In the Fifth Rules of Holes, you were encouraged to seek help from others in order to extricate youself from the Hole. And it should have been clear in that Rule that you want to seek out those that can actually help you. Not everyone, or just anyone, will be able to help you get out of a Hole. Hopefully, you have a mentor, or will take the ...

You are moving along, doing good work, maintaining a steady pace. All seems to be going well for you. Then BAM!, a Hole just grabbed you. How the heck did that happen? What went wrong? How did you fall into a Hole? Definitely, you will want to do a post-mortem and try to tease out what misteps led you into the Hole. Certainly you will want to use ...

I took the SQL 2008 MCM Knowledge exam while in Seattle for the PASS Summit ten days ago. I wasn’t planning to do it, but I got persuaded to try. I was meaning to write this post to explain myself before the result came out, but it seems I didn’t get typing quickly enough. Those of you who know me will know I’m a big fan of certification, to a ...

Some folks decry the concept of being in a 'Hole'. For them, there is no such thing as 'Technical Debt', no such thing as maintaining weak and wobbly legacy code, no such thing as bad designs, no such thing as under-skilled or poorly performing co-workers, no such thing as 'fighting fires', or no such thing as management that doesn't ...

You stopped digging. You looked around and saw that you were still in the Hole. You needed to get out. AHA! Problem solved, you thought. You'll just get a better and more efficient shovel!I regret to tell you that the Third Rule of Holes applies: Switching to a more efficient shovel is unlikely to help you get out of the Hole. ...

OK. So you followed the First Rule of Holes -you stopped digging yourself in deeper. But now what? You are still in a Hole. Your situation has not changed much, but at least you are no longer making it worse. You need to redirect the digging effort into escape and avoidance efforts. The Hole has a singular purpose -consuming all of your ...

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 ...

You may have heard of the 'First Rule of Holes'. It goes something like this: ''When you suspect you might be in a hole, stop digging.'' That seems like obvious, and good advice, but what does it really mean? How does the Rule of Holes apply to you? How does it apply to your job? When things are not going right, stop doing the ...

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 ...

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 ...