Professional Growth – Curious..about data

2024- Of ‘quiet quitting’ and ‘life in the hallway’

My good friend Gina Menorek shared this article from NY Post on the overwhelming exhaustion among tech workers. The article talks of ‘quiet quitting’ – not quitting our jobs but quitting the idea of ‘going above and beyond’, setting goals, aspirations, and various, that were a regular habit with many of us. The article speaks of the increased exhaustion that is triggered by virtual work – meetings, ‘reminders’, and constantly staring at boxes instead of real people. To me, the weird, eerie silence that I am confronted with as I login in the morning – as opposed to walking into a place with people, coffee in hand, and exchanging greetings – that’s a feeling I can never get used to, even after 3 years of this.

A lot of people I talk to in the community suffer from this, and nobody has any clue of how to get out of it. Some have followed their work dictates and gone back into a ‘real office’, to see if that helps. Others have preferred ‘hybrid work’, going into an office one or two days a week. I don’t think though, that virtual work is the root cause of this exhaustion. It certainly has contributed to it, but I believe it is a lot more than that – it is years of working a certain way and having expectations that don’t seem to actualize in ways we thought they would. Most of us were climbing ladders that were leaning against the wrong wall to begin with, and now we are wondering why we aren’t there. By ‘there’ I don’t mean material achievements – am pretty pleased about how I did money-wise. Our company got bought out and stock payouts were totally worth the time spent there. Most of us are well paid and can’t complain much in that regard. But a lot of us don’t know what is next for us. We are also at some level tired of how the tech industry operates in general (That’s a whole post in of itself). But basically, the system we have to fight daily, leaving us exhausted. My late dad also used to say that every occupation comes with physical hazards, or in other words, has a health impact that happens over time. I never understood what it would be for me until 2020 hit.

My personal story for the last two years is as below.

Setting goals is all about two important things: staying healthy and knowing where you want to go and how to get there. But in 2020, with the arrival of Covid, both of these things got messed up for me.

In 2018, I moved to Raleigh and started a new job as a database engineer. This was different from the production DBA work I had been doing for the past 25 years.I was tired of the on-call duties and lack of recognition in my previous roles. The new job was modern and complex, with no on-call duties, but adjusting to working in a highly individualized style was hard, as most of my prior roles were highly collaborative in nature. Just when I was getting used to it, Covid came along.

During 2020, I lost four family members, including my Dad. Dealing with isolation and the fear of more losses took a toll on my mental and physical health. Menopausal symptoms made things worse, causing back pain, acid reflux, and TMJ-related pain. The TMJ was a condition caused by years of typing on a keyboard and sitting a certain way. A variant of this condition is also called ‘tech neck’. It causes a lot of pain, difficulties with swallowing, blurred eyes, and various conditions.

I started to lose the thread of thoughts as I was working on a problem, or sitting in meetings with my boss. Friends recommended I talk to HR and go on medical leave until my body and mind got functional. The HR folks where I worked were very kind and friendly – the CEO And CTO actually even reached out personally to offer any assistance as needed when my Dad passed. My boss was also an exceptionally kind human. However, my own sense of pride combined with prior negative experiences using HR help prevented me from asking for any assistance formally. I somehow muddled through work, making many mistakes as I went along and expecting to be fired for something or the other almost daily. I still don’t know how I made it through all this but perhaps I did contribute a little something, and my boss was kind enough to excuse the mistakes. After spending a ton of money on doctors and medication, I got myself to a tolerable state by 2022.

To keep my mind focused, I decided to enroll in a master’s program in Strategic Communication. Even though I don’t plan to work in PR or HR, the program covers things like ethics, data analytics, and communication styles for good leadership, that interest me. That combined with my involvement with WIT causes got me thinking about becoming an ethicist, especially in the growing field of AI Audit. Taking more courses on data governance is helping me shape a possible second career.

Getting back to the general scenario we are in as a community – the post-Covid Era is proving to be enormously challenging to a great many people. Salaries are lower, expectations to return to in-person office work are high, and exhaustion caused by continued online/siloed work is widely prevalent. There are several talented people out of work. Many have left jobs on their own without anything lined up because of sheer exhaustion.

One of the scientists I follow for Covid Related, Dr Nicholas Christakis, predicted some of this pretty accurately. In his article he says ‘When we eventually enter this “intermediate phase”, (of the pandemic, where we are now) we will find that we have been “devastated” and are left to “clean up the clinical, social, and psychological destruction” in the pandemic’s wake. Virus-related disability, gaps in children’s education, grief, job loss, higher taxes, and inflation are just some of the Covid-induced issues we will all need to deal with during this period.’

He also offers optimism for things to come in 2024 and beyond. ‘The intermediate phase will last until 2024, Christakis predicts, and then we will enter the post-pandemic period. “I think that will be a little bit of a party,” remarked Christakis. “Like any other collective threat…those of us who survive will rejoice.”

Looking ahead to 2024, my main goal is to get healthier. I want to be able to travel without worrying too much about what I eat. Every day, I hope for the end of Covid and a return to a world without masks. I will be completing the Masters in Spring (my late Dad would be proud). I have A grades in all semesters so far and deem that to be an achievement as well. What will I do next for a job after this one goes away or I leave on my own, am not totally clear yet. But I know I will get there. Until then am giving it the best I can and living up to the trust my boss and colleagues have put in me.

In the words of my teacher, Rick Jarow, “When one door closes, another opens, but there can be a long hallway in between.” I believe that even though 2024 might be a challenging time for several of us, we will come out of it stronger and in better shape.

Here’s to a hopeful and transformative New Year!

PASS Summit 2017 – the best ever

I have been a PASS summit attendee for 13 years now. This year is my 14th. Every year is different – some years are better than others, some make you feel it wasn’t as good as usual. This year was an odd experience for me. Quite a number of my friends were not attending for various reasons, and there was a lot of content that I thought was not in my line of work. In short, I went because I always do but didn’t expect a whole lot. But, it didn’t quite turn out that way. Some of my highlights are as below:

Dressing up for Halloween: Had a good day at precon on Data Science essentials followed by a quiet dinner with a good friend and headed home to the airbnb which I shared with two other friends.I had bought a halloween costume along.Now, am not normally much of a costume person – I bought this costume (‘Maleficient’ the evil queen from Sleeping Beauty) at the very last minute – because I had some amazon points left and amazon in its own clever way thought I’d like this costume because I like Disney movies. I thought this summit was going to be very low key and decided that dressing up would probably make it more fun.So in went the costume in my suitcase, literally with prime wrapping intact.In the lodging – I saw my good friend Mickey dress up for halloween. She looked fantastic and the girl in me wanted to dress up as well. So I put on the costume, which actually fitted me right, and came with a lovely glowing staff. And off I went, first to the WIT dinner and then to the opening event. Everyone I met loved the costume and by the time evening ended I was beginning to tire of how many photos I had to pose for. The part of me that looks for attention had gotten more than her fair share during this one evening.

Making new friends: I am normally a somewhat reserved person. It takes me time to warm up and make new friends – part of the reason why I love the summit is because I know so many people there and they know me just by virtue of attending. There is no extra effort to stretch out and make friends. This year, I just decided to push the part of me that sinks into this comfort zone. I went out and made friends with people who I felt were worthy being friends with, and especially those who were looking to be part of the community. Those worthy contacts include Miyo Yuk, a data scientist from MIT, Swagatika Sarangi, immigrant from my home country and new speaker, and several others. I also met with new comers I was mentoring and had a very good conversation.

Asking for help/being mentored: Also a very difficult thing for me – when I do it I do it in very awkward ways that do not get desired result. This time I think I got it right. I got some awesome mentoring advice from two gracious ladies I have great regard for – Kathi Kellenberger on writing books, and Jen Stirrup on WIT related issues. I am glad to have reached out to both of them.

Learning data science: I have been blogging a while on some basics of data science. At the summit I attended some excellent sessions on how the data world is changing and evolving, what are the areas I can specifically focus on as a SQL Server professional looking to do more of data science related work, and who are the people I need to follow for getting there. I felt more energized than I ever thought I would that going in this direction would be the right thing for me, although it does involve a steep learning curve.

For all the reasons cited above and for many others, this summit was special. It has always been special but this year I felt a sense of true belonging with people in a very obvious way. The feeling was strongly like ‘this was it’. These are the people I am going to be with and grow old with through the rest of my career and my life. I am grateful and glad to know so many of them so very well. I am grateful that we are linked by a common worthy cause. If you are like me and reading this – looking for a community to belong and friends who support you/care for you – take heart, you have arrived. Just give it time and give it your whole hearted commitment. It will pay off.

True belonging is not something you negotiate externally, it’s what you carry in your heart. It’s finding the sacredness in being a part of something. – Brene Brown

What is networking, really?

I am still trying to get up to speed on blogging after a gap. Today I managed to push myself to write some R code and test it, and it worked. Am getting there, although need more work to turn it into a blog post. So, here is another on the lines of professional development. It is about that word that many people hear of and know of, but really don’t know exactly what it means. I certainly didn’t.
When I was new to the community, I heard many people say networking is the best way to find work. But I really didn’t know what they meant. I thought you had to know a lot of very influential people, and am not the kind of person to seek out people of power/importance and push my cause with them. After a few years, that definition changed. Now I thought I need to tell people am looking for work and they would in turn respond if they knew of an opportunity that was of interest. This is true, but true only partially. It rarely happened. I started telling people I was looking for work, and almost nobody sent me any contacts or information. I was hurt and disappointed when they didn’t. Many times I started considering if it was worth my time to go to conferences/sql saturdays and so on. It took me close to 15 years to figure out what networking really is, and to get it work for me (at times, it doesn’t work all the time, nothing really works all the time 🙂

To me it is as below:

1 Networking is really just making friends. Get friendly, learn to relax, introduce yourself to new people. Don’t go with any heavy objective or intent. Say you are so-and-so, pleased to meet you and then see how it goes. The next time you see that person, he/she may recall who you are. And there maybe someone else with them that they may introduce to you. That is how the friends circle/network grows.
2 Talk of things you are comfortable talking about. There are many things people talk of that one cannot participate in because one does not share that common interest or simply one does not like it. To me specific topics like that include religion, politics and at times cultural differences. I stick to things am comfortable with and usually find things to talk of in that area.
3 Make your work known via blog posts, talking at user groups or other events. This is by far the most important key to people recommending you for jobs or even letting you know of open positions. If they don’t know what you are good at they can’t relate you to any position you’d be good at. That is partly why I personally didn’t get anyone to recommend me, and I never realized it. Once I got active with blogging and speaking, things changed rather dramatically.
4 Give things time. Networking and building your network takes a long time. Sometimes we can find instant chemistry/connections in people, and the person you talk to today may be your boss or colleague at the next job. But such miracles are rare. Most of the time, people take time to know you and over time that can mature into an opportunity, or a referral.
5 Get active on social media. Many of the friends I have in the sql community are people I got to know better via twitter. I am personally not hugely active myself, but I do read what they have to say and respond appropriately when I can. I also share what I blog and get comments or feedback on that from time to time. Twitter is by far the easiest media there is to make new friends, particularly in the sql community. It is not as personal as facebook and not as opaque as linked in – it is somewhere in between and is easy to use.

I hope this helps anyone getting started newly with community and networking. Networking is worth it – not only will you gain a lot of support and friends, you will find job openings and opportunities that never existed, guides/mentors who can help you and friendships that can last a lifetime! Best of luck!!

SQL Saturday Louisville precon – interview Andy Leonard

This will be year #9 of sql saturdays in Louisville. Every year (starting with 3rd or 4th), it has been a tradition to do ‘precons’ on Fridays. For those who don’t know – Precons are day long paid trainings by an expert in the subject, held on the friday before the event. We have heard repeatedly from many attendees that precons are their best bet at attending any solid training – they are local, priced low and given by the best of the teachers there is. Quite a number of attendees come to precons on their own dime to learn more. In short it is impossible to overstate the value add of a precon to community.

We try to have 2 or 3 different precons on different subject areas. This year, we have a precon on Query Tuning by Grant Fritchey, SSIS/BIML by Andy Leonard and Building modern data architecture by Joshua Luedemann. Karla Landrum, the queen of sql saturdays – has been doing a blog interview with each presenter for the precons she has at SQL saturday, Pensacola. I thought this is a great way to publicize the event as well as the presenter and am doing it for our events too. This post is an interview with Andy Leonard.

If you are a serious BI/SSIS professional – it is impossible to not know Andy. He is a highly respected person in the BI community – a technical guru and a former MVP who voluntarily gave up his title to enable more new people to get it. I am really glad to have him do a precon for us this year. Below is a short interview with him.

1. Give us a brief background/history of your work with sql server.
I started working with SQL Server in the late 1990’s. I was building electrical control systems and human-machine interfaces (HMIs) for manufacturing back then. To stress-test an HMI, I set the data-acquisition frequency to one second for every tag (data-collection point) and left for a 3-day weekend. When I returned I tried to open a 3GB Access file and… nothing happened. The stress test succeeded in letting me I’d need a bigger database engine. I found SQL Server 6.5 and it passed that same test. Problem solved.

2.What are the top 3 compelling reasons you’d give to someone for attending your precon – ‘intelligent-data-integration-ssis-design-patterns-and-biml’?
Automation is happening all around us. The days of being paid to copy, paste, and edit repetitive SSIS packages are fading fast; as are the days of manually building and deploying configurations scripts between SSIS Catalogs. Attendees will learn:
1) How to use Business Intelligence Markup Language (Biml) to automate the development of repetitive SSIS solutions;
2) How to leverage SSIS Design Patterns to improve SSIS package performance; and
3) How to combine SSIS Design Patterns and Biml to manage enterprise data integration. I’ll even throw in some demos of the free tools and utilities available at DILM Suite – no extra charge!

3. We are going through a lot of changes in database world. There are lot of skills required to sustain ourselves as data/BI professionals. Why do you think SSIS/BIML are among them, why is it so important to add to our skills as BI professionals?
All of the changes in data/BI are driven by economies of scale. Automation is driving down the costs of data integration and management. The net result is data integration developers can now deliver more in less time, with improved quality. There is benefit in spotting a trend and getting in early (ask me how I know!). Data integration automation with Biml is new-enough that one may still get in “early.”

4. What are a few reasons you’d give to someone for attending sql saturdays?
SQL Saturdays are awesome for so many reasons! My #1 reason for supporting SQL Saturdays is the networking opportunities they represent. I love the local-ness of the event. I love that SQL Saturdays offer so many in our community the opportunity to present their ideas and solutions to an audience for the very first time. And I love that SQL Saturdays introduce so many to our community. As I tell my lovely bride, Christy, attending a SQL Saturday is just like hanging out with family, except I don’t have to explain acronyms!

5. What do you like to do for fun/relaxation?
I like to read for relaxation. I read science fiction series – some old, others new. I really enjoyed The Expanse novels and I think the television series is doing a good job capturing the story line. I read business books (and listen to business audio books) because I’m interested in becoming a better businessperson and leader. I read (and listen to) books about theology and Christianity because I want to be a better husband, father, grandfather, and person.

I hope you enjoyed reading and hope it helps you sign up for his precon!! Thank you.

SQL Saturdays – down memory lane

A casual twitter-conversation with Karla Landrum and some other peeps led me down memory lane on older events. Our SQL Saturday at Louisville will be 9 years old this year. We were event #23, in 2009. SQL Saturdays started two years before, in 2007.

Our first event was held at a training center – 2 tracks, 6 speakers, 29 sessions submitted, 3 sponsors and about 60 attendees. We outgrew that location the very next year. Our present event has 6 tracks, close to 300 attendees, 109 sessions submitted so far.

The 22 events before us were as below:
1 Orlando, FL
2 Tampa, FL
3 Jacksonville, FL
4 Orlando, FL
5 Olympia, WA
6 Cleveland, OH (did not actually happen).
7 Birmingham, AL
8 Orlando, FL
9 Greenville, SC
10 Tampa, FL
11 Tacoma, WA
12 Portland, OR
13 Alpharetta, GA
14 Pensacola, FL
15 Jacksonville, FL
16 South Florida
17 Baton Rouge, LA
18 Orlando, FL
19 East Iowa, IA
20 Jacksonville, FL
21 Orlando, FL
22 Pensacola, FL

A lot of the Florida events are past their 10 year anniversary. Many others will be having one this year or next year. This means 10+years of free training to many, networking opportunities, small businesses that have profited by providing services and vendors who have <hopefully> found more customers. If you attend any of these events make sure to thank the organizers – an event is a LOT of work to organize and doing it for 10+ years is no mean achievement – it takes considerable motivation and hard work. Some of my personal choices of memories around 9 years of running this include –

1 I did not have breakfast/coffee delivered once. This is probably the biggest thing I remember that went wrong during my decade of running the event. The food vendor had an employee who was new to town and made his delivery somewhere else (pre GPS days). I still recall that frantic morning with upset speakers and repeat calls to the food vendor.

2 One of the free locations we hosted our event in once threatened to cancel on us on the Friday before. The reason given was that there was ‘an inch of snow’ on the ground and they did not want to risk anybody’s safety. I was on my way to speaker dinner, and had to turn around to talk to them and convince them otherwise. One inch of snow is a big deal for some people. My team and the only volunteer we have left from those days – Deana, has stories on planting signs on the road on a frozen morning. Needless to say, we never had an event in winter ever again.

3 We had 8 tracks at one event. There was a new speaker who was doing her first talk and had nobody show up at her class. She was in tears. We never overdo how many tracks we have after that.

4 Among my other favorite (smaller) memories of the decade include –
1 A lady DBA who was also a new mom attended the WIT session we had with Kevin Kline and Karen Lopez. She was close to quitting her job and decided to stick on after she heard them.
2 One of my events happened to fall on my birthday. Some of the attendees got a big cake and I had a ‘happy birthday’ sung to me by hundreds of people.
3 Wendy Pastrick, one of the PASS board members appreciated our event as among the best organized smaller events.
4 Tim Ford convinced me to attend SQL Cruise during my of events. I’ve attended a cruise every year since then.
5 Hearing attendees talk about ‘do you remember 5 years ago…we came here..’ – never tire of that, ever.

Thank you to all the organizers of the events above for your dedication and hard work..and hope to keep this going as long as we can!! If you are an organizer of any of the above events – do write more on your favorite memories!!

Thanks for reading.

SQL Cruise 2017 – Western Carribean – my experience

As some readers may know, I am a regular attendee on SQL Cruise s for 8 years now. SQLCruise is a training(&-vacation for some) event organized by Tim Ford(b | t ) and Amy Ford (t) that happens twice a year. I went on the first one on Alaska 8 years ago – and I have been hooked since then doing them. I go on atleast one cruise every year – usually the one closest to the east coast. This year the route happened to be around western carribean – including 3 countries I had not visited before – Honduras, Mexico and Belize. Well, the third didn’t quite happen but the other two did and was a ton of fun. My notes are as below. I use this as a way to plan better for next year , so many things I have written are only relevant to me, and perhaps to other frequent cruisers. If you find them too rambling skip all the way down to the ‘Takeaways‘ section where I have summarized the value and gains I get from doing this.

Day 0: I landed in Miami, our port city, late on Thursday January 26th. I have learned the hard way to fly in atleast one day early before the cruise ship leaves – because of frequent and unexpected flight delays, especially in winter. This year was an unusually warm winter with no weather related delays. I did however, manufacture some stress for myself (am seriously good at this) because of a short layover time of 45 minutes at Charlotte. Thankfully, I made the connection, with my luggage intact and checked in into the Hilton, where most of the other cruisers were staying. This is yet another lesson learned over the years – staying with everyone else at the same hotel before takeoff adds some good energy and reduces nervous tension. There is somewhat of a tradition around having breakfast together and leaving in vans to the terminal to board – there is a very comfy, family-like feel to that which is, to me, worth the extra $$ it might cost to stay at a hotel like the Hilton. I spent the next day just wandering around downtown Miami – it was too overcast and rainy to go to the beach.I walked around, got myself some good food to eat at the huge Whole foods Market, napped and waited for the rest of #sqlfamily to arrive.

Day 1: A number of cruisers, most of us known to each other fairly well – met up at the breakfast buffet early. After a heavy, hearty meal (which is needed since boarding and getting food on the ship can take some time) – we piled into a couple of uber taxis and made our way to the cruise terminal. I got to meet one of the new tech leads and new cruiser – Ben Miller and his lovely wife Janelle. We stood in line together and were checked in rather quickly. I was handed my room keys and found to my pleasant surprise that I was on the 5th floor. I was just one floor away from classroom on the 6th and one floor away from dis embarking when ship docked. This was so much easier than being up on 11th or 12th and waiting endlessly for elevators to arrive. My room was also much more airy and brighter than the small cubby-hole kind of rooms I had used before (I paid more for it and my co passenger/sister could not make it). Although it was expensive it seemed very worth it.I made my way to lunch buffet for a quick bite, and then joined the classroom shortly after. There were many former cruisers I knew rather well – Joe Sheffield, Jason Brimhall, Bill Sancrisante, Erickson Winter, Ivan Roderiguez – and among tech leads Ben Miller (b|t) , Jason Hall(b|t), Grant Fritchey(b|t), Kevin Kline(b|t) and Buck Woody(b|t). The rest of the day was taken with exchanging pleasantries, meeting families and getting the week started. We were handed our swag – which was seriously awesome this time. The timbuctoo back packs are always great, as well as soft cotton t shirts – but my favorite was the water bottle/flask.

Day 2: This was a day at sea. The day started with Buck Woody’s session on Data Pro’s guide to the Data Science path. As someone who did a career change from 20 years of operational dba work into BI/Analytics – I found it very interesting. Buck went through an introduction to data science and R programming, various tasks involved in data science profession, and most importantly – how a regular database person can break into this field. The presentation was among the most pragmatic, useful ones I have attended on this subject. Buck also spiced it up with his own brand of humor, small quizzes and exercises – which made it extra interesting. Following this session we had Grant Fritchey’s session on row counts, statistics and query tuning – for anyone doing query tuning on a regular basis, this information never really gets old and is worth listening to every single time. Grant covered changes to optimiser on SQL Server 2016 as well. Following lunch, we had a deep dive/500 level session by Kevin Kline on Optimizer secrets and trace flags. Kevin had a ton of information packed into a 1.5 hour session. The day ended with a group dinner at a restaurant. I personally never have much luck with ship’s restaurants given the restrictions on what I can eat – this time was not any different. I had great company though, to keep me entertained throughout – Buck Woody with his wife and mom, Chris and Joan Wood. I hugely enjoyed chatting with them and getting to know them better. I ended the day by grabbing a bite to eat at the buffet that suited my palate and retired, happy and satisfied.

Day 3: This was a day at port at Roatan Islands, Honduras. We had time for a quick class on encryption by Ben Miller. Ben’s presentation was simple and clear with great demos. Following this we docked at Roatan Islands. I was taking the ship’s tour to Gumbalimba Animal Preserve. I was very happy to have Chris and Joan Wood for company. I love sightseeing, it is one of the reasons for me to do sql cruise – and having company on those tours make them more fun and worth doing. It was a rainy, overcast day – we were taken on a bus ride to the park, which housed a lot of extinct animals and birds. It was a lush, green paradise. We got to play with macaws, white faced monkeys, take a lot of fun pics and returned late afternoon. It was a very fun day, despite the rain.

Day 4: We were supposed to be docked at Belize. But captain announced that they had some unexpected hurdles that prevented them from doing so, and that this would be a day at sea. I have not seen this happen on any other cruise I have been on before. I wondered how to spend the day. Tim got us together, and asked if we’d like to hear more on tools from Red Gate and SQL Sentry – two of the key sponsors. Almost every place I’ve worked at have used these tools, and I thought it was a great idea. The team seemed to agree. We spent the day at class – listening to some great tips and tricks on Plan Explorer and various Red Gate tools. To be honest this unexpected day was my highlight of the trip – I got great tips on tools I use, and I spent a very relaxing day discussing them among friends.

Day 5: We docked at Costa Maya, Mexico. I had booked a tour of mayan ruins that I wanted to see with fellow cruisers. We had to set the clock back a day ago because of a time zone change. There was another notification to set it forward for today, which I missed reading. So I showed up an hour late for the tour and they had already departed. I was very disappointed. The ship’s cruise excursions team was kind enough though, to refund the money to me since it was a genuine mistake. I spent the money on some lovely handicrafts near the port, took a long walk by the beach, got back in boat early, and took a nice nap. So in all, although things did not go per plan exactly, it turned out quite well. Towards the end of the day, we had a tech panel discussion with all the tech leads – a lot of interesting questions were posed and answered.

Day 6: We docked at Cozumel, Mexico. I left the boat early and joined fellow cruisers for a tour of Mayan ruins. It was a long bus ride to the spot, and a good two mile walk in hot, humid weather. We did get a good look at ruins (one thing off the bucket list), spent some time on the lovely beach there and got back to the ship by mid afternoon. We had a second group dinner at night – with some good conversation.

Day 7: There were several classes this day – by Grant, Buck, Ben and Jason Hall. It is hard for me to say which one I liked the most. Since am into BI and Analytics – Buck’s session on R had me listening with total attention .I liked the many examples and the differences illustrated between SQL and R programming. Although I have done both and know them rather well, I have always had a hard time explaining this to other people. Buck did a fantastic job and I will use his examples for this purpose. All other sessions were great in quality too. The day ended like it usually does with a group social, lots of pictures taken, hugs and fond messages of regard. Every cruise to me has been worth it for this time, but this particular one had a lot of people with a lot of affection going around , and made it extra special.

Day 8: There is not much here to say except some lessons learned after several years of cruising. I booked a late flight hoping that I could hang out on the ship until lunch – turned out that everyone had to be out by 10 AM. I also made the mistake of opting for the ship’s shuttle thinking I could save on uber/taxi – this means you are mandated to check in luggage, not take it with you. There were other cruisers taking a shared ride and I could have joined them instead of checking luggage, but was too late. After a quick and early breakfast with Kevin Kline, Lance Harra and Jason Hall – I walked down the ship, into and past customs and into the luggage area. There was a 1.5 hour wait in a cold and dark room for luggage to arrive here, and when it did it was in another adjacent room. Lance and myself had to ask to find out where it was. This is definitely something to avoid next time. At the airport – I had a long 8 hour wait for my flight. Kevin Kline checked me along with Jason and Lance into the American Airlines exec lounge for the day. Kevin does this for me and fellow cruisers every year – a kindness that I appreciate very much. I could nap in the super comfy lounge, get a salad for a meal and then walk out when it was closer to boarding time – seriously better than wandering around in the airport. My flight was on time and I reached home safe.Another note for next year is to take the following day off from work. I was bone tired and had to go in. Things settled down over the week but that would have been a welcome day off.

So…after all this rambling..what did I come away with? My key takeaways from this particular cruise are as below:

1 How to get into data science? : I learned from Buck Woody’s sessions on how a data professional like me can make my way eventually into data science. Working on data cleansing and learning visualisation skills are important, and it was very beneficial for me to learn that. There are a lot of rumors/myths and false information around on data science – every second person you meet who is a data professional wants to get into it. But to get real practical advice from people who got there , and people who have SQL server as their background – is hard to get anywhere else.

2 Tools and more tools…: The day spent discussing tools was unique, wonderfully informative and fun. The only time anyone gets to hear such sessions are occasionally at sql saturday vendor sessions – I must be honest here that I have never really attended any of them. This was unique in that every person asked questions on these tools, enhancements they’d like and various ways they used them. Grant Fritchey, Kevin Kline and Jason Hall did a great job fielding these questions. I felt that my day was well spent ,what I said was heard and would go into some future version of Red Gate and Sentry one tools.

3 What to learn besides sql server? – There are big changes happening in the data industry – everyone knows we need to have more than sql server on our resume. But nobody really knows what that ‘more’ needs to be or where it is going to get us. I heard from so many fellow data professionals – some were learning unix, some were into Azure/cloud in a big way and also exploring AWS and other cloud services, some were doing R programming and data analytics..on and on. It was enriching and heart warming to hear of each person’s experience and where it was taking them. It gave me confidence that I was not alone, and also a good idea of what are skills most people are looking to gain as the industry expands.

Last but not the least – I am not a naturally extroverted person. I do well in small, familiar crowds of people but am seriously shy among larger audiences. SQL cruise has really taught me to open up, be more relaxed even among strangers and speak to the technical info that am familiar with. I met several new people on this trip whose friendships I will treasure- Derik Hammer (t), Chris Wood (t) , Lance Harra(t), Kiley Pollio, Joe Fullmer and Brett Ellingson. I apologize for missing anyone, it is not intentional and your company was wholly appreciated.

I am already looking forward to the next one in 2018!! THANK YOU to Tim and Amy Ford, Red Gate and Sentry One, and all tech leads for making it a pleasant, valuable experience.

PASSion Award and what it means to me

passionaward

2016 is going to be a special year in my life. There was an article on Oscar awards a while ago – on reasons why the oscar is the most watched awards ceremony around the world. No, it is not just because of movie stars. Everyone, secretly or publicly – longs for their ‘oscar’ moment. The moment when the world (or the equivalent of the ‘world’, a lot of people) would get to see who they are and what they did, and give them kudos for it. Not all of those people get to achieve that moment.

Many of us do not work in environments that are exposed to public scrutiny. Some companies offer ‘outstanding employee’ awards which come close to a form of public recognition- but are usually ridden with politics in how they are awarded. Personally – I have received two awards like this in places I worked at – I promptly got rid of the trophies after I left their employment. There was too much jealousy/back stabbing and politics surrounding it, many of which was revealed openly and not even private or polite. The memories associated with these were not pleasant or rewarding – and it often felt like a feeling of awkwardness for a long time later. I do not say work related awards do not mean anything – they do and must be appreciated, but they also do generate a lot of tension and politics in most places. The need for recognition and having ‘oscar moments’ though, is human and universal. Some people are able to get it met. For others, we have to dig deeper to find other ways of getting our needs for recognition – or , perhaps do work that is its own reward.

Part of the reason I started to work in community was that it was proactive work or service to people. It has no titles attached, no $$ attached, and it is a lot of hard work. It is work with people who do it because they enjoy doing it and nothing else.I wanted to be around that kind of people, and I wanted to grow that feeling in me – of finding rewards in what I do, not waiting for someone to call me out or give me something in return. This year was 10 years since I started the Louisville SQL Server User group – which started in the public library in 2005 with 12 people in attendance. Soon after that I also started running SQL Saturdays, we clocked 8 of them this year. I can’t claim to have been supremely happy all through these years – i’ve had my frustrations and low moments with it, but I did get a glimpse of doing work for the joy of work alone, serving people and working with others who thought and believed likewise.

My oscar moment came without asking – during the summit this year. I was given the PASSion award – the highest honor for a PASS volunteer for outstanding service, this year. The award was presented by PASS president Adam Jorgenson at a ceremony in front of a huge audience of 5000+ people. I was congratulated by hundreds of people – many of whom I do not know or have never met personally. It was a huge, huge honor and one that am still coming to terms with. There are many people I want to thank for this..the list is long, but there are some I can and must single out – as people who have inspired me to stick with community work as its own reward.

Kevin Kline – one of the founder leads of the PASS organization itself – he has educated me with many stories of the hard work and thought that went into the early days of the organization. He is always there for me as friend, mentor and guide.
Karla Landrum – would have been impossible for me to run so many events without Karla’s rock solid support to lean on. I’ve cried on her shoulder many, many times when I’ve been frustrated and tired – she has been there for me always as a true friend and guide. I will miss her dearly in the years to come.
Rob Farley – when I had some real moments of frustration some years ago with things not going well – Rob helped me understand the real purpose and meaning of community work, and to remember that it was often meant to be its own reward. Rob’s sense of humor and spirit helped me persist with what I was doing and got me where I am today.
Jes Borland – I met Jes on SQL Cruise six years ago. She and I are as different personalities as chalk and cheese (she is the cheese in that anology) – but she is on top of the list of SQL women I look up to – for sensitivity, understanding, guidance and just pure fun.

Thank you to all of you, and to the PASS Organization – for making my oscar moment happen. Not everyone gets to experience it – it is life altering, and it is a blessing of pure love and regard that is very hard to find elsewhere. I am humbled and hope to continue to live upto it.

11 years of PASS Summit

This is a story of my 11-year association with PASS, and the many ways it helped me grow as a person and in my career. And the many ways I saw other people grow.

