Tag: pass

SQLSaturday #136: Done & Dusted!
Phew! It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m starting to feel relatively normal again after a few hectic days doing the final prep work for yesterday’s SQLSaturday #136 here in Wellington, New Zealand.

In the Beginning

Preparation for the event started 3 months ago with Rob Farley asking whether I’d be interested in organising a SQLSaturday event in Wellington, as part of a “SQLSaturday ANZ Tour” that he was keen to co-ordinate.

There were 5 sister–events planned across Australia, and over the following weeks and months all the various organisers had several catch-ups (voice conferences, online meetings, etc) to figure out things like branding, sponsorship levels, speakers, etc. It was quite useful having a range of opinions and view-points to draw from.

The Venue

My first issue was finding a venue that wasn’t going to break the bank, and that would comfortably accommodate the 100-or-so attendees I was hoping to attract.

I’ve attended a few Code Camps and past PASS events at the Whitireia Polytechnic campus in Porirua, and a colleague of mine, Moana – who was my right-hand-(wo)man in organising this thing – was a former student of the Polytech, and so had some good connections to tap into.

We quickly found out that they were happy to have us back, and wouldn’t charge us a thing! Very nice. I honestly don’t think we could’ve found a better venue regardless of how much we had paid. Sure, it’s not in the central city, but the combination of spacious facilities, technical know-how, super-star staff willing to bend over backwards to help set everything up, and the free price tag made it a no-brainer.

The Speakers

The venue sorted, my next concern was being able to find enough quality speakers, and my fears seemed justified as the call-for-speakers went out and just 2 or 3 sessions dribbled in over the next week or two.

In fact, I think the speakers were just screwing with my sanity, because most seemed to wait until the call-for-speakers period was nearly over before submitting sessions.

I was pleasantly surprised at not just the number of sessions submitted for our humble little Wellington event, but also the quality.

I knew quite a few of the speakers, and had seen most of them present at previous PASS, Tech Ed or user group events, and so knew we were well sorted for quality sessions. My biggest concern now was choosing which sessions to cut (fortunately I could squeeze in at least 1 session from most of the speakers who submitted).

In the end we had (in alphabetical order):
Massive thanks again to these folks for making the effort to prepare, and in some cases travel long distances, to present at our SQLSaturday event.

On the Day

It was an early start, with me wondering why I thought it was a good idea to catch up with some of the speakers (and a couple of my colleagues) for a few drinks the night before. Next time I’ll definitely wait until the Saturday night before “unwinding”.

I had my 2 older daughters running around with me sticking up signs around the venue, while Moana and my wife organised the registration area. Before I knew it there was a queue of attendees lined up and collecting their name tags, raffle tickets, etc.

It was all on!

Moana very kindly did a quick welcome and house-keeping session outside in the atrium area, after which we jumped straight into the 1st sessions. We ran 2 tracks of 7 sessions each, one slightly more focused on BI-related topics, although there was some overlap. We didn’t hold back, and opened up with the big guns; Peter Ward and Rob Farley going head-to-head, with both getting good turn outs.

I ran around like a blue-arsed-fly (as they say) for most of the day, so didn’t spend more than 10 minutes in any one session, which was a pity since there were at least half a dozen that I would’ve loved to have seen!

By the end of the day we’d lost probably half of our attendees – it was a long day and perhaps I tried to fit in too much in too little time, but all good to know for next time. So apologies to Reza and Peter who were speaking in that final slot, and so had less of an audience than earlier sessions.

After the Event

About 20 of us (attendees, volunteers, & speakers) headed to a local Asian Restaurant for a meal and a few drinks to celebrate a busy day.

I can’t report on any misbehavior because I called it quits by 9:30pm (my bed was calling me) – but I know that at least a few speakers were planning an all-nighter due to an early flight making any sleep pointless. I’ll need to make enquiries as to how they got on.

Thanks Again!

Yet another big thanks to everyone who made this possible; those who presented, attended, or helped in any other way. Thanks to my employer (Trade Me) for not only being a sponsor, but also for giving me the time to organise things – and apologies to anyone in the office who’s print jobs were held up by my many runs to the printer for name badges, tickets, signs, etc.

All in all an enjoyable event, and something I’d (probably) be happy to do again in future – if the attendees got value from it (guess I’ll need to review the feedback forms). If you are reading this and attended (or presented), and have any comments, feel free to leave them below or email them directly to me.

