Tag #summit12

PASS Summit 2012 – Final Days Recap

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Final day of Summit 2012 

This is the day it starts to get a bit sad.  Folks start heading back home so those I-probably-won’t-see-you-for-a-year-hugs start happening.  I get up and go grab some lighter fare at La Panier with Colin (blog|twitter) and Josh (blog|twitter).  After that head back and catch the PASS Board Q&A session.  Was glad I caught that after someone mentioned it to me.  It wasn’t on the schedule but it should have…a lot of great discussion!  The most interesting topic I thought was the BA Conference coming up in Chicago.  People asked if it was the path/direction for the Summit to split audiences.  They said that wasn’t the intent and it was more to reach out to a different audience and pull them into the community.  I was relieved to hear that.

How many members you think are on Twitter now?

How many members you think are on Twitter now?

From there I head to the Birds of a Feather lunch.  I helped represent a SQL Family table with the help of Colin.  I really love the conversations I had all week at those big round tables in the lunch room.  These are probably my favorite times at the conference.  I think we did well explaining how great it is to get involved in the community.

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From there I go catch Wes Brown’s (blog|twitter) session “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My SAN”.  Wes is a super great guy and has just the best metaphors.  That and he is the SAN man.  I really enjoyed his session especially since how many times I have had the “oh it’s striped against all the disk and it lives in a magical wonderland” conversation.

The SAN man, Wes Brown

The SAN man, Wes Brown

After that was my family time session.  The 3 hour time difference made it hard to catch them at a good time.  It’s their bedtime by the time the last session is over.  So I have a video chat with them then catch up and get a jump on some of the goodbyes that start flowing.  After that I went over to catch Tim Ford’s (blog|twitter)  session.  I enjoy Tim’s sessions but this time I went more have expecting a train wreck.  I catch catching him the couple days before saying he was ripping up his whole session and kind of winging it on a different format.  He’s either full of it or works well on that just winging it nature.  The session was far from a train wreck.

Tim Ford for the last session of Summit

Tim Ford for the last session of Summit

After lingering around after the last session to say more goodbyes and catch the finale of the PASS TV, head to grab some sushi.  Went over to Japonessa with Jessica Moss (blog|twitter), Denny Cherry (blog|twitter), his wife Kris (twitter),  Colin , and Josh.  From there we head to the last night of Bush Garden.  Folks never really wanted to leave so stayed out late enough to require another late meal at 13 Coins.

Final Day in Seattle

I went down to the Daily Grill and grab some blueberry pancakes with a huge group.  We kept having pull tables together sessions.  I sit down and we all start having a really great discussion on what we loved and what could have stood some improvements at the Summit.  Luckily Scott Stauffer (blog|twitter) had his tablet so took a lot of notes.  Yeah no pressure on that blog post Scott 🙂  After this I then have to get to the train to the airport.  The wonderful and delightfully deranged Rob Volk (blog|twitter) walked me to the train.

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So then I’m on the train and heading out and have that very movie moment thinking back on the week.  Thinking over all the great people and great times.  I’m not sure what song should be playing on that movie moment soundtrack but there’s definitely one of those slowish I’ll miss you type songs playing.  It almost aggravates me how sappy I have to get when I talk about these community events.  So the Summit is just like that to a power of 10 so it’s extra sappy.  So I can’t help it so warning for those squimish to sap.  It was such a wonderful week at Summit.  I feel truly blessed that I have found such a wonderful community of people.  I met so many new people this week that afraid it will get harder leaving each year.  Even so there is no doubt…wouldn’t miss it for the world.

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PASS Summit 2012 – Day 4 Recap

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Traumatized the previous day by missing a meal, skipped the keynote for a good breakfast with my roomie Julie (blog|twitter), Colin (blog|twitter), and Josh (blog|twitter). After a decent amount of food and giggling we head over to community zone for a few.  Then I went over to Mark Broadbent’s (blog|twitter) session “READPAST & Furious: Transactions, Locking, and Isolation”.  I was really glad I went, he did a really great job.  I was really enjoying him talking about how implicit transactions are “evil muthas” but had to leave a bit early to get over to help setup for the WIT Luncheon.  On my way out I finally crossed paths with Jimmy May (blog|twitter)!  It is next to impossible to find one person at Summit but finally caught him.

Mr. Broadbent doing a great session.

Mr. Broadbent doing a great session.

Me and The Jimmy May

Me and the man, Mr. Jimmy May

I’ve been involved for a little while in WIT so was really looking forward to the Luncheon.  I go and assist in setting up the tables but things were in fairly decent order so it wasn’t too frantic or difficult.  Grab some food and get prepped to watch the discussion.  This year was the 10th anniversary for the WIT Luncheon so the topic was “Women in Technology: Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going?”.  It was really great to hear how it has grown over the years.  The panelists were Stefanie Higgins, Kevin Kline (blog|twitter), Kendra Little (blog|twitter), Denise McInerney (twitter), and Jen Stirrup (blog|twitter).  Wendy Pastrick (blog|twitter) was the moderator.  It was really great discussion and the panelists did a great job.  I thought some of the live questions were a bit redundant though…seemed a few of the where just the same “how do we get more women in technology” vague question.  I was really glad Wendy caught a great one via Twitter of “what do you do to silence the critics of WIT initiatives?”.  Wow too much goes through my head on that one so will have to save for a future blog post.  I absolutely loved Kendra’s response of “Haters gonna hate”.  I did have one complaint of the Luncheon in that they should have wrapped it up at least 10 minutes before they did.  It didn’t end until the next set of sessions were set to start.  I tried to get into two sessions after it but they were full by the time I got there.  So I roamed and chatted for another session which was completely fine.

WIT Luncheon

WIT Luncheon

I ended up finding a quiet corner and had a video chat with the family.  Was having so much fun seeing my family that ended up running over into the next session.  After that roamed and chatted more until the last session which I caught the BI Power Hour session by the group of Matt Masson (blog|twitter), Chuck Heinzelman (twitter), Matthew Roche, Patrick LeBlanc (blog|twitter), Peter Myers, and Sean Boon (blog|twitter).  I had never attended one but had a few folks mention it to me and oh so glad they did.  I have never in my life attended a technical session that laughed so much in.  I had tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard!  Also imagine is one of those that just isn’t the same on the DVD as it was in person.  It was a really fun session guys, great job!

The hilarious BI Power Hour

The hilarious BI Power Hour

After sessions were done, Julie and I grabbed a bus to head over to the Community Appreciation party at the EMP Museum.  It was a bit of a change up as they normally have this party at Gameworks.  I LOVED the change!  This place was great!  They had live band karaoke going which a lot of folks seemed to enjoy.  I wasn’t digging the karaoke area.  At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old geezer, it was too loud and crowded.  I didn’t yell at any of the young kids for their loud rock and roll but did avoid it other than in passing.  I took in the sites of the museum though and was a bit like a little kid.  They had some sci fi areas with some Star Wars paraphanelia which made me just damn giddy.  There was also a great area with horror movie exhibits.  I thought I was going to lose my mind when I saw they had a zombie suit from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.  There were also plenty of quiet areas for chatting so was really great…big thumbs up PASS on that party!

Me giddy at some Star Wars stuff at EMP community appreciation party

Me giddy at some Star Wars stuff at EMP community appreciation party

My daughter's little traveling buddy and Thriller costume. How cool is that?!

My daughter’s little traveling buddy and Thriller costume. How cool is that?!

PASS Summit 2012 – Day 3 Recap

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Wake up bright and early on the first day of the Summit, well ok it wasn’t super bright and early but early enough to try to make breakfast and still catch keynote.  My wonderful roommate, Julie Smith (blog|twitter),and I head over to try to grab a quick bite to eat before the keynote starts.  We had about 10 minutes but they shut down breakfast and the doors were locked…or so we thought.  We hadn’t gotten the lay of the land yet and assumed food was in the same place as last year, it wasn’t.  Doh moment #1.  Very much bummed about missing a meal we head to the keynote.  There were a few technical nuggets such as the next step in the road with in-memory solution Hekaton and the SQL 2012 sp1 update release.  The bright spot speaker wise was Amir Netz.  He did a good job again this year with entertaining demos and upbeat, enjoyable style.  Later there was the mention of “having a BI moment” which a Twitter did catch and run with as it very well should have.