Summit #1 – 2006: Gaylord,TX: I was a visa holding dba-developer at a small shop. The Microsoft marketing person who came to meet my boss sent me some info on the summit when I asked him for info on SQL Server related training. I could only afford two days along with paying for lodging and airfare. The resort was lovely. I did not know anyone in the crowd.Most of what was discussed was going above my head as a small-shop dba. In the vendor area I met a bald guy named Rushabh Mehta who was handing out fliers about starting user groups. I found out from him that there was no user group in Louisville. He encouraged me to start one, and readily gave me his cell number if I had any questions. On my way back home I met a lady at the airport who was from my town and worked as a DBA.She and I struck up a conversation and she was willing to help me with starting the user group.Our first user group meeting was at the local library attended by 12 people. Rushabh was the first person in the SQL community that I got to be friends with. Through the year he responded patiently to my many phone calls regarding setting up the site, getting speakers, getting sponsors, on and on.

Summit #2 – Denver, CO: By now the user group was going strong and I had gotten to know many people in the community as a result of running it. Craig Utley, Dave Fackler and Sarah Barela were among my first speakers. I got permission from work to spend a whole week at the summit – and since the registration was now comp-ed as a chapter lead I could afford to. At the Denver summit my best memory is around sitting at the breakfast table with a tall guy from Chicago named Brent Ozar who said he was an aspiring speaker. I enjoyed the summit greatly and learned many new things.

Summit #3 – Seattle, WA: This was my first ‘proper’ summit – as this was the year they started doing chapter leader meetings. I still did not know too many people. Rushabh and another volunteer named Sujata from Rhode Island were the only people I knew. But I met many people at the chapter leader meeting and liked the discussions a lot. My earliest memories are around meeting TJ Belt and Troy Schuh. I also got a chance to meet Kevin Kline and Andy Warren. Andy talked to me about this day long event called SQL Saturdays that he was doing in Orlando. He readily offered me his cell number and help with setting up one in our town. Kevin offered to drive in from Nashville to speak for our user group. What impressed me right away was how sincere and committed they were to the cause.SQL Saturday #1 at Louisville started this year, with Andy’s coaching and at a small venue in New Horizons Louisville. Although we only had 50-60 attendees – it was a huge success and appreciated by many. We also had the honor of being sponsored by another user group – John Magnabosco from IndyPASS was our first sponsor. Don’t think there are too many sql saturdays who have been helped in this manner.

Summit #5 – Seattle, WA: By now I had started doing other things besides being a chapter lead and running a SQL Saturday – I wrote regularly for their news letter. I was a Regional Mentor for the South Asia region – and this year I also helped run the pass booth at Tech Ed. The summit had a table per chapter at lunch – it was at this table that I met a gentleman who would open doors for my next job soon after I got home. Two days after I was home – I received a phone call with a message from a large firm with a great reputation – that the DBA manager wanted to talk to me. Someone on his team was at the summit and had met me there, and had recommended me for a senior role based on our conversation. I could hardly believe my ears. I am not a naturally extroverted person. It is even harder for me to drum up my skills when needed. And in this case all that I did was to have a conversation with somebody at the lunch table. I met the person who called me and in a week I landed the best job of my career as a senior DBA. They also included in the contract that they would pay every dime of my expenses to the summit.

Summit #6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and this year…11 – time flies in a blur. I have done so many activities with PASS during these years – served on selection committee, moderated 24HOP, been first time attendee mentor..in fact I even forget some of those titles now as so much time has gone by. We have 10 years of SQL Saturdays to our credit now. I intentionally book my room a little further from the summit for quiet time after the day, I can barely walk 10 steps without someone calling my name. I have never, ever, ever looked for jobs using headhunters or monster or dice or any such thing. after that one incident when I received a phone call. It has always been via referrals through the community. I think that is what I’d consider the best reward ever professionally – that jobs come to you, you don’t go searching for them. And the friendships and relationships I’ve made via this community really don’t have a price tag. They have all grown along with me, as family – we will grow old together, retire and recall many of these good times.

Thank you SQLPASS, and #SQLFAMILY.

Why SQL Cruise?

I was riding the elevator up from lunch today, at work. I am relatively new at my job and do not know several people at my workplace – yet. I live in a small town, and quite a lot of them know me as someone active in the local community. I am very used to strangers asking me SQL – community related questions at places like Trader Joes, DMV, airport and all sorts of different places. Today – there was a young lady riding up with me. I knew her to be from the same workplace but not too well so we exchanged polite smiles and I looked down at my shoes, as I do always when am in the elevator with someone I barely know 🙂 When I got off she asked rather hesitantly – ‘excuse me, can I ask you something? Do you know much about what they call SQL Cruise?’..Needless to say , I was delighted. SQL cruise is one of my utter favorite topic of conversations, even with total strangers. For the next 10 minutes or so – she and I had a great conversation – I told her all about the cruise, about the places we’ve been to, the fun activities on board and on shore, the great training, office hours, everything. Most importantly what I told her was this –

I am 11 year regular attendee of the PASS summit. Whenever anyone mentions a conference regarding SQL server – the summit is what comes to my mind atleast, to recommend. I love the PASS community and try to promote it whenever and wherever I can. But, there are things I don’t get at the summit. One of them is about having time and leisure to grow good bonds and getting to know people better. Make no mistake – 11 years of the summit have yielded me many, many friends for which am wholly grateful for. But not everyone can keep going that long, and not everyone has the same social skills to make friends from among 3000 + people. The summit is a huge gathering, and there are way too many distractions or things that get in the way of really hanging out even with people you know. I’ve lost count of times when just the noise and the crowd gets to me and I am left with a sort of a dazed look by thursday evening. By Friday I want to go home and all other thoughts are pretty much gone. I am wiped and need to recharge. I have decided, in the past 3 years – that the summit is a week to touchbase with people I know, and to attend some sessions on topics I don’t know and want to know. It does not work for me as a place to grow close friendships or even to network very well.

