Rose will be a big loss and one that hits close to home.  My thoughts go out to her family. She will be very much missed.

Remember to cherish each day we have with our families, friends and everything else you take on in life.

Again, speaking is this month’s topic.  Bob has this lined up as, “This month the prompt is how did you come to love presenting? What was the first time you gave a presentation in front of a group and really enjoyed it? Was it something that was required of you in school? Something you did in the workplace? Were you inspired by other SQL community members and thought “I think I can do that too”? Whatever your story is, I’d love to hear it. Not a presenter? Not a problem! Feel free to chime in with whatever you like that’s related to either presenting or SQL Server in general.” As I usually do, I’m going to take the last option and talk about a part to speaking that is completely outside the questions asked.  I’m fully taking advantage of, “Feel free to chime in with whatever you like…”

Picking a Topic

There are a ton of great topics out there and deep dives into how SQL Server works, from page internals to extremely in-depth optimizer information.  These topics are excellent and a must in terms of learning when you truly get down and dirty in the mud with SQL Server.  However, there is another method you can rely on and have great success in when picking a topic; pick topics that people will use in real life from small to large sized SQL Server installations.

What does that mean?  When you’re picking a topic, think about your normal workload or tasks you typically would be performing.  Don’t limit this to daily tasks but projects that take some time to plan and implement.  A great example is a presentation I recently wrote and have given a few times, “Upgrading to SQL Server 2012 with Limited Downtime”.   Everyone at some point will be upgrading SQL Server.  In the real world, almost everyone can retain some value from attending this presentation that goes over real life, executed designs, preparations, implementations and methods to accomplishing the upgrade.

Execution plan tuning is another idea.  I’ve done a 100-200 level session on tuning in real life patterns.  These sessions have always drawn off what would be reality in a normal administrative and development team.  Of course, this doesn’t mean it is not a good idea if you can spend 75 minutes talking about how, why and what happens when a WorkTable is introduced into an execution plan, to write a session like that.  That information is just as valuable as any session.  However, think about your audience at the same time.  Will the entire audience gain some real return for investing their time attending?  You may get a room of 100 people that will get that from a 500-level session but you may have a better result and build a platform to the 500-level session by implementing a presentation that can be utilized in a broader team set and SQL Server installation base.

So, when you are thinking about what session to write, what the topic should be, don’t spend time thinking about if it will make you look smart enough, be hard enough to follow or be the cat’s meow to the most internal and in-depth topic around.  Think about making an effort to return a higher ratio of the attendee’s investment sitting in your presentation by giving them something that they truly can take away and utilize immediately.

Practice doesn’t always make perfect

I like to think of my presentations as TED.com talks, not so much a timed point and click technical session.  Everyone has their own method and way to practicing a session.  Some practice a session to the point that almost every word is repeated, sequentially and timed to the minute.  You may also think that everyone does that and that is the only way to be successful.  Honestly speaking, that isn’t always true.  I’ve had many sessions that have not been practiced at all.  Well, practiced beyond the morning of the presentation, a run through the slides and a few keywords to make sure the session flow continues as it should.

Practicing simply isn’t for everyone.  A lot of people find that presenting is something that really does come naturally.  Getting in front of a group of people and letting the presentation flow as it should base on how the presentation fits to the group that is sitting in front of you.  I believe each presentation evolves during the time is it presented based on the group that is in the room.  You should take in the expressions on attendee’s faces, listen to the questions they are asking, note if the group is made up of DBAs to Developers.  If the session is on execution plan tuning and I’ve ended up with a room of developers, I’ll manipulate the session as I discuss the best practices and ways to tune execution plans based on how a developer would use it best.  If the room is primarily DBAs, then it will look to that side.  If the room is a good mix, include that mix in how you present things.  Include statistical information as much as coding changes to make plans change.

Now, this does not mean you can change demonstrations per each group, or not practice and prepare demonstrations.  Demonstrations are, and should be, static and functional.  Set them up before hand, ensure they function, back them up, and make them easily recreated on other machines (in case your machine dies 10 minutes before you are going on stage).  Practice the demonstrations but don’t make them the presentation. Make your experience and stories the reason you are advancing your knowledge to the group.

