Thank you to those who attended my VERY FIRST session yesterday: Every Byte Counts! I am grateful for the opportunity to speak, and for the awesome feedback I received from all attendees.
I have just finished posting my slidedeck and a 2012 backup of my demo database. You may get them here:
http://www.sqlsaturday.com/viewsession.aspx?sat=287&sessionid=20892
I’ll have more post-event thoughts later I’m sure.
Thanks to everyone, who made yesterday a fantastic day!
I’ve never put much stock in setting long-term goals for myself. I’m not a New Year’s Resolution kind of guy. But a couple of years ago, I did set a loose goal of becoming more involved in the SQL Server community.
I figured at first, I would just network with as many people I could. Then last year, I started to volunteer at SQL Saturdays & travelled out of state to attend SQL Saturdays. Finally, I made it a personal and professional goal to finally attend the PASS Summit.
I achieved all of those goals!
Through those accomplishments, I set a few new goals. For one, I started this blog. But the bigger, more intimidating goal was to finally start speaking. I had an opportunity to get my feet wet, late last year, by giving a Lightning Talk at Chicago’s SQL Server User Group. This gave me a solid foundation upon which to build a full blown session.
I set my sights on two early 2014 SQL Saturdays in my region – Madison & Chicago. And I am honored and humbled to say that I was accepted to speak at both!
If you come out to one of these SQL Saturdays, you can see me present Every Byte Counts: Why Your Datatype Choices Matter!
I want to give a special thanks to Jes Borland, Eddie Wuerch, and Mark Vaillancourt. When I first started this endeavor, Jes shared some fantastic advice with me on how to structure and put a session together. Later, I attended a SQL Saturday session by Eddie, on speaking and presenting, which also influenced me greatly. He incorporated a dialogue exercise with his audience, so I volunteered my topic idea to work through. Finally, I attended another SQL Saturday session by Mark, also on speaking and presenting. Mark gave me some other fantastic insights and ideas.
So thank you everyone! Here goes nothing!
Every Byte Counts 