Page 2 of 8

SQLSaturday Denver 2015

hopefoley Leave a comment

On the flight home now from the SQLSaturday in Denver. I was excited for this one! I had never been to Denver before, through it but never to it. That and there’s some wonderful #SQLFamily out there. I lucked out though, I had this SQLSaturday on my radar but didn’t know for sure when the cutoff for submissions was to end. I just happened to catch it and submit on the final day of submissions. Not sure if there were any tweet reminders for that but I didn’t catch any.  Anyway I got accepted to speak and do the new tabular session (yay more practice for Summit!).

***

I am not a hardcore road warrior like some, but I travel a decent bit. I don’t know if I have ever got a direct flight anywhere. I found one to Denver from Indy and was a good deal but it was with Frontier.  Flight was at 6:00am but for direct I was willing to sacrifice. I have never flown on Frontier before and holy cow! They charge $30 for carry on luggage! Other various odd weird charges too.  Just a little warning if you haven’t flown with them, check the crazy fees first.  So I get to Denver very early and catch up with my co-worker Meagan Longoria (Twitter | blog) who was speaking too. Working for a remote company, it’s a nice treat to be able to work with folks in person for a change.

Speaker dinner! Thanks again Carlos and Quanta Intelligence

Speaker dinner! Thanks again Carlos and Quanta Intelligence

After work we head to the speaker dinner at Citron Bistro. The restaurant was nice and was graciously sponsored by Carlos Bossy (Twitter | blog) from Quanta Intelligence.  The food was PHENOMENAL! It moved in to my top spot of speaker dinners. They had sit down menu with great choices and I went with lamb shanks. Holy moly! So good! Well done there organizers! Thank you Carlos! Very much appreciated that meal! And to top that off we got possibly my favorite speaker jacket ever as well.

Not one to post pics of food much (beer yes - food not as much). After one bite I got out my phone!

Not one to post pics of food much (beer yes – food not as much). After one bite I got out my phone!

My session on Saturday was in the next to last slot so I had intended to sleep in having such an early flight. So of course my eyes pop open at 5:15AM. Not having any excuses I get a workout in and some review on my slides/demos. Then head to the venue. It was an interesting site. I thought we were lost when we pulled into the parking lot. It was in a typical strip mall. After going inside was able to see it was very much a conference space and pretty nice. It was a bit tight in the through ways but worked out well. There wasn’t a speaker room but we found some space to congregate and worked it out.

***

Wish I could have attended more of the morning sessions but I’m always distracted by my own prep. I did sit in on some of Mike Fal’s (Twitter | blog) session as it was in my room prior to mine. He’s got a great speaking style and a definite enthusiasm for PowerShell.

***

So I get setup and start my session. I had a terrible issue with the projector. It would flash from time to time during my session. It also caused my slides to sometimes become about 3 inches wide. I have had issues with projectors in the past but this was a new one for me. Other than that it went well and demos worked for the most part. I only got 3 (of 17 attendees) to turn in feedback sheets which was a bit of a bummer but that’s the breaks.

David Klee scaring the bejeezus out of DBAs on VMs.

David Klee scaring the bejeezus out of DBAs on VMs.

After my session I sit in on David Klee’s (Twitter | blog) session. Man oh man it was a fantastic session! If you ever have a chance to see him speak, DO IT! His knowledge on virtualization is astounding. Coming from the SQL side of things, so much I never knew from the virtualization side. Really glad to see that session and learned so much! And he’s great speaker and just about the most likeable guy ever. Great job David!

Prize raffle at end of day

Prize raffle at end of day

After that wrapped up the day with a lot of great prizes. Then they had a little after party in the same venue which was different but nice. They had drinks and appetizers. After that we went to a place called Tavern Lowry which was good.  We were able to get a large table in an area on the patio on a gorgeous night. The poor waitress that had to deal with all of us!  Restaurant had a nice beer selection. By the way Denver, I think Titan IPA was my favorite that I tried while out there.

There's a whole lot of trouble (the after party).

There’s a whole lot of trouble (the after party).

After that we went to “Family Karaoke”. I was a little nervous when we pulled up as it had all blacked out windows and didn’t look, well like a place that should have “family” in the name. Going in, it was fine. It was a Korean karaoke place that had private rooms. We got one of the larger rooms. It was like few years ago in Indy, they have all these super odd Korean videos that play while you sing. Hilariously bizarre! And I even kinda/sorta sang, well just the chorus while Keith Tate (Twitter | blog) did Tupac on “Changes”.

