24 Hours of PASS
Last week, I had the thrill and honor of presenting for 24 Hours of PASS. I presented a shortened version of my successful Every Byte Counts: Why Your Datatype Choices Matter session and had a blast.
While I’ve presented this session in person a number of times, I faced some new challenges this time. First, I was presenting a new, shortened version (the original has grown to 70 minutes of content!). The second challenge was presenting online – a much bigger challenge than one might think. I had no crowd to feed off of. Additionally, I had to consciously remember to make eye contact with my webcam, instead of looking at my slides. Finally, I had picked up a head cold the week prior. 30 minutes before my start, my nose decided to start running, so I had to excuse myself a few times to tend to that. A little embarrassing & irritating, but I suppose it’s no different than presenting in person. After all, the show must go on!
Despite the challenges, it was an amazing experience. I was honored to have been given the opportunity and want to thank everyone who worked hard to put another successful 24 Hours of PASS together.
Here is Matt Penny’s (@salisbury_matt) Sketchnote from my session.
PASS Summit
On another note, I also received notice last week that I was not accepted to speak at PASS Summit. I wasn’t upset about this. After all, almost 900 abstracts were submitted, of which only a 15% were accepted? While I know that my Every Byte Counts session is useful information, and COULD be Summit quality, it is also a niche topic that given the volume of other submissions, would probably lose out. And it did, but I’m okay with that. I will not be dissuaded from speaking or submitting, and am still proud to be part of this community!
What Next?
So what’s next? Last week, I was also accepted to speak at SQL Saturday Indianapolis! I’m thrilled to be making my return to Indianapolis & joining a great group of presenters. Additionally, I will be presenting remotely to the Las Vegas User Group. This will be the first time I’ve done a remote User Group session, but I’m hoping that this will be the first of many! And finally, I just submitted for SQL Saturday Minnesota!
Every Byte Counts 