Summary

One of the best presentations I have ever been in was one that Jessica Moss (B | T) gave years ago in Iowa for a SQL Saturday.  Jessica’s presentation was on SSAS and just when the session started, the projector in the room basically blew up and would not work.  Without skipping a beat, the session evolved rapidly and Jessica made that session work without the projector.  Not only did Jessica make it work but, she evolved it into a session that fit the group.  Once Jessica started talking, she noticed the group wasn’t really with the level or the track she was on.  Based on that, she altered the entire hour and evolved the session into what the group really needed to understand the topic.  That, to this day, is still the most impressive show of presentation skills I have seen and I learned from it.  I can draw off evaluations and feedback to say, it seems to be working pretty well and people enjoy the way I present.  Now, just because I present this way successfully, does not mean you have to or will.  Use this and what I’m sure will be countless other recommendations from other common speakers in our community, to build your own method of handing off our wealth of knowledge the best way we can to keep the attention there, the gratitude afterwards and the rewards of what it means to provide a truly good presentation.

SQL Saturday in Madison – This is our second SQL Saturday in Madison.  Last year was a screaming success (I say that because Jes is on the organizing team ;-)  This year will be as good if not better than last year.  The location is the same, speakers and schedule looking awesome and the Wisconsin SQL Community just has a great time networking and learning together.  I have the honor of presenting with the famous Jes Borland too!!!  I may have to get her signature while we’re up there.  I may also get it for saying that.

PASS Business Analytics Conference – The window sticker, “Immerse yourself in the world of data-driven insights with over 60 sessions by top Microsoft and industry experts – including award-winning economist and Freakonomics co-author Dr. Steven D. Levitt. Gain real-world insights, prescriptive guidance, best practices, and strategic vision to expand your ability to predict business performance.”  The non-window sticker:  this conference is looking better and better each time I look over the sessions.  This is coming from a not-so-BI-driven-SQL-Guy.  If a conference geared towards the BI space of SQL Server can intrigue a diehard internals SQL MVP, you shouldn’t be missing this one.  If you are cringing at the cost, make the case to have your company send you.  The ROI and value is there.

The week comes to an end on a high note with SQL Saturday in Chicago.  This SQL Saturday was one of the first I helped organizer and one of my favorite.  The team, the location, sponsors and schedule are always amazing.  The best part, like any SQL Saturday, it’s free and still Summit level content.  I’ll be helping DeVry again by teaching students in their IT programs but also ending the day with a session on upgrading to SQL Server 2012 with limited downtime.  This session was given recently for the Chicago SQL Server User Group and a great session.  Not so much for my side as a speaker, for the discussions and interaction it sparks with everyone wondering just how easy it should be to upgrade to SQL Server 2012.  I’ll have demos on upgrading from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2012 already setup with Availability Groups and a quick application review of utilizing connection strings to show mirroring at work for upgrade usage.

If you want to stretch the week out even longer, Fargo is holding its first SQL Saturday on April 27^th!  This event was the brain child of good friend Jason Strate.  I was lucky enough to have helped as an organizer and can with complete confidence say, this SQL Saturday is going to be a huge success and one that will become an annual event for another great region.

As you can see, there is a lot in the North-Central to Midwest PASS regions this coming week.  Plenty of reasons to learn some new things about SQL Server and network with people that have that passion about this product line just like you do.

I hope to see everyone at one of these events.  They all should be a great success.

Wow, that’s a question that has petabytes worth of responses that can lead to nowhere of a direction or conclusion.  Let me be a little more specific.  Is computing moving in a direction to promote intelligent software, managing realistically advanced to small business sized hardware?

