Jen McCown

(You can find part 1 here.) 

I’m nothing, really.  When we’re talking about databases, technology – come to think of it, any area of anything, ever – I’m nothing special. There are tons of people who know tons more than I do. 

I heard this same exact song from Sean for the last decade plus, and I’ve always wondered about him feeling that way.  He seemed to know a lot to me.  I really started to wonder once he started writing for InfoWorld, then other publications, then started making friends with the bigwig authors and experts, then became a SQL Server MVP, and so on and on. 

I’m starting to get to know some of those same industry bigwigs myself (largely through the miracle of Twitter), and it’s clear that these people are just people.  I mean, yeah…really geeka-cool people that know 100x more than I do, but still just people.

How many of you have kids?  Ok, good. And how many of you have watched “Kung Fu Panda” about 3,416 more times than you intended?  Good, good, then you know the part at the end, where the bad guy finally gets the sacred Dragon Scroll, and it’s blank. He’s utterly confounded when Po says, “It’s okay, I didn’t get it either at first. There is no secret ingredient.  It's just you.”  I get it…there is no secret ingredient. 

As it turns out, you don’t have to have special breeding or training to contribute, to do more.  There’s no ceremony when you’re ready to take the next step in your career.  No Windows exclamation (“dun-DUN!”) to announce that you should start writing, or training, or form your own company…whatever it is that’s next for you.

I’m writing blogs and articles now, and making training videos.  And I often have to force myself to get over the idea that I’m being presumptuous  when I do.  What I keep having to say to myself – and what you need to say to yourself – is sure, there are tons of people who know more than I do, but I still have something to contribute.  And then go do it.

It’s okay, I didn’t get it either at first.

 

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

When I was a kid, anyone who could Do Something was like a god, something incomprehensible and untouchable.  Actors, musicians, writers and performers, athletes, famous historical and political figures…they were some other kind of being, destined for fame and (/or) greatness.  I always wondered about the path one takes to get there: to success, to a job you love, to fame, or what have you.  And I’m starting to see that there are a lot of contributing factors – and a lot of work – but that ending up somewhere good is also largely a natural process.

I’m beginning to feel successful.  That word always seems tied to money, and I’m not using it in that sense at all. I’m talking about starting to feel like I have a solid foundation of family and self, and I’m doing what I want to do on top of it.  In my case, I have a job I love with problems to solve; and inspiration and opportunity to write and produce and get somewhere cool.  I guess I’m on the proverbial ladder.

So, back to contributing factors.  For me, the list of things that I can look back on and say, Oh yeah, that was crucial, looks something like this:

·         Strong role models who support me. Of course it’s cliché to thank family, friends, and your spouse, but it’s cliché for a reason.  It really helps to have peeps.

·         The experience of education, not just the knowledge. Bumping up against teachers and students and classes that did and didn’t get along with me, agree with me, and like me was all training ground for being, well, a person.

·         The opportunity to pursue the things I was interested in. This refers to having the time and resources to follow my interests.  It also in a way has to do with my need to tinker; I’ve picked up and dropped a huge list of hobbies and pursuits, and all of them have had something to contribute to later interests.

I realize by now you’re thinking, okay, she hasn’t said “SQL Server” even ONCE in this blog.  Sorry about that, but this whole thing came from thinking about my work, which is all about the SQL.  And it’s all leadup to part 2, where I’ll bring things back to SQL and you.

 

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

Here is the video to accompany the article I wrote for SQLServerPedia.com, "The Server-side Trace: What, Why, and How"…

Any time you open SQL Server Profiler and run a trace, you're running a client-side trace. Even if you open SQL Profiler on the server and run it there, it’s still client-side. To run a server-side trace, we need to create a script. If that last sentence made your stomach tighten up, don't worry…this will be completely painless.

I go over the difference between client side and server side traces, the benefits, and how to set up, edit, run, and stop a server side trace.  The article was written after the video, so it has a little more information. For example, in the article I linke to a blog by SQL Server MVP Linchi Shea that better illuminates the benefits of server-side traces over client-side ("Performance Impact: Profiler Tracing vs. Server Side SQL Tracing", [1]).

This was a fun video to make, and this marks my first non-blog publish. I'm very excited, and already gettnig positive feedback.  Keep the emails and comments coming, guys: positive, constructive, and other!

3/12/2010 Edit: I ran across a little something today I thought I should share, a SQLMonster.com forum thread on traceID=1. In it, Kalen DeLaney confirms that the traceID = 1 that you see when you run select * from fn_trace_getinfo(NULL) is a "default system trace used to populate some of the summary reports". My suspicions are confirmed, Dr. Watson!

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