A MidnightDBA in Atlanta (SQL Saturday #41)

Announcement: I'll have my slides, videos, and associated material available on the Events page of MidnightDBA.com by Sunday 5/2 at the latest! 

Earlier this month I gave my first public speaking session at the NTSSUG user group meeting, and yesterday I added two more session notches on my belt at SQL Saturday Atlanta. I've been reading a LOT of recaps of other SQL Saturdays, and I'm excited to follow suit here! I'm going to talk about the bad, the good, the lessons learned (that I'm hoping to apply to SQL Saturday Dallas), and then about my sessions. 

I'm going to list the bad first, just to get it out of the way. But I want to make this really, REALLY clear: I think Stuart (Stuart Ainsworth, Twitter) and the gang got about 97% of everything RIGHT at this event. Every event will have hiccups, or things to improve on. We list the bad not so we can complaint, but so we can all grow our conventions!

Now, the bad:

  • There was only one check in desk, manned by two volunteers for checkin, plus a couple more for handing out attendee shirts and bags. It would have helped the first sessions of the morning get started on time if they'd put another check in desk in place, IMO.
  • The Atlanta gang handled raffles rather uniquely – they conducted them during each session. That was actually a good idea: Attendees got a numbered raffle ticket and a short session eval form. At the end of each session, attendees were to complete the form, write their ticket number (not name) on the ticket, and we drew from that. It was very efficient and quick, and striped the handing out of swag. The problem was, it wasn't clear on the tickets that attendees should write their number, not name. Speakers were supposed to remind people, but I know I for one completely forgot. I think people tend to skew their critique toward "Excellent" and "good job" when their name is on the paper. Anonymity breeds honesty.
  • Would've been nice to have a map of the rooms. Not super duper necessary, but nice.
  • The sponsor area layout was a little confusing and cramped, but I'm not sure if I could have done any better.
  • The schedule really could have used level information (beginner, advanced…). I talked to a couple of beginners that were overwhelmed with advanced material early in the day.
  • My sessions were scheduled back to back, in different rooms, at the end of the day! I had to rush to break down and set up my stuff and run to take a bio break, cutting people short who wanted to talk to me. I say again…not that huge a deal, just a nice to have.

The good:

  • Really clear and laid back tone, from the pre-event emails to the discussions and officiating all day.
  • Lovely, laid back speaker reception. 
  • Great location and layout for the event itself. Thanks MS!
  • Perfectly cromulent coffee, food and drink (though free flowing sodas would've been nice!)
  • Volunteers and organizers! I'm on the planning board for SQLSat Dallas; I know how much effort this takes. I have mucho, mucho respect for Stuart and the gang.
  • WONDERFUL speaker room. We were told we might have to fight over chairs, but the storm drove attendance down a little, enough that we could keep our chairs in the speaker room!
  • At the end of the closing ceremony, the attendees were asked to help clean up / put back together. Lots of people pitched in and got the job done well. Kudos for asking, and way to go attendees for stepping up!
  •  As I said, having raffles throughout the day was a really good idea. There was still plenty of big swag for the closing ceremony, and the earlier raffles kept the end of day much shorter. 
  • Sponsors! Thank you, and thank you! 
  • There was wireless access, but the decision was made to limit it to speakers (some demos depend on it); otherwise it would have completely tanked.

There were a few points that I thought were just interesting:

  • Attendees got raffle tickets at the beginning of the day for the end of day raffles; these tickets had attendee name and email preprinted. Through the day, people dropped their ticket into the boxes of their choice (at vendor tables), so they could choose what swag they were in the drawing for. This way, no one had to keep up with ticket stubs, and vendors had names/emails of people interested in their giveaways. The volunteers wrote the session titles/times on the windows at each room entrace.
  • No opening keynote. No problem (they didn't have the space)
  • Thoughts: Geoff Hiten brought his daughters, ages 11 and 14, to help out at the event. They were a dream, helping out, making faces at their dad through his session, chatting politely in the speaker room, and even attending a couple of sessions. I echo what Audrey of DataChix wrote in her SQLSat41 blog: I'd really like to bring my daughter to the next event.

Now, on to ME ME ME ME… This was my second time to give a session in public (as opposed to in front of a camera); my Code Sins didn't go quite as well as the first time I'd given it.  I rushed it, skimmed over some things, and ended WAY early. But it wasn't bad, either, and the session ends with a group vent sessions – everyone gets to tell their horror stories of the absolute worst things done to databases. People really enjoy that, and I do too.  The 30-40 people who attended gave me very good marks on the speaker evaluations (posted below in the interests of transarency), and I got to have a couple of great talks with attendees between sessions. The last session of the day was my T-SQL Beginner's Kit. It was a significantly smaller group, but that was just great! It was very cozy, and everyone seemed very interested. Again, great feedback from attendees, and great reviews.

 

Scores for Code Sins

  • 1 = 3s = 3% Okay
  • 12 = 4s = 39% Good
  • 17 = 5s = 55% Excellent
  • out of 31 total

Comments:

  • Jen kicks @ss!! (From a Tweep)
  • Awesome! Cannot wait to check out your site!
  • Well, I could understand it, so that's great to me 😀 (From one of the Hiten children)
  • Super DUper (Tweep)
  • engaging. good examples.
  • Really good use of "voice" for public speaking. Made mundane topic interesting.

