I was surprised and honored to be mentioned by leadership expert Evan Carmichael as one of the top leadership Twitter experts for March 2013.  Not only did I make the top 100, I came in at 12!  If you weren't aware of my leadership training specially geared for IT professionals, check out ForITPros.com, as well as my DVD ...

I just got this email from LinkedIn about my profile (that's http://www.linkedin.com/in/kekline in clear text). Hi Kevin,Recently, LinkedIn reached a new milestone: 200 million members. But this isn't just our achievement to celebrate — it's also yours.I want to personally thank you for being part of our community. ...

Ok, I have to admit the painful truth. I'm reliably slow to the finish line. This year, I got my slides into PASS HQ by the skin of my teeth, the weekend before the event was to begin.  Although I could say with a straight face ''I uploaded my slides!''.  I have to be honest that I wasn't surprised when many of my attendees said that ...

PASS SQL Saturdays are free 1-day training events for IT professionals interested in Microsoft SQL Server, providing a variety of high-quality technical sessions, all happen through the efforts of local volunteers.  The leadership team of the local chapter of PASS here in Nashville (Facebook | LinkedIn) have ...

Let’s get one thing clear right off the bat – I’m not typing “Board of Directors” repeatedly throughout this blog post. It’s just too much typing. BoD will have to do. Live with it. Perhaps, you’ve been paying attention to the PASS Twitter feed, read the newsletters, or otherwise stay abreast of happenings within PASS. If you haven’t, here’s ...

This might be most most overcommitted four-week period of time ever in my life. I’m tired just thinking about it! Not only am I traveling internationally and speaking over the next few weeks, I’m also helping on two book projects, learning some new applications from Quest Software, and helping on a small Transact-SQL refactoring project. Swag ...

I'm being a little bit incendiary with that title. Many IT pros grow into very good managers. But it almost never comes naturally. It takes hard work and many hard won lessons before most of us ever achieve a degree of skill and comfort with managing other people. Thinking about moving into management? Help is here! I've been spending the ...

Looking back on 2011, I'm surprised by two occurances. First, I got a lot of work done, despite myself. My biggest obstacles to high-performance are all self-derived; procrastination, disorganization, and plain ol' laziness. Second, I'm surprised I survived my personal travails. I've had my fill of frowns this year, from wayward children to ...

The last quarter of the year is usually my busiest due to the fantastic PASS Summit and SQLBits events. The fall looks a little different ... BECAUSE IT WILL BE EVEN BUSIER! Here's a rundown of where I'll be this fall through mid-October:   BASTA! SQLCON.NET September 26 to 29; Mainz, Germany This big developer and admin conference ...

In last month's column, ''2012 Might Really Be the End of the World as We Know It,'' I described a number of major developments in the IT industry that are likely to disrupt the life of database professionals everywhere.  I categorize those four disruptors - virtualization, cloud computing, solid state drives (SSD), and advanced ...