Poor Tim

Poor Tim

Looking for songs not in Korean

Looking for songs not in Korean

Karaoke and snuggles

Karaoke and snuggles

Thanks so much organizers for having me out and doing a really great job on your event! I had a great time seeing old friends and making new ones. I hope I can work it out to come back some time!

Advertisement

Finally Made It To SQLSaturday Louisville!

hopefoley Leave a comment

Home now from SQLSaturday Louisville and wanted to get a blog post going while those SQLfamily good vibes are still fresh. It’s kind of a sad fact but this is the first time I have ever been to a SQLSaturday in Louisville. Being that I only live 2 hours away, it’s a bit tragic! It seemed like every year I had a commitment or it was held on my kids birthdays. Poor Mala (Twitter | blog) was probably thinking I would never make it but low and behold, it worked out this year!

They gave us personalized weapons!

They gave us personalized weapons!

So I head down around lunch on Friday to get to the speaker dinner. The ride down was fine except I still swear the Google navigation lady hates me. She took me through the boonies to get to 65 for some reason.  After finally getting there via the scenic route, I hadn’t given this session for a bit so spent some time telling the hotel walls about spatial data. After that I head over to the speaker dinner with David (Twitter|blog) and Wendy (Twitter|blog). The speaker dinner was at Boombozz pizza. The food was excellent! The room was a bit small but it worked out fine. They gave us these too (pic above) for speaker gifts! Love when can incorporate some hometown flair into speaker gifts. Wish Indy had more than race cars to work with on that note.

They really know how to take care of the speakers in Louisville!

They really know how to take care of the speakers in Louisville!

The day of the event I had hoped to sleep in but eyes bolt open at 6:00am (I’m old). Head over early and get situated at the event. The venue was walking distance from the hotels which was very nice (jealous of that). It was held at an Indiana Wesleyan as well (Indy was too). It was a nice facility and the layout was good. I normally can’t concentrate in sessions prior to mine so I just prepped and chatted it up the morning. My session was right after lunch which is nice for the extra setup time. Lunch by the way was excellent! They had barbecue that was really good. I heard there was a bit of a line but I snuck in early with the sponsors so I only heard of the lines.

***

My session went pretty well. I had a good bit of time to chat before the session started so got to yuck it up with some of the folks. I don’t know if anyone could tell but I felt the nerves a bit in the beginning. I realized while down there I hadn’t done a SQLSaturday since Cleveland! In February! Kind of shocking! The nerves worked their way out after I got going so that was good.

***

After my presentation I stayed in the same room to catch Rob Verell’s (Twitter) session on replication. I hadn’t seen him speak yet and knowing how funny he is, had to go see one of his sessions. Very much enjoyed it! I always enjoy sessions that have humor with tech content. You have to be careful to balance it though and he did that.

Replication session full of cowbell from Rob Verell

Replication session full of cowbell from Rob Verell

Next up I went to see Daniel Glenn’s (Twitter|blog) session on SharePoint. He had jokingly pouted that he wouldn’t have much of a crowd because of the topic. SharePoint and DBAs do not exactly have lovey dovey vibes. So I agreed to go to his session, even though I planned to anyway as I hadn’t seen him speak either. He is an excellent speaker and did a great job. Was nice to see some of the stuff that drives DBAs nuts (like GUIDs in db names) can be avoided if the SharePoint person knows what they are doing.

Daniel Glenn trying to bring the DBAs and SharePoints of the world together.

Daniel Glenn trying to bring the DBAs and SharePoints of the world together.

Then it was prize raffle time. Louisville had a tweet wall in the location where the raffle was held. This was a big hit and all the speakers took advantage of being goofy on Twitter and the wall during the raffle.  They also had someone speak who teaches tech to high school students.  I have always thought it would be great to expose high school students to data careers via SQLSaturdays but I haven’t had any luck making any contacts in my area yet.

Energetic tech high school teacher talking to the masses at end of day.

Energetic tech high school teacher talking to the masses at end of day.

After the raffle folks congregate to head out to dinner at the hotel out on the patio.  David Maxwell always has a guitar and plays for us while we relax a bit.

SQL chill session

SQL chill session

After that John Morehouse (Twitter|blog) leads us to potentially my favorite place for an afterparty, Ann Marie’s Bacon Bar.  I mean there may not have ever been a place that contained all the components SQLfamily enjoy: local non-chain place, bacon, great food, nice beer selection AND karaoke!  All these things in ONE PLACE!  We all had a blast!

"Friends in Low Places" going on right here.

“Friends in Low Places” going on right here.

Had a really great time in Louisville!  Thanks volunteers…you all really knocked it out of the park!  Really a top notch event and glad the planets finally aligned for me to come down.  Thanks so much for having me down to speak!  Definitely one I will add to the “must do” list!

Good times!

Good times!

Meagan has some real singing chops!

Meagan has some real singing chops!

Some of the SQL ladies having a good time at karaoke.

Some of the SQL ladies having a good time at karaoke.

SQLSaturday Indianapolis 2015 – Another Great Year!

hopefoley Leave a comment

Well I have survived another round being the lead organizer of SQLSaturday Indy. And now that I’ve had a bit of time to decompress, wanted to get a post out to detail some of my lessons learned. I always can use some good karma so hopefully will help some brave/crazy organizer soul down the line.

***

So the first lesson I learned this year is that Karla still rocks! And she deserves kudos/prizes/cash for putting up with all us organizers for ALL the SQLSaturdays held round the world. She is the PASS representation/liaison for us to PASS and it’s team of resources. They had an update to the backend system that organizers use back in May. There were some challenges from that but she always is so fast in getting us the help we need. Thank you Karla!

Some intense Jenga going on at the speaker dinner.

Some intense Jenga going on at the speaker dinner.

The second lesson is to test/workout the process to lookup a SpeedPASS to print prior to the morning of your event. I was a good girl and did as I was told to download all the SpeedPASSes the night before to a USB. I copied to 2 USBs just in case. You can never count on wifi and I had trouble with it on the laptop I was using to print SpeedPASSes.  I had to use my hotspot from my phone. Even though I was good and downloaded the SpeedPASSes, the names of the files do not contain the registered person’s name and they are pdfs. So the process I did to look them up was as follows:
1. I had to look up the person on the SQLSat admin site.
2. This then brought up the link to get to the pdf speedpass. I then right clicked and copied the link name.
3. Pasted the copied link into Notepad. This then would give you the guid-ish file name.
4. Copied the filename portion of the link.
5. Then pasted the filename into the search of the files on the USB to find the pdf for that person.

There may be a better way to do this…kind of hope so! Please let me know if there’s a better way.

***

Another thing I learned was that I need to have a plan for leftover food. I’m not sure what others do but I always feel I need to order the amount that folks paid for knowing it will be too much from dropoff.  I didn’t have a plan for it and was just forcing it on volunteers to take home but maybe we can find a group that can put some good use to it.

Team Foley at SQLSaturday Indy - LOVE YOU GUYS!

Team Foley at SQLSaturday Indy – LOVE YOU GUYS!

Next year I need to make sure to have some folks on the ready to clear/sweep the rooms after the final session is over. If you can imagine, speakers can get chatty at the end of the day *shock gasp*. I want to make sure everyone has chance at end of the day for the prizes so we try to wait till they’re all done. Also along those lines I also need to make sure to have someone ready to assist with prizes. Time REALLY stands still when you are trying to open raffle boxes with 200 people staring at you.

***

Another regret from this year is that we forgot to grab the camera when heading out very early in the morning to get to the venue.  I had it on a checklist but those only help when you look at them.  DOH! If anyone has any pictures would love to get them from you.

Wendy Pastrick doing some karaoke at the after after party.

Wendy Pastrick doing some karaoke at the after after party.

I want to thank again all my speakers who came to Indy! I hope we took good care of my sql peeps. They take away my Hoosier card if I don’t display that “Hoosier hospitality”. I want to thank my volunteers! You know who you are and you rock big time! I want to thank from the bottom of my heart, my family! You all got roped into this craziness that is SQLSaturday/SQLfamily and it’s all my fault! I am eternally grateful to you for all your help, support, and love! I get teary eyed thinking about how this event has become a family one. I hope the view you get into this event shows some of the goodness that drives my passion that takes me away from time to time.

Datazen – Connecting Drill Through to Navigation Apps

hopefoley 2 Comments

I just accomplished something very cool in Datazen and I couldn’t wait to share with everyone! I was working on a POC for a client with Datazen. We were doing some review and the client had an interesting request. We were going to add a drill through to information that would contain an address. The client said “If this could be a link that a phone’s navigation would recognize that would be slick”. I thought to myself “oh that would be very cool” and got a little nerd giddy at the thought of trying to do that.

