Breaking Into SQL Showbiz

Matthew Velic (blog, Twitter) just asked this question on Twitter:

And really that’s a question I’d ask anyone on the “speaker’s circuit” – where’s the easy place to break in?

Wow, Matt…in the words of the great Ricky Ricardo, lemme splain something to joo..  A year ago today, I was just a few months into making training videos for MidnightDBA.com; just a little while back from a hiatus (I stayed home with my boys when they were babies); new to Twitter; and just about to leap with both feet into blogging because of SQLServerPedia.com‘s contest to win a trip to PASS (I won).  I was, in short, a nobody.

Now, I’m a nobody that people have heard of. I mean that in the nicest way possible, of course.

My first time teaching SQL in front of people was at the North Texas SQL Server User Group, in April. OF THIS YEAR. At that point, I had already been accepted to speak at SQL Saturday Atlanta. This same year, I’ve now spoken at 24HOP, and am slated to speak at the PASS Summit. Go ahead, ask me if I’m stunned. I am.

What you quickly come to realize is that, yeah, some speakers really are god (or at least very close cousins) when it comes to SQL…but most of us are just people who know something about SQL and are willing to talk about it in front of a crowd.  Talk to the heavy hitters, they’ll say the same thing. You don’t have to be a SQL god to teach. You just have to pick what you want to talk about, flesh it out, make the time, and then swallow your stage fright as much as possible.

Get on that horse & ride, man…

-Jen McCown

http://www.MidnightDBA.com/Jen