SQL Saturday #34 Wrap-up
Whew!
It’s over. New England Data Camp v2, aka, SQL Saturday #34, was completed on Saturday. Going in we had maxed out our online registrations at 500, an accomplishment by itself. During registration on the day of the event, we shut down registration and just started waving people through the door at 300. Our best guess at the total attendance was 340 (not the 375 I tweeted during the delirium of the day). There were a couple of minor glitches and one major one. The major glitch was not enough vegetarian food. We just ran out. Everyone else seemed to get a meal. We had just a few, read that 3 or 4, sandwhiches at the end of the day.
I want to personally thank Adam Machanic for all the hard work he did putting the thing together. It wouldn’t have happened at all without him and it was as good as it was because of him. Just as much thanks goes out to Jim O’Neil of Microsoft for all his assistance putting things together. We also had a lot of help from Chris Bowen, also of Microsoft. Thanks guys.
Our sponsors were excellent people. In no particular order, Confio, Expressor, Microsoft, PASS, Idera and Quest all stepped up and helped us out. I want to thank them personally, and if you attended the event and got anything useful out of it, you should thank them as well. Around the same time next year guys, please.
We also got some support from O’Reilly who sent us some swag. Same goes for Processor Magazine. We gave away everything they sent us and could have used more.
I also want to thank the speakers. We had industry heavy weights and people speaking for the first time and everything else in between. I didn’t see all the speakers or all the rooms, but I made a point of getting around and sitting through sessions when I could. I learned stuff. I saw great presentations and I saw full rooms. You guys rocked and rocked hard. Good job and thank you for all your time and effort.
Finally, I want to thank everyone who came. It was a great community event and everyone I spoke with seemed to have managed to pull something out of it, networking, learning, or teaching.
SQL Saturday #34
The event is this Saturday. Take a look at our sponsors, speakers and the program. It’s going to be a great opportunity to learn about SQL Server and things around SQL Server. If you’re in the New England area, please register and take advantage of this excellent event. 450 of your peers are already pledging to show up. This is going to be a good time for networking too.
New England Data Camp v2/SQL Saturdy #34 Update
The second annual New England Data Camp is shaping up to one excellent event. We’ve put together a great set of sponsors. Thanks to them we’re providing much better food than last year and the chance at a bit of swag, again, better than last year. But, most importantly, we have an excellent selection of speakers. The schedule has been posted so you can go and check it out and start laying out which ones you can hit. Some of the people speaking are known internationally (Adam Machanic, Aaron Bertrand), some are local luminaries, some are up and coming, and several are probably on the fast track to being MVP’s. In other words, this is the place to go to learn something about SQL Server in New England.
It’s not too late to register, and of course you can register at the door. It’s a free event and, as you can see, it’s going to be very educational and useful.
And don’t forget your local user groups. Southern New England SQL Server Users Group has Adam Machanic speaking this Wednesday, and on a different topic than he’s presenting at the Data Camp, so it’ll be worth visiting both.
New England Data Camp Evals
Anyone reading this who attended the New England Data Camp and filled out an eval, for any of the sessions, thanks. For those 63 evals between the two sessions that I received, thanks. Here are the aggregates on my sessions:
Using Visual Studio Team System Database Edition:
| Average of Knowledge | 8.344827586 |
| Average of Presentation | 8.482758621 |
| Average of Preparation | 8.103448276 |
| Average of Interesting | 8.172413793 |
| Average of Overall | 8.275862069 |
| Number of Submissions | 29 |
Understanding Execution Plans
| Average of Knowledge | 8.647058824 |
| Average of Presentation | 8.617647059 |
| Average of Preparation | 8.705882353 |
| Average of Interesting | 8.529411765 |
| Average of Overall | 8.625 |
| Number of Submissions | 34 |
These are all on a scale of 1-9. I’m really quite happy with the results. Here are the average results for all the speakers and all the sessions at the Data Camp:
| Total Average of Knowledge | 8.407843 |
| Total Average of Presentation | 7.912109 |
| Total Average of Preparation | 8.130859 |
| Total Average of Interesting | 7.962891 |
| Total Average of Overall | 8.096004 |
| Total Number of Submissions | 515 |
Overall, both sessions beat the average. My knowledge level was marked down a bit on the Visual Studio session and I attribute that (mostly) to a lack of rehearsal and preparation. I changed that slide deck just the week before the Data Camp and it showed. Same problem with the Visual Studio session regarding preparation. What practices and rehearsals I had done were on my desktop at work. I found out that morning that my laptop didn’t have the GDR release installed, so I had to RDP to my desktop. It created several technical issues. I’m glad that people picked up on it. It really does keep me honest. I guess the session on execution plans was well received (despite the fact that I kept saying page when I meant leaf when referring to an index structure, bleh).
There were some really nice comments, thanks everyone. A couple of the comments on the Visual Studio session talked about market penetration and the readiness of the tool set. I had about 60 people in the audience and only three (3!) were using the tool. More were using the Team Foundation System, but not to the extent we use it where I work. I don’t think that’s because the tool isn’t ready (although I think it has a few shortcomings in & around deployments, especially incremental deployments) but rather the fact that it costs a bloody fortune. Few individuals can afford it and not that many companies are going to be willing to pay for it, especially in this economy. Other than that, no suggestions for improving the presentation, despite the fact that I got marked down a bit on this one. I’ll take the preparation more seriously next time.
I only got one negative on the Understanding Execution Plans session and, unfortunately, it’s only marginally useful. One person gave me a 2 on “Interesting” (in a sea of 9’s a few 8’s and two 7’s). This person wanted to see a session on query tuning and optimization. But, that’s just not what the session is about, at all. So it’s hard to take this as a mechanism for improving my presentation on what is an execution plan and how do you read one. However, it does let me know that I should probably try to come up with some kind of performance tuning & tips session that I can give from the new book. Unfortunately, this is such a full field with great presenters like Gail Shaw already showing exactly what I’d show (except better) that I’m not sure what to do about it. I need some idea to drive the session, a hook like Gail’s “Dirty Dozen” (fantastic name). I’m thinking about this one.
Anyway, there are the results, all out in the open. Thank you again for sending in your evals (even the 2 was very helpful) and your comments. The compliments were extremely nice to read, thank you.
UPDATED: Typed Gail’s name wrong AND forgot to link to her site.
New England Data Camp v1.0 Results
I believe that the very first New England Data Camp was a success. We had about 185 attendees. There 18 sessions from 16 speakers. Both the sessions I gave and the one I sat in on were full. Credit goes to to Adam Machanic who did 90% of the work pulling this together. Amazing job Adam. My personal thanks to our sponsors. First, Microsoft, who provided us with a magnificent facility, nice swag, a full AV suite, coffee and donuts and in the morning, and a lot of help. It wouldn’t have come out as well as it did without you guys. Next, the Professional Association of SQL Server Users (PASS), who supplied us with money, without which we could not have eaten lunch, a few posters to decorate the place and a nice Powerpoint template. Good job guys. Finally, Red Gate, those t-shirts were very handy. Thanks again.
A special thank you to the speakers. You guys rock, and from the evaluations I saw, others think so too. You volunteered to come in on a Saturday to share with others. That’s pretty special.
Thanks to Dave Mulanaphy from SNESSUG. He did a ton of work before the event and was a huge help that day. It wouldn’t have been a success without him. Thanks Dave.
I saw about 1/4 of the evals, and except for getting dinged on food (more on that in a moment), the Data Camp was very well received and I saw many requests that we do another.
Food. Yes, pizza is not the healthiest choice. Yes, I like pepperoni too. But guys, you’re getting first class training and breakfast and lunch, all for free. You need to cut us some slack because we’re doing the best we can to get as much together as quickly as possible. Pizza is easy. We spent, are you ready, $1400 on pizza. We only had $1200 in donations. We spent another $100 on drinks. That’s $300 that came out of the two user NOT FOR PROFIT user groups that hosted the event. We did the best we could (or Adam did, I just pitched in) and, as someone else pointed out, the door wasn’t locked and you came there in a car. If you have special dietary needs, run out for lunch.
The two sessions I presented seemed to be very well received. I could have done with a bit more preparation on the Visual Studio Team System Database Edition session. I hadn’t rehearsed the new version of the presentation enough and it showed in a couple of places. The execution plan session went well, I thought. The big “ooh” moment in that presentation surprised me. Most of the audience didn’t know about the little plus sign in the lower right of the Management Studio execution plan window (it’s in 2005 and 2008 ) that lets you scroll around in an execution plan. When I get the full set of aggregated results from the evaluations, I’ll post them. I saw some positive feedback (thank you) and some interesting criticisms (thank you too).
Overall it was a great day. I hope Adam recovers and decides to put on another, but next time he should delegate more to others.
New England Data Camp v.1.0
It’s getting a lot closer to the 24th.
On Saturday, January 24th, the first ever New England Data Camp will launch. We’ve got a number of speakers registered. Aaron Bertrand and Andrew Novick are guys I’ve got a lot respect for. I’ve been to their presentations before and they’ve been consistently very good. We’ve got a few guys I haven’t heard of personally, Talbott Crowell, Ayad Shammout, Sunil Kadimdiwan, Igor Moochnick. I’m going to present on execution plans and multi-environment deployments using DBPro (updated from the PASS presentation). The other presentations cover topics from using the Resource Governor on SQL Server 2008 to Defending SQL Server from Injection Attacks to Create better and more Useful Cubes.
It’s shaping up to be an actual event. If you’re in the neighborhood (New England), stop by.
The main organizer is Adam Machanic of the New England SQL Server Users Group. That’s partnered with the Southern New England SQL Server Users Group. It’s all under the banner of PASS.
New England Data Camp v1.0
Adam Machanic of the New England SQL Server Users Group (among other things), has contacted the Southern New England SQL Server Users Group to ask us to take part in a one day SQL Server code camp. Of course we said yes.
It’s taking place at the Microsoft facility in Waltham on Saturday, January 24th. You can register here. If you’re interested in speaking, speaker registration is here. I’ll be listing the sponsors as they become available, but it will be a PASS event.
As information gels around this, I’ll continue posting updates.
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