 ***

After doing a little searching I found that you can link to a map using the format: http://maps.google.com/?q=term. The “term” portion is where you would update it with your search. So in my case I can put the address. It has flexibility as well so you can do something like this if you would want: http://maps.google.com/?q=statue of liberty.  When you use that link it brings up the map below.

Lady Liberty

Lady Liberty

Back in Datazen I created a Simple DataGrid that contained the fields I wanted to display including address. I then read the documentation on the Datazen website documentation for custom url drill throughs (http://www.datazen.com/docs/?article=server/drill_throughs_to_other_dashboards_or_custom_urls). The example made me think I had to have a selection be passed to the url. I didn’t want to do that, I just wanted it to pass a field I had displayed in my DataGrid.  However when I started playing with it, it showed my fields contained in the DataGrid as well! Sweet!  So I created a drill through for my DataGrid. In the expression window I put “http://maps.google.com/?q=” then selected the field (SimpleDataGrid3.Address).

***

When testing this drill through on my iPhone it didn’t work (insert sad trombone music).  It would kick me out of DataZen app and go to my home screen but nothing more. It was like it was trying to do something but wasn’t working. I did some more research and found this link (https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/ios/urlscheme). It refers to the url scheme to launch navigation from apps. So with information from that article I changed the beginning of my link to comgooglemapsurl://maps.google.com/?q=. I test again and it works!

The custom url drill through

The custom url drill through

When I clicked the drill through it would open Apple Maps with that address displayed. Cool egh?! It also then reminded me that I hadn’t changed my default to Google maps which is now resolved as well.

Datazen Custom Map Craziness

hopefoley 13 Comments

I often struggle coming up with ideas for blog posts. Thank you Datazen again for another idea!  After encountering the issue I posted earlier (link to post) when working with maps, I was very anxious to try to create a custom map.  I started working on one with my brewery data.  I ran into several bumps in the process so wanted to share with everyone.

 ***

I had collected several shapefiles through the years playing with spatial data.  I began trying a few of them in Datazen but had a hard time finding any that worked. When I would select them, they would just hang and sit there. Some were very large so I suspected there was a size limit though there wasn’t anything in the documentation. In my testing I couldn’t get anything over 1MB to work. Later Chris Finlan said that the actual limit is 512 KB! Rather limiting but there is a potential workaround by using mapshaper.org to minimize the size. Depending on what type of shapefile you are using it can distort your polygons potentially too much so that workaround only goes so far.

Tweet from Chris Finlan on shapefile size.

Tweet from Chris Finlan on shapefile size.

After getting the size issue nailed down, I continued on with my mission of getting my custom map working. Normally when you use shapefiles they contain a few files. Datazen uses the shp file and dbf file. The shp file contains the polygon information and details to draw the map. The dbf file contains the attributes about those shapes or the data you’ll need to tie to your own data. Below is a screenshot of my dbf file using DBF Viewer 2000 software (free trial then about $50 to purchase after 30 days at http://www.dbf2002.com/).

The original dbf file

The original dbf file

You can see it has a key field (ogr_fid) then zcta5ce10 which is actually field that contains zip code. The zcta5ce10 field is the key I needed to use to tie with my own data containing zip codes. When you use Datazen you can’t select the proper key, and as it turns out it must have the key as the first column in the dbf file! Crazy right?! Using the DBF Viewer 2000 software, I had move the column to be the first in the dbf file.

Updated dbf file to move key column to be first.

Updated dbf file to move key column to be first.

After a bit of head shaking I move on and at this point I was excited to see my custom map working! But wait, why is my data point not where I expect it to be? I was mapping zip codes of breweries in Indiana that have been rated on BeerAdvocate. There is unfortunately only one (though I’d argue that should be more) and it’s Three Floyds which is up near Chicago but the Datazen map wasn’t accurately showing it (see below).

The report displaying the location incorrectly.

The report displaying the location incorrectly.

I opened up the shapefiles in other programs (QGIS/Google Earth) and it was showing correctly both before and after minimization process. After talking with Datazen support it, they sent this info:

 ***

“While I can’t say for certain where things went wrong, I suspect it was due to improper minifying – something got misaligned between the SHP and the DBF and QGIS and Google Earth all read the SHX file to properly map the shapes to the database. Datazen does not do that. We assume a 1-to-1 relation between shape and data: the Nth shape corresponds to the Nth entry in the DBF.”

