I am much better in small groups. I’d like to think of myself as witty, humorous, and bunch of other adjectives everyone describes themselves as. However I was none of those things as I attended SQL Saturday Kalamazoo. There was a flash of that as I chatted with Frank Gill (w |t ), during the fantastic taco bar lunch. Sadly, my nerves, fear, and awkwardness got the better of me.
That was the first SQL Saturday I went to. It was also my 2nd technical conference (if you count the launch of SQL 2008). It was a great time. I did have a good time, especially at the sessions that I got to see. There was a boat load to consume, so much so that I forgot to write everything down, and eventually I just gave up altogether and just listened.
I sat in on a variety of sessions, from Aaron Bertrand’s t-sql do’s and don’ts to Tamera Clark’s SSRS talk, to Joey D’Antoni and Karen López present about IT career advice. It was a wide breath of topics, and I enjoyed every minute. I was happy that I went to see Hope Foley do her server side tracing; I found it dove-tailed nicely into Tim Ford’s DMV talk. The wild card of the day for me was Adam Belebczuk’s talk on Service Broker. I was weighing that and Tamera’s other SSRS talk. I am glad that I chose to learn about Service Broker. I know SSRS and whatnot fairly well, but I had no clue about Service Broker. I liked the bit where an error was thrown during the presentation (yeah, even though Adam didn’t type), gave a chance for Adam to show a small bit of troubleshooting.
Overall, I had a good experience. My only regrets are that I didn’t network enough, I didn’t meet enough people, and I didn’t shake enough hands. Perhaps if there is another SQLSaturday in Kzoo next year, I’ll volunteer which will force me to meet the people I should have. If I do volunteer, I will propose that in the morning we have a coffee station and a mimosa station[RR1] . I think that will help loosen people up and let the networking aspect of the event flow a bit better.
No comments:
Post a Comment