Louis Davidson just asked me why I write, and now Bob Pusateri (@sqlbob) is asking me why I present, which is his question for this month’s T-SQL Tuesday. If you didn’t follow the link to see his actual question, you’ll need to know that he actually posed the question “How did you come to love presenting?” Well, sometimes I don’t, but on the ...

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 ...

Or SSIS 2012? SSRS 2012? SSAS 2012? There’s no substitute for getting your hands on the product, in my opinion. I can hear you thinking, “But Andy, I can’t afford to purchase a copy of SQL Server 2012.” Are you sure? What if I told you that you can get a full-feature version of SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition for $50? Well, you cannot… it’s ...

Research, Contemplate, Vote. In case you didn't hear, there is a campaign going on that impacts the PASS Organization and the SQL Community.  If you were a PASS member before June 1, 2012, you should have received a ballot link via email.  Polls close at 3pm PT on Friday, Oct 12, 2012. I am fortunate to know all 5 candidates for ...

I don’t tend to find that anything about me gets described as “Fabulous”. It’s not a word I ever use myself, so I was slightly amused to see it here. It’s going to be an interesting week (in May, Monday 14th to Saturday 19th), in which I have two stints in classrooms (the three day course in downtown Chicago and this pre-con), plus two ...

This coming Tuesday sees a midweek SQL Saturday hit Adelaide. LobsterPot’s a sponsor, as are a bunch of other companies. An all day event, with two tracks featuring some of the best material you’ve ever seen presented. I’m presenting too. The thing I really want to draw your attention to is that we have two sessions from Paul White. If you ...

A few days after the end of 24HOP, I find myself reflecting on it. I’m still waiting on most of the information. I want to be able to discover things like where the countries represented on each of the sessions, and things like that. So far, I have the feedback scores and the numbers of attendees. The data was provided in a PDF, so while I wait ...

There’s a bunch of stuff going on at the moment in the SQL world, so if you’ve missed this particular piece of news, let me tell you a bit about it. Twice a year, the SQL community puts on its biggest virtual event – 24 Hours of PASS. And the next one is tomorrow – March 21st, 2012. Twenty-four sessions, back-to-back, featuring a selection of ...

As I finish up preparing for the Sep 20 (@1pm ET) webcast, I thought a final blog post may be appropriate in order to quickly reference many of the areas that I have touched upon.  Naturally, much of this information is geared towards First Timers, but Alumni are welcome to join in the webcast as well and are encouraged to help spread even ...

Now that I have covered just about all of the ''official'' Summit activities, it is time for a blog post about ''After Hours'' activities. There is a webpage that lists some of the activities that we are currently aware of.  You can find that page here. Monday Night Networking Dinner - Last year, Andy Warren and Steve Jones started a ...