Scores for Beginner's KIt

  • 1 = 3s = 10% okay
  • 1 = 4s = 10% good
  • 8 = 5s = 80% Excellent
  • out of 10 evals total

An extra big THANKS to the people who attended my sessions, participated, and spoke with me afterward. It meant a lot to me.

Okay, time to get some SLEEP. Goodnight, and well done!

-Jen McCown
http://www.MidnightDBA.com

Stepping into the Spotlight

I've been a SQL blogger and videomaker for nearly a year now. Last night, for the first time, I stepped in front of a room of people to teach about SQL Server. Overall, I think it went pretty well, and I'm really jazzed. 

Preparation

I started prepping TSQL sessions about a month ago, and submitted them to SQL Saturday #35 Dallas, which is scheduled for May 22 2010.  I thought about what I really like to talk about, SQL wise.  As it turns out, my favorite thing to talk about is code, and what people do wrong with it.  So I built on my code sins blogs.

I also thought about what I talk about most at my job, SQL wise.  A lot of my talking time at jobs is spent educating people (bosses, business folk, programmers and other data professionals) about database essentials, so I started putting together a TSQL Beginners Kit session.

Two or three weeks ago I decided to submit to SQL Saturday #41 Atlanta (April 24!). Not only is it exciting to have two SQL Saturdays planned, but I also have a longtime friend who lives in Georgia, and it's a great excuse to travel and see her!

Aaaaand then on Monday, Sean (who is the speaker coordinator for NTSSUG) said "our speaker fell through, so you're up on Thursday".  I had my deadline jump backward from late may, to mid April, to THREE DAYS AWAY. I was quite nervous, and had to rush through polishing my presentation and slide deck (I was presenting TSQL Code Sins).

The Good 

But I had a few things going for me that helped me through the nerves, and through the presentation itself:

1. I picked topics I LOVE to talk about. If we sat down together, and you asked me "What are some of the worst things people do wrong with SQL Server", it'd be hard to shut me up. 

2. I have an excellent mentor. Sean only gave HIS first NTSSUG talk mid last year, but he's been a heart-and-soul teacher of one kind or another for 20 years.

3. I was on my home turf!  The SQL community is pretty warm and fuzzy anyway, and the NTSSUG folk were VERY welcoming and pleasant, and they participated!

4. I've been making training videos for months now. Even though those had me in front of a camera, not a crowd, it was great practice to work out a lot of mental and verbal issues.

Another thing that helped a LOT reading up on speaking. It's a major relief to know even professional speakers face the same issues, and it's invaluable to get advice and notes on common concerns.

The Take-aways

  • I had a couple of awkward spots in my presentation, but it wasn't too bad. I need some more practice, and I need to trim down my notes a bit.
  • I also need to work on timing, or restructure the talk a little bit. I spoke at length in the beginning, had some good discussions midway, and had to rush through the ending.
  • I'm still working on one aspect of confidence: I have to train myself further out of the idea that I'd better hurry everything up, or I'm going to bore the audience. It makes me talk too fast, and skip over things that could use some explanation.
  • I need to change my screen resolution and fonts!  Some of the slides and demos were hard to read, I was told.

All in all, a great time, with great lessons learned.  And now, I can't WAIT for #SQLSat41 and 35…I think.

Oh yeah, and if you'd like to judge for yourself how I did, the recording of the presentation will be up early next week!  Please give me feedback, but refrain from using the words "suck", "terrible", or "holy crap", unless it's "Holy crap, it sucks that I haven't been watching all your videos!", or "I'm terribly interested in seeing your next talk."

Happy days,

Jen McCown
http://www.MidnightDBA.com

How silly can you get?

Here's a little story that a coworker just finished telling me…

So week before last, I was brought into a company on the spur of the moment, to fix an application they needed for a conference last week (it was part of the check-in process at the con).  I had three days to figure out the problem, test and push. I made it in time for some last minute tweaks, and then I was on my way to the R2Tweetup (my blog in anticipation of the R2Tweetup, Steve Jone's recap).

The app I fixed worked flawlessly at the conference, but the team ran into other issues. The network guy said they'd set everything up in the conference hotel the day before the event, tested, and all was well.  Then suddenly the laptops couldn't connect to the printers any more.  He troubleshot the issue for a couple of hours, then packed it up for the night.   Early next morning, he started in again. He reconfigured the router, and it worked!  For about five minutes, and the wireless died again. 

As it turns out, the conference hotel has a system set up to detect and shut down wireless networks, so that guests are forced to pay for the hotel wireless access.  Which costs $750.  And may I say, for $750, that wireless access better deliver unto me ACTUAL WEB SERVERS that run on pixie dust and dispense freshly cooked bacon.

The solution? The IT VP showed up with five 25' cables, and the day was saved.

Charging exhorbitant prices like that to a captive audience…that's not good customer service, and it'll bite you in the ass way, way more often than it makes you any money.

"How silly can you get, yeah, yeah…"

Happy days,
Jen McCown
http://www.MidnightDBA.com

P.S. In other news: