Please VOTE for Me: PASS Summit 2012 Lightening Talks

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Hello Dear Reader the PASS Summit is approaching and with that the program committee sent out a request for Lightening Talk Submissions.  Last year I was able to give a lightening talk, 24 a 5 minute Horror Story, about one of my worst on call shifts ever that unfolded during a 24 straight hours.  It involved the wrong RAID Drive being pulled, having to rebuild transaction logs, Master going nuclear and having to rebuild the system tables and restore from backup, and finishing off with a little DBA Prayer called “Please God let DBCC CHECKDB run clean so I can get to sleep….”.  It was fun and I tried to do it with as much humor as I could given the situation.

This year the Lightening Talks have been extended to 10 minutes, and I’ve submitted another that is now up for community vote. 

“So Balls,” you say, “What are you presenting on?”

A very important topic Dear Reader and it is all about how to be a better DBA.  We all will go to the Summit and spend hundreds and in most cases thousands of dollars to attend.  What about the time in between?  

Once a year we have the largest get together in the World of SQL Server professionals.  After you go home how do you keep up with it?  Knowing where to look is the first step.  There are many many organizations that work tirelessly to keep the spirit of the Summit alive until we meet again, and you can get it without breaking the budget.  My topic is Get Top Notch Training for Free or Next to Nothing.

GET TOP NOTCH TRAINING FOR FREE OR NEXT TO NOTHING

Top Notch, You've said it all.

  The greatest thing about Microsoft SQL Server is the SQL Server Community.  I would use it as a major selling point if I were a Microsoft Rep.  

Save thousands of dollars, yep.  Get features included with Enterprise Edition that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars with other vendors, check.  Has a community of millions of users who bust their butt’s regularly to give free training, documentation, assistance, and put on over 100 free training clinics in 2012 alone, Check.   

I admit I am biased here.  Most technologies have a gathering and professionals that go out of their way to help others.  You would be hard pressed to find one as grand in scale and scope as the SQL Server Community.  Without further ado here’s my Abstract:

The greatest thing about SQL Server is its Community. This is always spotlighted at the Summit, but throughout the year there is Free Training offered by Top SQL Minds, MVP's, and MCM's alike. Learn about Webinars, User Group Meetings, and SQL Saturdays and how to keep your SQL Learning going all year long.

There’s a lot to be gained by going to the big conferences, but if you’re in a shop where the budget isn’t there you don’t have to miss out.  My company Pragmatic Works has free training on the T’s (Tuesday and Thursday’s), SQL Skills has their Insider video’s, The Brent Ozar PLF has weekly webinars, Idera has the Ace program, and you name it (and sorry to anyone I left out) we've got it!

Not to mention the PASS Virtual Chapters!  DBA, DBA Fundamentals, Performance, PowerShell, Big Data, Business Intelligence, and more!  Want a preview of the great content you will get at the PASS Summit 2012 look no further than the 24 Hours of PASS, once again completely free.

Want to be able to reach people in person and network?  Maybe you should attend a SQL Saturday, check out SQL Saturday 151coming up in Orlando Saturday September 29th, where the same people and many of the same presentations given around the globe are brought to the local community.  

Want community more than once or twice a year?  Check out your Local SQL Server User Group http://www.sqlpass.org/PASSChapters.aspx(SSUG to the uninitiated), where you meet the DBA’s that make up your local community, once again absolutely free.

Many conferences will give you a chance to get training that may not make it out to any of these channels (the Microsoft PSS team the CAT team and other Microsoft guru's), and I would argue that they are still very important and valuable reasons to attend.

However, knowing where to look when those conferences are gone and just a memory and notes on a page is priceless.  So this will be my presentation.  It will be chock full of links to resources, how to find information, what sites to go through (I still haven't mentioned forums!).  Better yet being a lightening talk we'll have some people in the room that may be able to contribute more as well!

Click here to vote for me, GET TOP NOTCH TRAINING FOR FREE OR NEXT TO NOTHING.  Thanks for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad