units, an unfinished calendar from an ancient civilization, skinny jeans for men, and a singular picture of a cat who looks unhappy. Many writers will throw themselves out the windows in shock and despair.

Once the glass shard-encrusted writers have been pulled from the shrubs outside the window (we're on the ground floor for a reason), I'd tell them the good news. I'd show them fivethirtyeight.com, lifehacker.com, deadspin.com, and of course some SQL Server-related blogs. I'd tell them there are huge audiences for the things you're interested in. Combine that with the means to self-publish and promote, and no one can prevent you from being a success.

I'd also share the two thoughts really paralyzed me when I was first starting my blog:

Paralyzing Thought #1: "Someone already wrote about this topic."

Louise Hay put it brilliantly. Addressing a crowd at a convention, she said this: "You'll have all these speakers. We're all going to say the same thing, really. But we're going to do it in slightly different ways. And everybody wants to hear things differently. Just because I say something, some of you will get it, some of you will say 'What is that woman talking about?' But another teacher -- or three or six or twelve -- can say the same thing that I'm saying in different words. And you'll go, 'Oh, that's brilliant! Never heard that before.'"

Whatever you're going to write about, someone's almost certainly already covered it. But they haven't written about it your way. People may not understand an idea until they hear you explain it in your words.

Paralyzing Thought #2: "Nobody's reading this."

That's true in the beginning. Unless you're already well known, very few people will be anticipating your first blog post because you have yet to demonstrate quality and consistency. Your blog is like a retail store. If what you have inside is interesting or useful to people, word will spread and more people will come. Be patient.

It's scary putting yourself out there in printed permanence, I know. But nothing gets you past the fear of publishing faster than hitting the "Publish" button again and again. If you need ideas or motivation, pick up Problogger's 31 Days to a Build a Better Blog. You don't have to do all the exercises in 31 days. Just do one whenever you're stuck. (Let's pretend this e-book exists and I'm not violating the space-time continuum by recommending it.) Gradually, your content will get better and your audience will grow.

I'd conclude by saying, "Don't stress over it. Nothing about your blog is as big a deal as you think it is."

If I told Historical Me that he'd be interviewed about writing and it wasn't conducted from prison, I think he'd be excited.

5. Do you have any assistance from an editor, either formally or informally. And in either case, do you like your set up do you sometimes wish you had it different?

I don't have an editor, and I'm not really worried about having one until I start writing detailed technical posts. That day is still a ways off since I'm really enjoying the topics and level of complexity I'm covering now. I do like to bounce ideas off people, but I don't usually have finished posts proofread by someone else.

A bad habit of mine is proofreading after I've published. (Don't get me wrong, I proofread beforehand too.) I think every post I've done in the last year or so, I went back and updated at least twice after it'd been published. George Lucas admires my inability to leave perfectly good work alone.

6. Finally, beyond the "how" questions, now the big one that defines the interview series. Why do you do write?

I write because I enjoy it and I want to make people's lives better, whether it's getting people unstuck from a technical problem or just making them chuckle. The work I do is immensely enjoyable. I want to share some of that joy. I don't care if I'm paid for it or not -- that doesn't enter into my thought process.

Another reason I write is to establish myself as a resource people can come to when they need a problem solved. I'm not trying to come across as a technical expert (because I'm really not -- not by a long shot), but rather someone who's had to solve the same problems my readers are having. It's funny that 48% of my page views come from a post about connecting a MacBook to a projector. I had no idea that post would be so useful.

While I don't set out to write life-altering material. I have a powerful story coming that I hope will re-orient people. I'm waiting for the right time to publish it -- probably early summer.

Bonus Question: Are there any projects coming up that you would like to tell people about?

One project I've had on the back burner for FAR too long: SQL Server Murder Mystery Hour. Like one of those murder mystery dinner parties, except done at a SQL Saturday or maybe one of the nights of PASS Summit. I've let this idea percolate for two years now (like I said, FAR too long). Here are a few ticklers:

Think Murder on the Orient Express, except it's a database or server that's killed.
Attendees form teams to solve the crime.
Names of the suspects are a gag, e.g., Bill Freeley is a consultant.
Slightly over-the-top, Poirot-style interrogations will reveal clues.

Okay, writing about it really has me excited to get moving on it again.

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Wow, this has been a fantastic read. Doug has given a lot of great and interesting answers to my questions. Some notes:

I too loved Steve Jones' presentation, "The Modern Resume". Chock full of fantastic information about how to enhance your career and behave yourself (Brent’s blog is great too :)
I have always wanted to be a sitcom writer too. I took some advice from the early Simpson’s writers. The goal is something that is funny over and over again, not just once. I know I still laugh at the Simpson’s after 15-20 viewings of many episodes.
The George Lucas comment about not leaving well enough alone is a problem I have too.
I feel a good bit of kinship with his “why” answers too (other than the MacBook thing, I considered editing Mac references out…)

I am sad a bit that he didn’t hit on my answer to past me, but it will come one day. Like I have said before, when I get the same answer, I will interview myself…

I love the idea for the murder mystery, and am hereby invited to SQL Saturday Nashville .Next to do the SQL Server Murder Mystery at least as a session, or perhaps some other time.. (you will still have to provide your own transportation :).

Next up is Jason Strate (@stratesql), someone I have known for quite a long time (and have worked with several times), and am certainly looking forward to see what he comes up with. I have really enjoyed these interviews so far, and I hope you have too.

Why We Write #3 - An Interview With Rob Farley

drsql — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:04:14 GMT

In the third entry in this series, we take a turn south, not in quality, but in the geography of our next entrant. Rather our interview target is Rob Farley, who is from (well lives in) Australia.

Rob Farley is a SQL Server MVP, and is quite a busy fellow. He is the owner of a consulting company named LobsterPot Solutions, located in Adelaide, and is a current member of the PASS Board of Directors. His blog is located at SQL Blog, where I also blog, and he tweets under the extremely unobvious handle of @rob_farley. He speaks regularly at SQL PASS conference, and sang during the keynote with the one and only Buck Woody (http://blog.datainspirations.com/2011/10/14/pass-summit-2011-day-3-keynote/).

Rob has been a friend for quite a few years now, starting (in my mind) when I introduced myself to him at a conference thinking he was Arnie Rowland (yet another wonderful member of the SQL community, whom you might mistake for Rob from a hard working standpoint, but Arnie doesn't wear glasses regularly :). As I remember the story, neither were offended, much like when people mistake me for Orson Welles, I am honored because he was such a great writer. I will note too that Rob remembered it differently, but my version makes me sound far more intelligent. Rob is a tough one too, as I once worked with him on a Microsoft Learning contract in Seattle where he had recently had his appendix out (remember where he is from… and I get kind of sore from a 4 hour flight!)

So, now that we have gotten past the silliest parts of the interview from my contributions, on to the interview questions.

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1. Think back to the moment you hit the first key, starting to write a blog, an article, a book, or whatever. What made you do it? Or perhaps, what were you expecting to achieve that was better than your previous use of free time. Have you gotten the benefit you were shooting for back then?

It was April 2005. I had been getting more and more involved in the community, attending the occasional user group, both .Net and SQL Server, and there was an all-afternoon event about SQL Server 2005 that I went along to. I’d already been thinking about getting into blogging, and a conversation with one of the evangelists from Microsoft who was at this event meant that I wrote my first blog post the next day. At the time, I just figured that it might be helpful for someone, but didn’t know who that might be. At the time, I was feeling like I needed to be stretched, and blogging gave me the chance to write about the things that I knew, and to go a little further with things than I had before. When you write things down, you find yourself wanting to make sure that it’s right – blogging gave me that then, and still does. Unfortunately, I cringe at old blog posts, as I think we all do [ed; I know I certainly do!], but I still enjoy the experience of getting content into a blog-worthy condition and publishing it for other people to read.

In school I had teachers that liked my writing, and teachers that thought it was awful. From that, I managed to discover that my writing had a particular style, a ‘voice’ (accent?) that could be heard. Today I value that in my writing, and try not to let it go. The times I’ve written book chapters I’ve worried a lot about losing that style, as editors often try to avoid having that kind of thing come through. It’s probably like how I’ve a tendency to use contractions. If I couldn’t’ve ever used them, I think I’d’ve struggled to write much, as people wouldn’t hear me in what I wrote. Perhaps JD Salinger had an effect on me, as Holden Caulfield’s voice came through so much in that book.

3. Can you describe the process you go through to write (including any tools you find indispensable), from inception of an idea until it gets put out for consumption?

This depends on what kind of thing I’m writing. :)

I’m very big on just opening Live Writer and pouring text onto the screen. Of course I’ll need to spend time in SSMS, getting the queries right to demonstrate the technical aspects, but I like to just get the text flowing. I’m very self-critical, which means that I don’t try to think how to phrase every sentence, or use just the right simile, but rather, I try to bring the reader into what I’m writing and explain things to them. I’m currently trying to get online training sorted which I call “Train-the-Explainer”, because I want to be able to teach people things in a way that helps them really understand the concepts of what’s going on, and I try to have that same idea come out in my writing. I’m likely to end up using phrases like “You know how…, well it’s like that,” in my writing, but when it comes down to it, I want people to read it as if I’m sitting next to them, explaining things to them.

What I find really hard is writing songs or jokes. I realise that I tell jokes, even during presentations, and I wrote a comedy set for the PASS Summit in 2010 and a song for 2011, but as much as I’d like to do much more of that, I really struggle. I really want to write both, but find myself crossing things out, or finding that things really aren’t as funny (or poignant or whatever) as I’d like. A co-writer would be good – someone I could bounce things off so that they can tell me when an idea is worth pursuing, and when my ranting should be converted into an actual joke.

4. Assume a time machine has been created, and you are scheduled to speak to a group of potential writers, in which you and I are in attendance. Without concern for the temporal physics that might cause the universe to implode making the answer moot, what would you tell "past us", and do you think that your advice would change where you and I are in our careers now? (like would you tell yourself to get excited for the day you will be sitting here for a rather long period of time answering interview questions and not getting paid for it, instead of feeling the warm sun on your forehead?)

Don’t get me started on the time travel thing. I have conversations with my kids about that kind of thing, like ideas around how paradoxes could get resolved… but back to the question!

If I could choose when to go back to, I’d go back much further… to a time when I thought I wasn’t any good at writing (ok, that’s typically still the case – did I mention I’m self-deprecating?), and was choosing to pursue a computer-focused degree. I’d tell myself to really explore the things that I enjoyed, including writing, and to just get started. I could put so many things in that bracket – comedy, writing and music are some that I’ve already mentioned – but I keep finding myself way more interested in people than in technology. I enjoy teaching (adults, not kids), I enjoy ministry, I enjoy community, but my career has largely been focused on technology. I’d tell those potential writers to start doing those things which define them. Solving puzzles can be fun, but unless those puzzles are allowing you to be creative, then they may not be completely satisfying. Of course, I doubt it would make a difference. Someone who’s good at maths will see the creativity in that and still end up in IT.