Govern the way a government does

Over the last few years, we’ve seen a vast amount of effort being put into governing software as it pertains to resource utilization.  In SQL Server, we see this directly with Resource Governor.  For anyone not in the SQL Server area – Resource Governor allows us data people, the ability to control or cap resource consumption for specific actions of events that run amuck on a database server.  So in terms of say a query run by application widget controller – widget controller comes along and given a programmers ability to write T-SQL, it consumes a great deal of CPU on the database server.  That CPU is ideally needed for the other 10 thousand transactions that need to execute as well.  Well, if widget controller is governed, we can in so many words, cut widget controller off at the wrists and allow our database server to continue on, satisfying the world of data needs.

This governance is the point of the question on the direction of computing.  Are we really going down the right path by saying we should stop said widget controller when it does the bad mojo to the engine?  Or should we be writing intelligent logic in which widget controller knows how to write a real request to SQL Server without trashing it?  Take this further – should we be writing engines that have the intelligence to handle this in a logical manner in which it does not starve or promote a lack of response to other data service needs?  Looking at this, we already have yielding, page swapping…the management of resources actually will start to work it out while the OS completely becomes unresponsive, of course.  But are those archaic methods still intelligent enough for one, to keep up with what we need, and two, manage the resource adequately?  Does all this matter or even feasible in a world where we could literally start hardware on fire if we use the real capabilities of that hardware?

The Answer – Like I have one?

There is no answer – this is a conversation piece on our technological capabilities and future.  Truly, we cannot answer or come up with a solution to what we’re discussing in this article.  What we can do is start to think about it in the small pieces of code we write, the applications we create, the engines we install and then push those thoughts to the teams that write things like SQL Server or Oracle (ha! Think Oracle people will listen?)

Governance of resource consumption is a good thing.  Don’t get me wrong, we need it to protect our services.  Even more as data architects come along and promote a design that has a heart beating of data right in the middle of it all.  If the heart has an attack, there is a long hospital stay and maybe even a defibrillator or two involved.  That’s where consultants like me come in ;-)

What I’d like everyone to think about is, if we go about the direction of putting so much resources, not the hardware type but the people type, into governance, are we avoiding the true need to make what we create intelligent enough to know better and to handle the resources, now the hardware type, that we have advanced in computing to hand over to software?

It’s a deep conversation and one I have a feeling many of you will sit there thinking about, realizing just how much we govern hardware resource consumption and one that may just get you writing better code, designing better solutions and making better feedback to the creators that drive our technology.  You may not think it is true, but they really do take what we think into consideration.  If we all stop using SQL Server, think they would do as well with it?  Nope.  Now, the cloud is a different story.  We’re stuck with that no matter what we say ;-)

Happy Computing, Everyone.  Let’s make sure the future is going to a future we can be proud of.

Total Package

I went out and purchased the HTC Windows 8X Phone a few days ago. The reason this diehard Droid guy went to Windows 8 Phone was the complete integration across devices and information. That’s a mouthful so let me explain by showing you the devices I have, helping me get my job done, daily.

Throwing into the mix of my work machine, I have a machine I use for presenting and working on articles/demos. That machine was quickly upgraded to Windows 8 as well. Both machines are using VMWare Workstation so I can’t really lose here. I need Windows 7 or Windows Server 2012 or 2003 to test something, bam, done and pushing forward.

Here comes the phone – thrown into all of this, I have a Droid RAZR. Awesome phone! This Motorola phone feels great in your hand, , quick to get what I need done, has excellent battery life and I have no real complaints. Why would I change that? Well, Windows 8 in short. Recall, I’m into hardcore efficiency in each day of how I get the job done. Whether you want to argue there are ways to do all kinds of things or not, the fact is, Droid and Windows 8 are not the same thing. I had some pains from that and what I would have to do in order to get everything working nice together. Even the corporate sync for mail and opening an Excel or Word attachment on the Droid was painful at times.

Microsoft, in my eyes, is doing one thing that I’d wish the entire industry would do: seamless integration with all devices. Now, this would be like asking for world peace to get the big dogs all making the same thing with a slight twist for marketing. They won’t do it. They never have. That’s why third party applications and interfaces are in business. So my reasoning for what would obviously be a few days of pain by switching my phone OS was, seamless integration between all of the technology I put my hands on for work and personal use.