Cheers,
Dave

PS: To see more of my (crappy iPhone) photos of the event, check out our user group Facebook or Flickr pages. Pro-tip for anyone else organising an event like this; have a decent camera on hand.
2012-04-15
What a turn-out!
I’ve been a little busy over the past few weeks; what with us taking a planned outage at work to perform a fairly major upgrade of both server hardware and clustering software, the Wellington SQL Server User Group keeping me on my toes as usual, and finally the up-coming Wellington SQLSaturday event we’re planning for April.

That last point is what I ‘m getting all excited about (well, as excited as I get at 01:20 on a Saturday morning). Our call for speakers closed a few days ago, and we seriously hit the jackpot as far as sessions go.

Initially I was panicking that we wouldn’t have enough content for a single track (let alone the 2 I was hoping to have) – but now my biggest problem is that I have more than twice the number of sessions as timeslots available (yes, even across 2 tracks!). This is a good problem to have.

I’m going to try to finish off and publish the schedule by early next week – but until then here’s a sneak peak at the speaker list (this is by no means a complete list – just a few names I can remember off the top of my head):
Between the various speakers, we’ve got a nice mix of topics covering everything from core SQL Server internals through to a range of Business Intelligence related sessions. There should definitely be something for all skill levels.

Don’t miss out – head on over to the SQLSaturday website to get more info about the event, when and where it is, how to register, etc. See you there!

Cheers,
Dave
2012-03-17
SQL Saturday is coming to Wellington

The title pretty much says it all; we’ve got a SQL Saturday event confirmed for Wellington, on the 14th of April 2012! Rob Farley and a few other folks from PASS are organising 6 SQL Saturday events in a row across Australia and New Zealand (well, 1 in New Zealand), and are calling it the “ANZ SQL Saturday Tour”. Visit the website to register your attendance, or to find more information regarding the venue, sessions, etc.

I’m helping to organise things from this end, and the thing that’ll make this an awesome event is getting top-notch speakers lined up to present. So whether you’re a seasoned veteran, or you’re nervously thinking about getting into speaking, get in touch (or go directly to the SQL Saturday website to register your intended session’s details).

If you’re new to speaking, give me a shout and we can talk about organising a “trial run” at the local SQL user group, or we could look at putting a “lightning talks” session together where each speaker only presents for 5-10 minutes.

If you need help deciding on a topic to present – keep in mind that we’re hoping to get a good spread of “traditional” DBA and DB dev topics, as well as a range of BI-related stuff – so pretty much anything (SQL-related) goes. 🙂 There’s also a whole raft of SQL 2012 topics that would be very relevant.

Keep an eye on the Twitter hash tags #sqlsat136 (specific to this event) or #SQLSatANZ (specific to the tour) for more information as it unfolds.

See you there!

Cheers
DB Dave

2012-02-20
Wellington SQL Server User Group

A few weeks ago I was asked to take over the running of the Wellington SQL Server User Group by the original founder of the group. I had been wanting to get more involved in the local SQL community, and last year kicked that off by speaking at 3 different user groups and Tech Ed New Zealand. So I was pretty keen to take the reins – even though it’s going to add to an already hectic work life.

In case you’re wondering what this user group thing is; its the Wellington chapter of PASS, and we’re a volunteer group who organise monthly presentations or training sessions on topics related to Microsoft SQL Server – from database administration and development, to business intelligence and data mining.

I’ve been meeting with a handful of the other volunteers over the past 2 weeks to discuss new ideas, how to freshen things up, etc; and now the job begins of lining up speakers. We usually take a break over December & January, so the first scheduled meeting is the 3rd Thursday in February – which is approaching faster than I’d like (so if you’re keen to present on a topic related to SQL Server in some way, or database development in general, then please get in touch with me!).

Otherwise, if you live in or around Wellington, New Zealand, then please sign up for our mailing list and come along to our monthly sessions. I’m sure you’ll meet enough new people and learn enough new things to make it worth your while (plus there’s pizza and beer, so what’s not to like?). You can keep an eye on either our PASS or MS Communities websites for updates on speakers, dates, and venues.

Cheers
DB Dave

2012-01-12
PASS Summit trip wrap-up

I left for the US just over 2 weeks’ ago to attend the PASS Summit in Seattle, followed by a week in San Francisco doing the tourist thing.