5.Finally, beyond the "how" questions, now the big on. There are no doubt tremendous pulls on your time. Why do you do write?

This comes down to that last question. I write because it’s something which lets me be slightly closer to what I want to spend my time on. I’d like to be completely financially independent, and be able to spend my days helping other people with things. My career as a consultant lets me do some of that, but not in the way that I really want. Those people who ask me for help with things probably know that I quite willingly invest myself into their particular problem, and I honestly do it completely for them, because I enjoy it. Writing lets me do that in a way that means they don’t have to ask – for those people that go looking for something and stumble across it.

Finally, a bonus question I provide to let the person stretch the topic and talk about anything they want to:

1. Is there any project you would like to tell people about that we haven't yet mentioned?

I should be better at marketing, but I’m really bad at it. I should write some stuff about how LobsterPot is a great company that you should all use to improve your data story. We can help you write better T-SQL, tune your system, get your data into a data warehouse, even present it in the amazing PivotViewer platform that we ported to HTML5 so that it runs on iPads. I should write about the Train-the-Explainer thing that I want to do, where I’ll charge people a small amount to attend an online classroom (limited sizes) to have me explain SQL stuff to them in a way that hopefully means that they can not only implement the ideas, but can actually explain it to other people. I should write about how I’m available to teach Advanced T-SQL courses, and will happily come to just about anywhere in the world to do so (although it’ll be at your expense, and it’ll have to fit into my course schedule). But I’m not good at self-promotion, so if your readers want to ask me about these things, they should probably just drop me a line and start a conversation.

…I’m always happy to talk. [ed. @rob_farley is his twitter if all else fails]

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I definitely want to thank Rob Farley for taking the time to answer my interview today. I got a bit more insight into how yet a third person thinks about the process and value of the writing process. His why answer reminds me of some of the reason I got started answering forum posts. I don’t always love helping individuals directly because usually when you have gone out and asked a question, you are lost and just need that straightforward how do I get out of this jam, answers. Kind of like when you go to the gas (petrol?) station and ask for directions. If they start telling you how you should have planned ahead, while it is good advice, it can tick you off. The only person who is apt to learn a lesson there is a bystander who hears the answer. Since they aren’t lost, hearing how to ever avoid being lost may be useful. When writing. I always try to help with the immediate need first: “the bakery is a block that way”, and then “the app you have on that phone I see will tell you how to get there if you are ever lost again”. They might not care, but the next reader might.

Still not the answer I would give to the time machine question (other than the paradox stuff!), but I love Rob’s answer.

The next entry will be Doug Lane, who works in BI. He will be speaking at the PASS BA Conference this week (4/10-12, 2013; so don’t go there if this is 2020 when you are reading this and blame me), so feel free to suggest answers for him if you see him there!

Why We Write #2 - An Interview With Mark Vaillancourt

drsql — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:30:12 GMT

My second guest is Mark Vaillancourt (whose last name makes me very happy for the copy and paste feature), who is an Information Management consultant working for Digineer, and is a Regional Mentor for PASS in Canada. Mark is also a speaker at SQL Saturday events, as well as the SQL PASS Business Analytics conference in 2013.

Mark has been blogging regularly since early 2009 on his website (http://markvsql.com/), and interestingly, has degrees in English and Theater, two degrees that almost always lead one into a career in technology. His twitter account, @markvsql, is also quite active with over 6400 tweets to date. To be honest, I don't enter into this interview knowing nearly as much about Mark Vaillancourt as I did about Thomas LaRock in entry #1, as Mark is more involved in Business Intelligence while I spend most of my conference and blogging time in the OLTP/Relational Engine side of things. I am looking forward to learning more about his writing process and his career in his answers to the following five questions.

Mark is currently working on his first white paper to be published via Digineer’s website. He wouldn’t reveal the topic, but describes it as a topic that he feels is under-served and will help a lot of people. I hope he will give me the link to include in this interview when he gets it finished.

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1. Every superhero has an origin story, and in many cases it wasn't because they specifically were planning to go into the field of superhero-ness. I mean, clearly Peter Parker didn't really want to get bitten by a radioactive spider. So what is your story that led you to spend part of your free time writing about SQL?

In my early days at Digineer, Lara Rubbelke, who actually hired me during her tenure there, encouraged me to blog about my experiences learning SQL Server. Since I was hired there having never worked with SQL Server before, there were sure to be many learning opportunities. Whenever we would talk about the obstacles I was encountering and what I was doing to overcome them, she would always end the conversation with, “Blog about it.” I finally took her advice and got a blog connected to the old Digineer website. It was some time later that I ended up heading out on my own for my blog, including getting my own domain, with a lot of great advice from Jason Strate. Jason pointed me to, among other things, Brent Ozar’s series about blogging. That was really helpful in getting going. (Editor note: here is a link to his advice on his blog a few years back http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2008/12/how-start-blog/)

I had a teacher in high school for English, and also for Creative Writing, named Richard White. He taught me the power of verbs, the importance of dialog, and reinforced the old writing axiom, “Show; don’t tell.” While these three lessons were aimed at fiction, I try to keep them in mind in my technical writing, as well. I try to make my writing sound like I am just speaking. To me, in essence, a blog post is a presentation I only have to give once; a presentation that keeps on presenting, if you will.

