Videos: SQLRally WIT Luncheon, Lightning Talk

Today was the first full (read: non-precon) day of SQLRally 2011, and it’s been fantastic!!  I’ll do a little rambling after a bit, but for now…

WIT Luncheon

We live streamed the PASS Women in Technology luncheon, which was great.  Big thanks to SQL Sentry for sponsoring, and to the panel:

• Karen Lopez (Twitter) of InfoAdvisors ,
• Adam Jorgensen (Twitter, blog) of PragmaticWorks, and
• Melinda White (email) of  Seminole State College of Florida. 

The SQLRally 2011 WIT Luncheon video is here.

Lightning Talk

We also live streamed our last session of the day, a lightning talk with Jorge Segarra, me, Karen Lopez, Brian Moran, Mike Walsh, and Aaron Nelson.  The SQLRally 2011 Lightning Talk is here (video was interrupted, during QnA second video here).

Now, the rambling…

I didn’t make it in for a precon…I’m trying to minimize my time away from home/work this trip. I got in Wednesday afternoon, registered and talked with a few SQL friends, and then found my room. That evening was a welcome get-together at a restaurant – it was a GREAT time. Most (if not all) of the PASS board of directors was there, along with a gaggle of speakers and a google of attendees. A great time was had by all.

This morning I attended Grant Fritchey’s Execution Plan deep dive, and Wes Brown’s session onUnderstanding Storage Systems and SQL Server…both absolutely excellent speakers, committed community volunteers, and all around great guys. If you get a chance to see Grant or Wes live, DO IT.

This afternoon has been a lot of talking, and a lot of time up in front of audiences. At lunch I moderated the aforementioned WIT Luncheon. Immediately went to give my Code Sins session.  It was really well attended and a lot of folks came up and said very nice things afterward.  I had a session off (brain recovery time!) and then jumped into the lightning talk.  HUGE thanks to Jorge Segarra for holding the thing (TWSS) and inviting me along (TWHS), it was a tremendous amount of fun. My 5 minutes was Learn T-SQL in 5 Minutes, and it went well.

After we each gave our 5 minutes, we had a QnA.  One question came in: “SQL Server is so diverse (what with SSAS, SSRS, SSIS, etc etc), how can someone hope to become competent in so many things?”  I was attempting to make the point that even the experts specialize, but instead I said “Take tech authors…we have several up here on the panel that have written books – Aaron Nelson here, and Grant Fritchey. And authors don’t know anything…“  After the whole room burst out laughing, I realized I hadn’t said “everything”, turned a very deep shade of red, and laughed hysterically into my hat for ten minutes.

Finally we had the post-day session, the “Conducting an Interview” overdrive session.  I played the buddy interviewer, Jim Murphy played the talkative interviewer, and Mike Walsh played the IT’S ALL ABOUT ME interviewer. Our victims were (respectively) John Sterrett, Tim Mitchell, and Joey D’Antoni. THAT was fun.

And now, it’s off to Old Town for fun and food (FEED ME!).  Good job on SQLRally, PASS.  Good job indeed.

-Jen

P.S. Best conference enhancement: using Guidebook App to give us a downloadable event guide. We have maps, schedules (customizable so I can plan my day!), updates as rooms or sessions change, etc etc.  GREAT BIG UPS, PASS, for the use of the Guidebook app.