Basically, the Summit was awesome. The pre-con sessions were amazing (and intense!) – I think my brain was physically stretched during Itzik Ben-Gan’s session on advanced T/SQL.

I attended quite a few level-400 & 500 sessions on SQL Server internals, memory management, etc, as well as some “peripheral” topics like Event Notifications and Bob Ward’s excellent “Inside TempDB” session.

I got along to the networking dinner at Lowell’s on Monday night, where I met & had dinner (and a few drinks) with Sarah Barela (blog|twitter) and Andrew Calvett (blog|twitter) which was a nice start to the week. I also managed to see a little of Seattle on the weekends before and after the Summit, and got some nice photos along the way.

I’ve definitely arrived back at work feeling re-energised, and with lots of new ideas about different ways of monitoring our systems, troubleshooting existing problem areas, and how to better architect new features in future.

After PASS, I flew down to San Francisco where I had decided to stay for a week (it’s a long way to travel from New Zealand to the US just for 1 week). I hired a Harley Fat Boy for 4 days and got out around Northern California a bit which was awesome. No planned routes, just a rough idea, and I rode each day until I was tired and then looked for a motel to stay the night.

I ended up travelling from San Francisco up the coast to Monte Rio, then up through Fort Bragg and around to Clear Lakes, then across to Lake Tahoe, down to Placerville, and back to San Francisco by Thursday afternoon.

An amazing experience, and one I’ll definitely try to do again (maybe with my wife next time).

The one very sad thing that happened while I was away though was that South African were knocked out of the Rugby World Cup. But at least New Zealand ended up winning it, so I can kinda half claim that as a home team victory I guess.

Cheers,
Dave

2011-10-28
How’s the weather in Seattle?
PASS Summit

I’m fortunate enough to be heading to Seattle this weekend for the PASS Summit courtesy of my employer (thanks again!). It’s my first visit the the US as well, so I’m extra-excited!

The weather here (in Wellington, New Zealand) is pretty average at the moment – I still haven’t completely dried out after this evening’s motorcycle ride home. So I really hope the weather in Seattle is going to be better next week.

As for the Summit itself, I think I’ve prepared as well as possible;
- I’ve enrolled in the “first-timers” program, which pairs small groups of new-comers with someone (aka. the “big brother/sister”) who’s well versed in the ins and outs of the summit week’s activities.
- I’ve read far too many blog posts about what to expect, what to do, what not to do, what to bring, where to eat & drink, etc. But they were worth reading.
- I watched Brent Ozar PLF’s video of tips and tricks.
- I’ve been keeping an eye on Twitter, specifically the #firsttimers and #SQLPASS hash tags.
I’m going to try to wrap up any lose ends at work tomorrow, and will then have a think about what I specifically want to get out of the Summit, and any technical issues I can raise with the many smart people I’m likely to bump into over the course of next week.

After the Summit

How’s the weather in San Francisco? ‘Cos that’s where I’m heading for the week after the conference. I fly into San Fran next Saturday evening, will spend Sunday poking around the city a little, and then on Monday morning I’m off for 4 days on a rented Harley Fat Boy. Very much looking forward to that! I’m planning to ride a circular route east of San Francisco, maybe as far as Carson City, and down as far as Fresno on the return leg.

I’ve spoken to someone who did a very similar ride, so have some idea of distances and how far I can expect to ride each day – but I won’t really know until I’m there, in the saddle so to speak. I’ve even been growing out the beard a bit to complete the leather-clad ensemble.

Awesome…

Bad timing

The only bad bit of luck I’ve run into so far is that my return flight in 2 weeks’ time is at the same time as the final of the Rugby World Cup. *

This is a problem. In case you didn’t already know, I’m a South African, and South Africa is home to the Springboks (aka the best rugby team in the world). I grew up on a diet of rugby, I played rugby at school, I played rugby after school… you get the picture. In other words, I have high hopes that South Africa will win the World Cup (again).

So please, when I get off the plane in Auckland, could the entire country act as if nothing’s happened until after I watch the recorded game? Thanks.

* For those of you in countries unfortunate enough to not play the game, rugby is kind of like football, except the ball is oval, you carry it instead of dribbling it along the ground, and the players are real men (not drama-queen-cry-baby-pussies). And yes America, you guys do actually have a team playing in the World Cup.

Cheers,
DB Dave
2011-10-05