I have also been fortunate enough to have an unofficial blogging mentor: Jason Strate. While he was working to take his own blogging to the next level, he was constantly sharing lessons learned with me. Whether it be a new tool he had tried or just even a bit of blogging philosophy, he set a great example. Many thanks to Jason.

3. Can you describe the process you go through to write (including any tools you find indispensable), from inception of an idea until it gets put out for consumption?

As far as tools go, Snag-It is the best thing ever. I love that application, and not just because my laptop lacks a “Prt Scn” key. It is so easy to capture screen shots of just about anything and apply highlighting, arrows, shapes, just about anything. I rely on it heavily for images I use in my posts, and sometimes presentations as well.

Although it is not really a tool, I have to say the Flickr is an AWESOME place to get images for blogs and presentations. Jason Strate showed me that one several years ago. Just filter your search for Creative Commons content and provide links to the source for the images you use and you are off to the races. I have found so many great images out there.

As far as process, I don’t know that I have one. But I think I can nail down some actions that I tend to take during the creation of many of my posts.

Find/Create a fun dataset.
- The people that created the AdventureWorks database worked very hard to do so and provided examples of a lot of different things in the process. They deserve our gratitude. However, I try very hard to avoid having my blog posts and presentations be about selling bikes and accessories. If you look over my posts, you will see data examples relating to Super Heroes, The Smurfs, Romeo and Juliet… Keeping the datasets fun is part of what makes it fun for me.
If I am demonstrating how to perform some set of actions, I make sure to number the steps as well as the Figures (screenshots, etc) used. Then, I truly document every step along with the expected outcome of each. That takes time. And I am OK with that. When one considers how long a blog post will be “out there” after it is posted, taking the time to make it solid and clear is well worth it. It drives me nuts when documentation skips some steps in the middle of a process while assuming you just “know” to do them.
When screenshots are not appropriate to the topic, I make sure to find some fun pictures from Flickr to use. I make sure to choose images that are loosely related in some way to what I am writing about, but a bit entertaining as well. A picture of Devil’s Tower makes perfect sense in a post about ones experiences at a SQL Saturday in Chicago. And a 1960s era Ladies restroom sign is the ultimate homage to the Women in Technology Luncheon at the PASS Summit.

4. Assume a time machine has been created, and you are allowed to go back in time to speak to a group of potential writers, in which you and I are in attendance. What would you tell "past us", and do you think that your advice would change where you and I are in our careers now? <like would you tell yourself that one day you would be sitting here for a rather long period of time answering interview questions and not getting paid for it, instead of…?>

The best advice I could give “past us” is the same advice I give people who tell me they want to blog but are apprehensive.

Don’t be afraid to blog because you feel you don’t know enough. If everyone waited until they knew everything before blogging or presenting, we would have ZERO bloggers and presenters. Blog now; learn while you do it.
Don’t be afraid to blog about topics that others have already covered. People learn in different ways. While the topic may be the same, YOUR way of explaining may be exactly what someone needs for that AHA moment that has been eluding them.
Don’t be afraid of making a factually incorrect statement and getting called out on it. Mistakes happen. Do your best to verify what you are writing (you will learn a lot during this activity) and you will be fine. If you think a particular statement is true, but are unsure, say so and indicate why. Be honest about what you are writing and people will respect that.

5. Finally, beyond the "how" questions, now the big one. There are no doubt tremendous pulls on your time. Why do you do write?

I have a few different answers to this one.

Before joining Digineer, I worked in general IT. Our department had a purple binder entitled, “Learned the Hard Way – or I don’t EVER want to have to figure this out again.” In that binder we placed really obscure problems we encountered along with their solutions. These were issues that happened so infrequently that remembering the details between occurrences was just not going to happen. Sometime I use my blog as my purple binder.

I went to college with the intention of becoming a high school English Teacher. I got as far as student-teaching in a local middle school and even substituted a few times. When I discovered Theater, I ended up putting my main focus into acting. Even so, I am still a teacher at heart and LOVE sharing knowledge with other people. Blogging and presenting are an extension of teaching, as far as I am concerned.

There is a poem commonly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson (although there is a bit of controversy about that) that really sums up why I do most things. I have loved this poem since high school and try to keep true to its meaning.

Success

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
   and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
   and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better,
   whether by a healthy child,
   a garden patch
   or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier
   because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

Blogging is one of the ways that I work toward achieving Success.

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Wow, that was quite an interview, chocked full of good advice, and something most blogs about technical writing will not have…controversially attributed poetry. Some of my favorite bits include noting that blogging/writing is a great way to learn, and you don’t need to be perfect to start. I find that the research I do to try to avoid being wrong makes working hours on a seemingly simple topic often well worth it when I am working during the day (during the getting paid part of the day!). And you don’t have to be perfect, as long as you try to get it right, are somewhat interesting and provide something for readers to learn (and remember, there are many levels of readers out there). When you are wrong, a reader or two will tell you… I promise. (Thick skin is very helpful for public writing!)

So far, my biggest surprise has been that I haven’t gotten a particular answer to the time machine question. Stay tuned, someone soon is bound to answer what I have expected (and then I will add a supplementary entry to admit to the answers to the questions I would give myself!)

To the focus of the series, I now have three reasons why my first two interviewees write:

1. Because there are words that have to be written

2. Keep up with stuff I know

3. Working towards success

The second answer is definitely high on my list, but it certainly isn’t quite enough to keep me typing on this keyboard week in and week out in my free time (when minimally I could be building something with my Legos and preserving the springiness of the keys on my keyboard.) So the quest continues, with my next subject Rob Farley, who will hopefully get us one step closer to the answer to the question of why we write.

Why We Write #1 - An Interview With Thomas LaRock

drsql — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:03:00 GMT

I 've been a writer of trade level technical materials for over 13 years now, writing books, articles, blogs, and even tweets for a variety of outlets, almost exclusively about Microsoft SQL Server. While I won't claim to be the best writer in the world, I feel like I have the process of writing down fairly well, yet, for the life of me, there is still the question of "why do I do this?" stuck in the back of my mind that I have yet to appease.

Note that my quest specifically deals with non-verbal communication, because it seems to me that presentations are a completely different sort of "why" altogether.

So I have decided to survey as many of my technical writing colleagues and find out their answer to the "why" question. The only criteria for being included in this set is that you write about a subject like programming, gadgets, computer administration, etc.; and that you don't make your most of your living from writing (in other words, if you stopped writing today, tomorrow you would not be in fear of sleeping in the gutter.)

To get the process started, I have asked Thomas LaRock to be my first survey participant. Tom is a SQL Server MVP, has written a very popular book called DBA Survivor for Apress, frequently tweets as @sqlrockstar, and blogs at www.thomaslarock.com where he maintains a popular ranked list of SQL bloggers (of which I am listed in the tempdb category). He is a member of the executive committee of SQL PASS, and is very active in the SQL community as a speaker. He currently works for Confio as a Technical Evangelist. Tom is also quite well known in our SQL communitiy as a lover of the delightful cured porcine meat known as bacon.

If you want to see Tom in person, he will be doing a pre-conference seminar with Grant Fritchey and Dandy Weyn this year at Tech-Ed North America in early June in New Orleans entitled How to Be a Successful DBA in the Changing World of Cloud and On-Premise Data.

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1. Every good superhero (or in your case, SQL Rockstar) has an origin story. What got you involved in writing?

Tom: The birth of my daughter. I wanted to record as many details as possible and since I had 10MB of available space for a website as part of my cable package (yeah...10 MEGABYTES BABY!) it was easy enough to get a website up quickly and easily. The writing came easily, too, since I was writing about something so close to my heart, something I remain passionate about to this day.

2. We all have influencers that have advanced our careers as writers. It may be a teacher who told you that you had great potential? Another writer who impressed you that you wanted to be like? Or perhaps on the other end of the spectrum it was a teacher who told you that you were too stupid to write well enough to spell your own name, much less have people one day impressed with your writing? Who were your influences that stand out as essential parts of your journey to the level of writer you have become?

Tom: I never try to be exactly like someone else. If I did then I would always be second best. Instead I've learned to take bits and pieces of different people and shape them into who I am today. The writer I admire most these days is Bill Simmons followed by Gregg Easterbrook. Both are known more for their sports writing but their style of writing is one that I try my best to emulate: it's human. I do not enjoy the dryness of technical writing, I prefer to write from my heart about things that I enjoy. That makes it less of a chore.

3. My writing process is pretty drawn out, often starting on my phone in OneNote, sometimes finishing in 10 minutes, but often taking a year (or years) to finish an idea. Can you describe the process you go through to write, from inception of an idea until it gets put out for consumption?

Tom: I used to start a draft inside of WordPress but lately I have been using EverNote to track my ideas and take notes. From there I just decide to go and get it done. I do my best to follow a very loose format: describe a problem, explain why it's an issue, help readers understand any and all tradeoff (cost, benefits, risks), and a few action items for them to use as a take away. Once I have that framework in my head it doesn't take long to get to a finished product. I think I may spend more time on finding a decent image to use with my post than the actual writing itself.

Tom: Write for yourself first. Feed your own soul. Don't worry about what your readers want. You can't write for others, they will never be happy with what you have done. The only person that needs to be happy with your words is you. When you write and share yourself then your readership will grow with people who are naturally drawn to you, and it makes it easier for you to keep sharing your words with people that want to hear them. And no, this advice wouldn't change. Ever.

5. Finally, beyond the "how" questions, now the big one. There are only 24 hours in a day, and there are no doubt tremendous pulls on your time from family, friends, and pork products, yet, even considering just your blog output, you obviously sit down at a keyboard very often to write. Why?

Tom: Most of the time I just feel that I have words that need to be written. Doing so helps to feed my soul. I'm at a keyboard a lot because my job requires it, and I am able to spend a lot of my day just writing as a way to communicate with others. Sometimes it's an email, sometimes it's a support ticket, other times it's a blog post.

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I want to thank Tom for being my first participant in my experiment. I find his answer to the “why” question very similar to mine, in that he doesn’t so much offer a tangible reason, but more that he feels compelled to do so. I have to say that the question of how he got started is really quite unexpected, and very interesting, and is going to affect my future questions I ask because more than just the origin story, it will be interesting to see whether people started writing technically first, or for some other reason. I know that before I wrote my first book, I had never written 2 pages of material that wasn’t graded rather harshly by someone with PhD behind their name (or at least one of their low paid minions.)

Unfortunately (or fortunately if you enjoyed this first entry) Tom certainly did not resolve any of my questions to any level of satisfaction so I am going to have to continue to ask more of my technical writer colleagues for their opinion as well.