 ***

I had inadvertently changed the order of the data in the dbf file when I had to edit the order of the columns. Since other programs I use to view shapefiles also use the shx file, there wasn’t an issue with them correctly mapping the shape to the attribute even after accidentally changing the order. A shx file is basically a linking/index file between the shp and dbf files. Be very careful when editing the order of your columns in the dbf file. One accidental click on a column and it can ruin the dbf/shp file from working properly. If they don’t line up, your report can be reporting your data in random polygons! I’m glad I had a very simple dataset and that I knew where Three Floyds was supposed to be located as I may have very easily missed that. Make sure you do some validation on your reports to be safe.

 ***

I’m very interested to see what Microsoft does with Datazen now. I’m intrigued to see what/when any updates to it occur. I’m also interested in others experiences with custom maps in Datazen. Please share in the comments any issues/experiences you encountered.

Datazen – Map Not Working? May Never Guess Why

hopefoley 12 Comments

I recently started learning Datazen, along with a lot of folks since Microsoft purchased them. If you do searches on Datazen, there is information out there but not an enormous amount. There is a great overview video by my friend/colleague Megan Longoria at http://www.blue-granite.com/video-datazen-overview. There is also some nice info at http://www.datazen.com/docs/. However there appears to be a HUGE void in posts that detail overcoming issues with the product. I’m sure that will change as more start digging into it. Here’s my first post to help fill the void. That and my karma can always use boosting so I wanted to get this post out asap in case it helps someone getting started as well.

 ***

Many know I love all things spatial so I was naturally drawn to doing one of the maps in Datazen. I get my data situated just right in Excel (another potential post there). There isn’t much to configure when setting up a map but I then do that. You can see what I had below.

MapBeerData

I have some simple brewery/beer data (shocking I know). I wanted to visualize the location with a bubble and the size of the bubble based on beer ratings. I tried address, city, and then even state with no luck. I had hoped to get a more finely defined location but I knew I could get state by the examples and documentation here (http://www.datazen.com/docs/?article=server/configuring_visualizations). It just wouldn’t work at all and kept returning blank map with no bubbles when I would preview. After a stern cussing, I start to look at the sample tables of other map examples. One of the table examples is below.

StateExample

I noticed they had state spelled out fully. Thinking to myself “No way that’s the problem. No way it’s that picky”. I start to give it a shot. You can see above I had used the state abbreviation. I add a column to my Excel data with the state fully spelled out and put that as the key. Lo and behold that fixed the issue!

BeerMap

Finding that Datazen is as finicky as a spoiled toddler and I’m just getting started. There’s a lot of potential there but Microsoft, you have A LOT of work to do!

Cleveland Rocks – SQLSaturday Cleveland 2015

hopefoley 1 Comment

Heading home now from SQLSaturday Cleveland. I know I say all the SQLSaturdays are good but this one really was fantastic! I am a little amazed at how many passionate people are in that area that help with that event. I think a lot of that has to do with Mr. Allen White (Twitter|blog) and his constant encouragement of others in the community. It shows and is inspiring!

***

So I head out from Indy on Friday with Warren (Twitter|blog) who graciously agreed to drive. Which thanks to that and technology, I was able to finish up work while on the way. He then drops me off at Harness Cycle spin studio. Real life Super Woman Erin Stellato (Twitter|blog) set up Joey (Twitter|blog) and I to do a spin class there that she instructed! Is there anything she can’t do!? 🙂 Thanks Erin for setting that up!  Was really nice to have a fitness activity that for a change that wasn’t running related.

 ***

From there we head to Ironwood Café to the speaker dinner. They setup a feast! When the waitresses started bringing food, they didn’t stop! Well done there organizers, I was impressed. After that I head back and chat for a good long time with the dynamic duo Data Chix, Audrey (Twitter|blog) and Julie (Twitter|blog).

 ***

Event day comes and I get myself over to Hyland Software at a reasonable time in the morning. I was lucky again and have a session right after lunch so wasn’t rushed. The Cleveland folks are lucky with that venue they have at Hyland. It’s a great facility! I am super jealous! After getting there I head to the speaker room which was setup with an amazing spread! Brewnuts (donuts with BEER in them!!), healthy options, and homemade goodies including caramels from Erin (see I told you…Super Woman!).