With Windows 8 across the landscape of my devices, it makes me more efficient. I could care less if you have issues with Windows and love your Droid or iPhone, bottom line is, you have to admit, having one OS across it all lends itself to efficiency. Now, if that OS was crashing every 5 minutes or plain old, sucks, that isn’t efficient. However, Windows 8 has proven to fit right into my work and personal usage without such ease, I could not avoid the fact, it made sense to make it so across the board.

Review – 2 day

It’s been two days now since I picked up the HTC Windows 8X (Verizon). So far, there has been some pain. Duh, I just changed the OS on my phone! If you know me, you know my phone is attached to me so changing it will be painful at first. Luckily, Windows 8 is pretty much Windows 8 from Laptop to Phone to Tablet. See where my reasoning was?

With all of that, there is a few things I have found irritating, now being the 3^rd day of having the phone.

1. Seriously, Microsoft has Bing Maps but we don’t get a voice navigation like google Maps? Yeah, in order to get navigation I need to use the costly VZ Navigator or buy an app.  Now, an app that is $4.99 may be worth it. I just nee to read the reviews.  I’m still a bit irritated it doesn’t have a default GPS navigation option built in.
2. Some apps do not rotate.  Windows 8 Phone is young still and I foresaw this issue.  A lot of application simple are being updated almost every other day.  Facebook for example, will not rotate the screen when I rotate the phone.  That’s annoying for someone with big hands and can’t stand typing on a phone in horizontal view.

That’s it! Really, that is it. Other than navigation, I have been able to find every app I need to get right back to where I was with Droid.

So, what’s good about it? It’s too early to give a down and dirty, pro vs. con, review. I will do that as it is always helpful in making decisions on moving to a new device and OS. The one thing I will leave you with is activity.

Activity Quick Glance

That’s it!

That’s about all I have for the start of my 3rd day with the HTC Windows 8X phone. I can say, if you are up on Windows 8 for your tablet device and laptop, it really does make sense to be there on your phone. Hopefully this and the upcoming reviews or the phone will help make that choice for you as well.

Something I’d like to go into the New Year with is a special thanks for a few people that have made my ability and ambition for writing possible.  Mostly, Jes Borland (B | T) has been a huge part in this.  Back when I wrote my 4^th or 5^th blog, I was horrible at writing.  My grammar was terrible and my mind always worked far faster than my typing skills could.  This led to some pretty craptastic articles.  Luckily, I met Jes and soon after, she started helping me greatly with my writing by reviewing almost all of the articles I’ve written.  With that and the comments and edits to my articles, I’ve learned more about writing and slowing my roll to make my mind and typing more in unison.  I can truly say, I would not be writing an eighth of what I do up to now, without that help.

Erin Stellato (B | T) is another person that has been far beyond helpful with the same help.  Erin has done the same thing for me in reviewing what I’ve done and gone far beyond what she needed to in not only the grammatical aspects but the technical aspects of my articles.  Erin is an extremely skilled data architect level consultant.  As many of my close friends know, and some technical editors of pages I’ve written in books, I may write something that is 100% accurate but it only comes out that way in my head.  I know a lot of us have the same issue.  We say something, it makes perfect sense to us but when someone else reads it, the same accurate meaning is completely wrong in a lot of ways.  Erin and the skills she has, have caught many of those instances and has not only increased my own skills but helped me in something that is extremely hard to alter; how we speak to an audience about a technical topic.

So, this being my last blog of 2012, I find it very rewarding in making it one that says a very special thanks for Jes and Erin for all the help they have shown me in my own professional development in writing.

This blog also has another purpose: if you are considering blogging or have been slammed by a blog you tried simply because it wasn’t written well or misleading, don’t quit!  Get some help in the form of people to review your writing before you publish it.  It really does help build the skills you’ll have for writing and you only benefit by keeping the exchange of knowledge going while building your skills, the reviewer’s skills and the technical world while they all read your work.

Happy New Year!

Original post blogged on LessThanDot.

Original post blogged on LessThanDot.

Original post blogged on LessThanDot.