To that end, my next interviewee will be Mark Vaillancourt, whose website is http://markvsql.com/ and whom has a degree in English and Theatre (so he will know if it should have been whom or who earlier in this probably run on sentence), so that could make for quite an interesting interview. Perhaps he may resolve my curiosity about how one can go from the seemingly non-technical to spending his time working on SQL Server Business Intelligence. I don’t know but I look forward to finding out.

Why should you bother with the PASS BA Conference this April?

rob_farley — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:09:40 GMT

I mean really? Why should you spend some of your training budget to go to this thing?

Suppose you’re someone in the PASS Community who mainly looks after people’s data. That could involve database administration, performance tuning, helping developers write queries, that kind of thing. What part of “Advanced Analytics and Insights”, “Big Data Innovations and Integration”, “Data Analytics and Visualization”, “Information Delivery and Collaboration” or “Strategy and Architecture” is relevant to you? It sounds all well and good for the BI team, who’s thinking about cubes and models and report subscriptions and Power something, but that’s not you.

The problem is that as data professionals, we’re no longer just database administrators. The world has become more demanding than that. Maybe it’s because of the financial difficulties that the western world has been facing. Maybe it’s because we’ve out-grown our jobs as database administrators. Maybe we’re simply being asked for more than we were before.

Now more than ever before, if you’re a data professional, you need to be thinking about more than just transaction logs, corruption checking, and backups. You need to be thinking about the overall data story. You can tune your databases to cope with the large amount of data that’s pouring into them, as more and more systems produce consumable data. You can work with your developers to help them understand the significance of indexes to be able to get the data out faster. But is this really enough?

Today, we need to be strategic about the data. An increasing number of companies are moving their data to the cloud, where the need for database administrators is not quite the same as it has been in the past. There are a number of tools out there to allow you to manage hundreds, even thousands of database servers, putting pressure on you to be providing more from your role.

And then you get asked into meetings! People more senior than you asking about what can be done with the data. Can you offer more than just a comment about how much they can trust you to make sure their data is available?

This is why you need to be looking at things like the Business Analytics Conference. It’s because you need to know how to make the data that you look after more relevant to the organisation who entrusts you with it. You need to know how to get insight from that data. You need to know how to visualise it effectively. You need to know how to make it visible through portals such as SharePoint.

And you need to know WHY these things are important.

Either that, or you need to call in external consultants, who can provide these kind of services. You know how to get in touch. ;)

@rob_farley

PS: I should mention that I’m on the PASS board, so I see a lot of stuff about this conference. I’m not part of the organising committee at all though, and have been remarkably separate from the whole process. I do consider that this conference is about helping people achieve more within the data space, and that’s something I think more people should be taken advantage of.

Portfolio changeover time for the PASS board

rob_farley — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 05:13:33 GMT

The last PASS board meeting for the year has happened, and the portfolio handovers are well under way.

Sadly, having new board members elected means having existing board members step down, and this last board meeting was the last one for both Allen Kinsel (@sqlinsaneo) and Kendal van Dyke (@sqldba). In 2012, these guys had the portfolios of local chapters and SQL Saturdays, respectively.

Newly elected board member Wendy Pastrick (@wendy_dance) is taking over from Allen on local chapters, while I’m taking over SQL Saturdays from Kendal. In 2012, my portfolio was 24 Hours of PASS, which is being rolled into the Virtual Chapters portfolio, headed still by Denise McInerney (@denisemc06).

I have to admit that I’m really excited that the 24HOP portfolio is being merged with Virtual Chapters, as the two are so linked. I had been on the 24HOP committee before I joined the PASS board, and had recommended that the two portfolios be merged around the time I was elected to the board. During my term I even recruited Virtual Chapter leaders to be on the committee for 24HOP, as I believe their experience in the online experience makes them best suited to influence PASS’ premier online event – the semi-annual 24HOP.

2012 was a good year for 24HOP, although it was the riskiest for some time as well.

Two of the more obvious changes that we made were to look at a new platform, and to return to the 24-hours straight format (rather than two 12-hour blocks). This more continuous format meant that numbers dropped (the largest audience is in the US, so any sessions that are overnight for the US are obviously going to have smaller attendance). However, this format meant we reached over 100 different countries, which I think was really significant. Comparing the first 2012 event with the first 2011 event (which used the 2x12 format), we jumped from reaching 54 countries in 2011 to 104 in 2012.

While I was still on the committee, we had discussed the need for a new platform, as the LiveMeeting platform wasn’t coping well with the numbers we were seeing. A number of options had been considered, some too expensive, some not capable of scaling sufficiently, and a decision had been made to use a platform called IBTalk. It was obviously more expensive than LiveMeeting (which had been available for free), but looked like it was going to scale much more nicely. We used it for both 2012 events and it will also be used for the next event (on Jan 30). The decision to use IBTalk was very risky, but as an experiment it seemed to work okay. There were both good and bad elements of the platform, which I’m not going to go into in a forum like this, although the second event that we used IBTalk for ended up being much smoother than the first, and I anticipate that the Jan30 event will be event smoother still.