 ***

I was able to sit in on Joey’s lunch session and show support to one of the great SQL community sponsors, SIOS.  After that I had my session which was on spatial data again. I really enjoy that one as it shows the potential analysis with floor plans and spatial data. I had several say they enjoyed it and even two who told me it was their favorite of the day!

 ***

After my session was over I went to watch my homegirl, Julie’s session on SSIS. She was doing a decent amount of tweaking to it so was there for some morale support in addition to learning. She’s a pro and it was great. I know I have run into some of the same things she went over. SSIS can be, well let’s just say non-intuitive at times. She goes over many of these spots that can make folks bang their heads on their desk.

 ***

Last session of the day I caught Michael J. Swart’s (Twitter|blog) Drawing Conclusions talk. He is such a great artist and he used his illustrations to convey some SQL Server lessons. Good stuff and glad I was able to catch that one. That and I got to listen to him say “about” (he’s Canadian).

Michael Swart caught a join this big :)

Michael Swart caught a join this big 🙂

After the prize drawings we all went to Ambrosia to decompress and have some dinner. It was a Hungarian place. The food and company was great! And I found out I do like stuffed cabbage…who knew?! The staff seemed a bit overwhelmed but it happens. After that a few of us went over to Bar Louie for one more beverage and chatting.

The crowd at the end of the day for prize drawings.

The crowd at the end of the day for prize drawings.

Thank you Cleveland folks for having me speak again! Looking back on the weekend I really do feel blessed to be a part of this community. Good people, good times!

SQLSaturday Nashville 2015

hopefoley 1 Comment

I am just wrapping up a great start of SQLSaturdays to begin 2015. The first one was in January with SQLSaturday Nashville. I know I have mentioned it before but Nashville has a special spot in my heart. My very first SQLSaturday I ever presented at was in Nashville so I always try to make it down there. That and Nashville is full of some of my favorite SQL peeps!

 ***

So head down with my husband, Rod (Twitter) on Friday afternoon. Love it when he’s able to go with me so he can be a part of this side of my world. We love traveling together too so it’s a win win. We make it down in time to head to the speaker dinner which they had at Tamera (Twitter|blog) and Kerry’s (Twitter|blog) house. God bless the brave souls who open up their houses to host parties related to their events. I love the intimacy/coziness of those parties. I just can’t imagine putting the added stress of cleaning house/etc on top of organizing an event. Dinner was great and Tammy/Kerry/family were great hosts!

 ***

Event day we head over to the venue at Lipscomb University. It’s a really nice space for the event. Being the swell guy he is, Rod agreed again to take pictures of the event (see them here). I get situated and begin doing preparation for my session. I did my latest incarnation of spatial data presentations. I enjoy doing that one so much! It went well and got some good feedback so I think folks enjoyed it.

Talkin spatial

Talkin spatial

After the event Rod and I went to grab some dinner. I enjoy me some food and was really excited to try a local specialty called “hot chicken”. We heard a song about it from Dom Flemons and figured if it’s good enough to write a song about it, it had to be good! Thanks to Louis’s (Twitter|blog) recommendation we go to Big Shakes and it was amazing! Like I needed more reasons to get down to Nashville but I now have hot chicken to add to the list.

Good times at after party!

Good times at after party!

From there we go to the after party at Athletic Club Bar & Grill. Was nice as it was at the hotel so didn’t have to worry about driving anywhere and could relax. Such a good time! Between the tales of “Ha-va-ee” from Robert Verell (Twitter) or Gareth’s (Twitter|blog) swamp people impression, I thought I was going to pull a muscle laughing so hard. Great meeting new folks and being with old friends. Thanks to all at Nashville for having us and congrats on another excellent event!

WIT panel discussion

WIT panel discussion

One of the big lessons/impressions I took away from Nashville was from lunch at the event. I was asked to be a part of the panel for the WIT lunch discussion. During all WIT talks I always think of how I am with my daughter. I had a little revelation while we were talking. I want to make sure I help her understand that no matter where you go, there will always be people who know more than you do on any given topic. There are those who are just genuinely conveying knowledge and know more than you. There are also those douchebags that make themselves feel better by making others feel stupid. Whether it’s someone who is trying to make you feel like an idiot, or just someone who knows more and is trying to help, don’t EVER let your lack of knowledge dissuade you from anything! I know I have been there, I think we all have. I hope I can help both my kids to understand that as it’s not just a lesson for women but all of us. Keep learning and embrace that you don’t know it all and you never will. And when you encounter the douchebags, use those feelings to light the fire under your tail to get better!