The crowd ready for the keynote

After the keynote I was anxious to wander around and get my bearings on where things were laid out so I roamed for the first session slot.  Found the vendor area and the hub for the rest of the week, the Community Zone.  I then helped pass out maps for the chapter lunch which was entertaining.  Folks must have thought I was trying to sell them something as I had trouble with people taking free maps.  I only had to strong arm a few folks and after that went in to help represent my IndyPASS chapter.  I had some really great conversation with folks from my local area.  Many at the table were Indy locals who don’t come to meetings so was a good chance to run new ideas to pull new members by a perfect target audience.  Thank you guys for your feedback at my table that day! I also got a chance to encourage some of them there to start speaking technically after he mentioned a really exciting project one of them was doing implementing AlwaysOn.

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Then I head over to catch a Lightning Talk session.  This one was done by Brent Ozar (blog|twitter), Amy Lewis (twitter), Mark Broadbent (blog|twitter), Rob Volk (blog|twitter), Robert Davis (blog|twitter).  Was a good thing I got there when I did…it was PACKED!  Dear PASS folks in charge of room selection, please put Lightning talks in a larger room next year.  I always try to go to those as they just aren’t the same on the DVD and better to see live.  Can’t see Brent Ozar dressed up like Bob Dylan on the DVD for sure.  I wonder how many folks are going to be super confused when watching that one on DVD now that I think about it?  “Who is this quasi southern accent raspy voice dude? Where is Brent O?”  Everyone did a good job in that session.  Mark Broadbent had some technical difficulties with the projectors but he handled it well and it kind of added to the fun of it.

Brent Ozar as Bob Dylan for Lightning Talk

From there I went to the Steve Jones (blog|twitter) and Andy Warren (blog|twitter) session on “The Mentoring Experiment”.  I love the mentoring aspect of my job so was intrigued by the topic.  Very interesting session on their experiences with the mentoring matchup program they started for SQL professionals.  A lot of tough hurdles in the process, such as match up process being handled manually by matching or random.  I gave my opinion that I don’t feel it really matters in that the match ups could be totally random.  I think mentoring is kind of like the friendship process in general.  I have varying degrees of friends and that process is a matter of chemistry that I don’t know could be formulated or worked out without interaction with the mentor/mentee.  I think if 2 people are paired up in a situation where folks want to be a part of the process, they will themselves make it as much a success as the relationship/chemistry will allow.  I always feel that there is something to learn from everyone and their experiences so no matter what good will come of the match.  Great job Andy/Steve!  That is really a great thing you guys are doing.

Steve and Andy discussing “The Mentoring Experiment”

Last session of the day I catch Jen Stirrup’s (blog|twitter) session on Mobile Business Intelligence Now.  I had never seen a session from Jen in person so was very excited to catch her.  I know she probably gets tired of folks talking about her accent but I just can’t help it.  SQL Server Reporting Services just never sounded so lovely as it does from her!  Very interesting information on how the eyes perceive information and using that to make your reports more clean/impactful.  Also had a lot of information on considerations for mobile screens.  Very good job Jen!

The just lovely Jen Stirrup

From there head for a bit to the Exhibitor reception for just a little bit.  Ran into a lot of folks and chatted up anyone who didn’t run fast enough.  They only had appetizers there so was necessary to move on to go get more sustenance.  Went over with Julie and Rob and joined in with Mark Broadbent’s group for dinner at the Tap House.  After carbo-loading on some crab mac n cheese we head over to Pragmatic Works karaoke party for a bit.  It was too crowded for my taste so I bailed to find a different scene.  Later I find out there was a roof top area that would have been more up my alley but didn’t hear about it until after already gone.  Found my way over to Pike Brewery and caught up with folks at the SQL Sentry party which was fantastic and continued to meet wonderful SQL people.  Peer pressure was high to continue on after that but I held strong out of exhaustion and called it a night after that.