I felt like the first event of 2012 was dominated by the new platform. It was held two weeks after the SQL Server 2012 launch, which had also been a large virtual event using a new platform. I guess experimenting with new platforms was a large topic of discussion that month. One thing that didn’t really work for us was the closed captioning. It turns out that when you have someone providing closed captioning live, any typos that come through, or anything that is misheard by the person providing the service, etc… well, it doesn’t always work for being able to feed a translation service. We tried, and it was good to try – but it didn’t work so well. Despite all that, PASS members can view the session recordings at http://www.sqlpass.org/24hours/spring2012/Home.aspx

The main 24HOP event in the second half of the year was the annual Summit Preview event. We didn’t try to pursue the closed captioning again, but we did continue with IBTalk. Going back to LiveMeeting was never going to be an option for us, and we wanted to take a second look at the platform, in light of the various things we’d learned from the experience in Q1. It was a better experience from a number of perspectives, and we certainly got to test the scalability.

Over the course of the day, we had good numbers – only a handful shy of 10,000 attendees across the course of the day (okay, a handful if you count fingers, toes, and were inbred – we had 9979). The lowest attendances were around the 100 mark, but the largest reached 1421 attendees. The highest from any previous events was around the 800 mark, so this was a significant improvement – and the platform handled it just fine. If we’d had that many people trying to access the LiveMeeting platform it simply wouldn’t’ve coped, and the IBTalk platform deserves praise for that.

The platform decision isn’t over yet. A new search has taken place in light of what we’ve learned in the past year, and including a lot of what people have expressed to us on platforms such as Twitter. There are platforms that are way out of our price range (it can be very expensive to present 10,000 man-hours of content using some platforms), and there are ones that won’t cope with some of the things we would like to do. With some of the Virtual Chapters growing fast, a new platform needs to be able to cope with them too, with a wide variety of attendances needing to be handled. I wish Denise all the best for that, and have been able to happily assure her that the PASS HQ team that does most of the work behind the scenes for 24HOP (particularly Jane and Vicki) is excellent and will make her look brilliant this year.

Another change in 2012 was the sponsorship story. For a long time, Dell had been a major sponsor of 24HOP, and I want to thank them for that. However, 24HOP wasn’t a priority for them in 2012, and new sponsors needed to be found. The first event saw sponsorship come in from Microsoft, SQL Sentry and Idera, with Idera being replaced by RSSBus for the second event. But what really excited me was to see a second tier of sponsors join the fray, with Melissa Data and Confio joining Idera as ‘Alliance Sponsors’. It was really good to have six fantastic companies sponsoring the event, and providing extra options for them.

I haven’t even mentioned the non-English events that have taken place! PASS has seen 24HOP events in Russian, Portuguese and Spanish this year, although my personal involvement with those events have been somewhat less. Again, the PASS HQ staff have been great in enabling these events, and helping them run smoothly.

So I leave 24HOP in capable hands.

Instead, I pick up the SQL Saturday portfolio – another fast-growing facet of PASS. Already the 200th SQL Saturday event has been scheduled, and I’m finding myself getting onto a moving train. Luckily, I won’t be battling anyone on the roof Bond-style, but there are a lot of things that will need attention to make sure that the SQL Saturday model can continue to be successful.

The PASS HQ staff most responsible for the SQL Saturdays that happen all around the world are Karla and Niko. If you’ve ever met either of these two, you’ll know that they run quickly and are nothing if not achievers. I suspect that I could just tell them to keep doing their thing and the portfolio would be considered successful. This is incredibly useful to me, because I should be able to focus on identifying and solving some of the things that might need to change as these events become larger in both size and number. I’m keen to look into some of the edge cases, such as international events (including non-English), and both the larger and smaller events that are around – but all the time trying to serve Niko, Karla and all the community leaders in what they do.

@rob_farley

A wee bit exhausted… time to reenergize

drsql — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 02:26:00 GMT

I admit it. I am tired and I have not blogged nearly enough. This has been a crazy year, with the book I finished writing, the pre-cons I have done (teaching is NOT my primary profession so I do a lot more prep than some others probably do), lots of training on Data Warehousing topics (from Ralph Kimball, Bob Becker, and Stacia Misner, to name three of the great teachers I have had), SQL Rally, SQL PASS, SQL Saturdays and I have gotten a lot more regular with my simple-talk blog as well… Add to this the fact that my daughter added a new grandchild to the family, and my mother has started to get so weak she is starting to fall down quite often (I am writing this blog entry from a spare bedroom at my mother-in-law’s house while my mom is in rehab!) and I am getting exhausted.

Am I whining? Probably, but it is my blog! No, seriously I figure that occasionally you have to poke your head out from under the covers and write something and this is my something until after the New Year (other than posting a few already written and edited simple-talk blogs). I am on vacation from work for 2.5 weeks, and I don’t plan to do much with this laptop of mine for those two weeks unless the spirit hits me with an idea for a blog that I just have to write, but usually most of my blogs that have any technical or artistic merit take weeks to complete. On the second of January, I hope to be back at it, analyzing my resolutions from last year, and making good on a few of them, particularly “Blog about my other (computer) love occasionally” and review some of the gadgets I have acquired as they pertain to doing my job as a writer/data architect. (Hint: My mother-in-law does not have Internet access, so some of the devices I have here are instrumental in my ability to work untethered for weeks on end.)

So until next year, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year! I hope your holidays are restful and fun. I know part of mine will be because I intend to replicate this picture at least one or two more times next week, hopefully with a Turkey Leg in the hand that isn’t holding the camera taking the picture (all with my Windows Phone set on Battery Saver Mode, which delightfully turns off all syncing :)

SQL Community – stronger than ever

rob_farley — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 10:43:08 GMT

I posted a few hours ago about a reflection of the Summit, but I wanted to write another one for this month’s T-SQL Tuesday, hosted by Chris Yates.