That is where SQL Cruise comes in. When you meet, eat and spend time with people and their families – a bond develops. People get interested in you as a person, and you in turn are interested in them.A friendship is born and that can lead to many amazing possibilities – including job offers.And, to a die hard traveller like me – the amazing places I get to see are in themselves worth every dime. I get to see them with friends, people I really respect and have regard for. I cannot think of the gorgeous beaches of St Thomas, or the picture perfect Amalfi Coast, the grandeur of the Colosseum in Rome , the food at Barcelona, or the sights of Mendenhall Glacier – without thinking of them at the same time. And that kind of memories are simply not created at any other conference or training.

So, if you’ve been reading my post so far – and if your goals are the same as mine – to see fun places, learn good SQL from among the best teachers, have discussions to the background of waves rocking a boat, make some good friends who are genuinely interested in your career and your success – sign up now! You will not regret it, I promise – and will come back for more.

Budgeting for SQL Saturdays

We’ve been doing SQLSaturdays for eight years at Louisville now. We’ve had a quite a wide range of budgets depending on the year – a good year (our highest was 2013) and lowest, the first year we started, 2009.

As main organizer, handling the dollars and making sure I spend them right has been an interesting, learning experience for me. For the past two years I’ve had additional help from others on the organizing committee, but for a good six years it was just me doing it and figuring out the do’s and don’ts the hard way. Below is how I do it now, and I have got it down to a good formula that works most of the time.

I divide the revenue into two buckets: – 1 Predictable and 2 Non- predictable. Predictable revenue is what comes in two months before the event. That includes committed sponsors. So far, we have been lucky in getting two or more this way. Non- predictable revenue is what comes in closer to the event, includes last- minute sponsors and revenue based on pre-cons.

Expenses wise – I divide my expenses into the following three buckets.

1. Essentials – These – include event rental, event insurance, and food. Without these,we cannot run.the event. The predictable sponsor revenue goes towards this category of expenses.

2. Wants – After we pass survival, the second bucket of expenses comes in: – that includes speaker dinner, speaker gifts,volunteer shirts; printing of various event- related material like internal signage , event schedule, speaker and event feedback forms; speedpass for speakers;lanyards and nametags. Printing of materials does not cost much. Volunteer-shirts is something we do every year as they are popular not expensive either. The main costs here are speaker dinner and speaker gifts – how much is spent on them depends strongly on how well we are funded.

3. Nice-to- haves – This includes attendee swag/give aways,extra treats to eat (such as cake or ice cream), and reusable event inventory that we can store for future events. We have done lots of cool things in this category – especially with reusable stuff. Our stock includes signage (external to the building), extension cords, foldable garbage bins, raffle boxes, dollies, a laser printer and many smaller items like paper, duct tape, staplers, scissors, and so on. We have enough stuff to just walk in somewhere and set up any event at short notice.

So that said, what about some real numbers? Below is the percentage breakup I have for a good event (where we have had great funding), and a low- funded event.

budgets

It is interesting to see that essentials take up 80% of funding on a typical bad year. Needless to say that nice-to-have-es are are almost down to zero. The question this type of analysis helps me answer is:

What is the minimum $ needed to put up an event?

Every SQL Saturday organizer should absolutely know the answer to this, if not you are walking blind. To know it you have to focus on what are the costs of essentials – room rental and food Remember that both costs are driven by attendee count. For us in Louisville – it is seriously hard to find a free location any more. We don’t like to cut down on attendees as we have worked hard to build up that number and do not like disappointing them. I realize that there are events that can play with this number and reduce the number of attendees to support their funds, but I’d not like to do that unless am absolutely forced to. Finding a free location is also possible with smaller attendee counts, so that is not something to be ruled out entirely, but we’d like to keep that up as much as we can. With attendee count at 200-250, – the other numbers I focus on are as follows.

We have typically six tracks, with six timeslots, adding up to 36 speakers, ideally. For a short -funded event we can cut this down to four tracks with five timeslots, adding upto 20 speakers. This also saves us money on number of rooms rented. We can go from a buffet to a boxed lunch, that costs about 6$-8$ per head. Since 30-40% of people who eat are speakers/sponsors and volunteers, that can significantly reduce my costs too. Given that my costs add up to approx. $800 (rental + insurance) + $1800 (food) + $400$ extra = $3000$ to run a decent event (that includes lunch fees). With less money than that, I would think very hard about doing it. I can, if I find a free location which means even fewer rooms and consequently fewer attendees, but hopefully will not need to. This number gives me a lot of relief when it comes to what to expect by way of funding. It is the same math that goes into what is needed to pull off a pre-con too – if the attendee count does not add up to paying for rooms, lunch, and a minimum of 20% leftover, we typically cancel as it is not worth the costs.

My costs in the ‘want’ bucket are significantly lower with each year because of the reusable inventory swag we have built over years. I would strongly encourage all organizers to invest in this, especially when your funding is good. I do not deny that there is a storage cost that may be involved. We are fortunate to have a volunteer store it at her home for us – but this might be hard for some people. It does, however, help you make your event as mobile as possible without depending on specific locations, and also significantly cuts down on your costs, while keeping up the good appearance of a professionally run event.