In January of this year, Adam Jorgensen and I joked around in a video that was used for the SQL Server 2012 launch. We were asked about SQLFamily, and we said how we were like brothers – how we could drive each other crazy (the look he gave me as I patted his stomach was priceless), but that we’d still look out for each other, just like in a real family.

And this is really true.

Last week at the PASS Summit, there was a lot going on. I was busy as always, as were many others. People told me their good news, their awful news, and some whinged to me about other people who were driving them crazy. But throughout this, people in the SQL Server community genuinely want the best for each other. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I don’t see much of this.

Australians aren’t big on cheering for each other. Neither are the English. I think we see it as an American thing. It could be easy for me to consider that the SQL Community that I see at the PASS Summit is mainly there because it’s a primarily American organisation. But when you speak to people like sponsors, or people involved in several types of communities, you quickly hear that it’s not just about that – that PASS has something special. It goes beyond cheering, it’s a strong desire to see each other succeed.

I see MVPs feel disappointed for those people who don’t get awarded. I see Summit speakers concerned for those who missed out on the chance to speak. I see chapter leaders excited about the opportunity to help other chapters. And throughout, I see a gentleness and love for people that you rarely see outside the church (and sadly, many churches don’t have it either).

Chris points out that the M-W dictionary defined community as “a unified body of individuals”, and I feel like this is true of the SQL Server community. It goes deeper though. It’s not just unity – and we’re most definitely different to each other – it’s more than that. We all want to see each other grow. We all want to pull ourselves up, to serve each other, and to grow PASS into something more than it is today.

In that other post of mine I wrote a bit about Paul White’s experience at his first Summit. His missus wrote to me on Facebook saying that she welled up over it. But that emotion was nothing about what I wrote – it was about the reaction that the SQL Community had had to Paul. Be proud of it, my SQL brothers and sisters, and never lose it.

Summit reflections

rob_farley — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 06:05:07 GMT

So far, my three PASS Summit experiences have been notably different to each other.

My first, I wasn’t on the board and I gave two regular sessions and a Lightning Talk in which I told jokes.

My second, I was a board advisor, and I delivered a precon, a spotlight and a Lightning Talk in which I sang.

My third (last week), I was a full board director, and I didn’t present at all.

Let’s not talk about next year. I’m not sure there are many options left.

This year, I noticed that a lot more people recognised me and said hello. I guess that’s potentially because of the singing last year, but could also be because board elections can bring a fair bit of attention, and because of the effort I’ve put in through things like 24HOP... Yeah, ok. It’d be the singing.

My approach was very different though. I was watching things through different eyes. I looked for the things that seemed to be working and the things that didn’t. I had staff there again, and was curious to know how their things were working out. I knew a lot more about what was going on behind the scenes to make various things happen, and although very little about the Summit was actually my responsibility (based on not having that portfolio), my perspective had moved considerably.

Before the Summit started, Board Members had been given notebooks – an idea Tom (who heads up PASS’ marketing) had come up with after being inspired by seeing Bill walk around with a notebook. The plan was to take notes about feedback we got from people. It was a good thing, and the notebook forms a nice pair with the SQLBits one I got a couple of years ago when I last spoke there. I think one of the biggest impacts of this was that during the first keynote, Bill told everyone present about the notebooks. This set a tone of “we’re listening”, and a number of people were definitely keen to tell us things that would cause us to pull out our notebooks.

PASSTV was a new thing this year. Justin, the host, featured on the couch and talked a lot of people about a lot of things, including me (he talked to me about a lot of things, I don’t think he talked to a lot people about me). Reaching people through online methods is something which interests me a lot – it has huge potential, and I love the idea of being able to broadcast to people who are unable to attend in person. I’m keen to see how this medium can be developed over time.

People who know me will know that I’m a keen advocate of certification – I've been SQL certified since version 6.5, and have even been involved in creating exams. However, I don’t believe in studying for exams. I think training is worthwhile for learning new skills, but the goal should be on learning those skills, not on passing an exam. Exams should be for proving that the skills are there, not a goal in themselves. The PASS Summit is an excellent place to take exams though, and with an attitude of professional development throughout the event, why not?

So I did. I wasn’t expecting to take one, but I was persuaded and took the MCM Knowledge Exam. I hadn’t even looked at the syllabus, but tried it anyway. I was very tired, and even fell asleep at one point during it. I’ll find out my result at some point in the future – the Prometric site just says “Tested” at the moment. As I said, it wasn’t something I was expecting to do, but it was good to have something unexpected during the week.

Of course it was good to catch up with old friends and make new ones. I feel like every time I’m in the US I see things develop a bit more, with more and more people knowing who I am, who my staff are, and recognising the LobsterPot brand. I missed being a presenter, but I definitely enjoyed seeing many friends on the list of presenters. I won’t try to list them, because there are so many these days that people might feel sad if I don’t mention them. For those that I managed to see, I was pleased to see that the majority of them have lifted their presentation skills since I last saw them, and I happily told them as much. One person who I will mention was Paul White, who travelled from New Zealand to his first PASS Summit. He gave two sessions (a regular session and a half-day), packed large rooms of people, and had everyone buzzing with enthusiasm. I spoke to him after the event, and he told me that his expectations were blown away. Paul isn’t normally a fan of crowds, and the thought of 4000 people would have been scary. But he told me he had no idea that people would welcome him so well, be so friendly and so down to earth. He’s seen the significance of the SQL Server community, and says he’ll be back.

It’ll be good to see him there. Will you be there too?