I’m speaking at NYC #SQLSaturday #SQLSatNYC

I found out over the weekend that I’ve been selected to speak at SQL Saturday NYC on May 6! This is one of my favorite events, and I try to attend every year. To the best of my memory, I’ve only missed one SQL Saturday, as either a speaker or an attendee, in NYC since they’ve been holding this event.

I will be doing two presentations:

• Disaster Documents: The role of documentation in disaster recovery — Documentation is a critical part of disaster recovery. This became evident on September 11, 2001. At the time, I was working for a company that had an office in the World Trade Center. When the towers fell, documentation was a critical for our recovery. In this presentation, I tell my story of how documentation played a role in helping my organization recover from that fateful day.

• Whacha just say? Talking technology to non technical people — The language of technology might as well be a foreign language to people who don’t understand technology. In this session, I talk about how non-technologists can be overwhelmed by this language, and offer tips as to what technical people can do to convey that language.

New York SQL Saturday is always a good time! I hope to see you there on May 6!

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Greetings from #WELocalHartford #WELocal @SWETalk #SWELocal #WELocalHartford2023

I am writing this from a workstation area in the Connecticut Convention Center, location for the WE Local Hartford conference.

I arrived in Hartford around 6:30 pm last night, managing to arrive before a snowstorm hit several states in the Northeast (I wanted to make sure I left early as I could for exactly this reason). The conference takes places over two days, although I arrived too late to take part in any Friday activities. Friday night was uneventful; I checked into my hotel, got myself dinner, and retired to my room for the night.

Today (Saturday), for me, is pretty much where all the action has happened. After checking out of the hotel, I went to the convention center, registered, found my room, and went to the main ballroom to get myself breakfast, as well as the opening keynote. I’ll admit that I went primarily for the free breakfast! The keynote was given by Dr. Jenny Gusba, a senior director at Pepsico. She mentioned a couple of things that resonated with me. She talked about taking advantage of your strengths and addressing your weaknesses (or, as she called them, “opportunities”), and also mentioned how her challenge in her work was “how to take science and be able to get the masses to relate to it.” The former addresses things that are in one of my presentations, which the latter is a good description of what I do for a living.

My two presentations went well. Both were well-attended (there were at least twenty people in each), and I had a very receptive audience. A lot of questions and comments (which I encourage) were shared at both sessions. I assume that they solicit session evaluations for these presentations, but so far, the feedback I’ve gotten has been positive!

Pepsico, one of the sponsors for this event, sponsored a “networking lounge,” where I hung out in-between my two sessions. I did strike up a conversation with a young lady from Pepsico who said to me something to the effect of “thank you for supporting (women in engineering)!” That was a nice little acknowledgement of my participation at an event that is dominated by women.

Lunch was also an interesting event as well. They billed it as a “power networking” lunch. The rule was that you were not allowed to sit at a table where you knew more than half of the people. (To facilitate this, each ID badge had a sticker on the back that designated your “assigned” table.) I sat at a table along with four young ladies, all (as far as I knew) of whom were students. One was a student at NJIT, and two (who knew each other) were from Ohio State. (I didn’t get much info from the fourth, and she didn’t stay very long.) I found out that they were chemical engineering students. (As it turned out, I happen to know chemical engineers from each of their geographic regions. Hey, more reason to network!) We had a wonderful conversation; I gave them my business card and told them to drop me a line if I could be of assistance.

I thought the networking lunch was a great idea! In my networking presentation (which, unfortunately, I didn’t do today), my attendees get an opportunity to network. When we do so, I tell them that I have one rule: you are not allowed to engage someone you know. You can’t; that defeats the entire purposes of developing networking contacts. Networking is such a huge deal in career development these days; I do have an entire presentation dedicated to it, after all, and I’ve been attending more events where they put an emphasis on networking (including this past PASS Summit). I hope more events schedule activities that facilitate and encourage networking!

I should also mention that this is the second time I have spoken at a WE Local conference (the first was in Buffalo last year), and for me, it’s a bit of an interesting experience. I’ve been speaking at various events (mostly SQL Saturdays) since 2015, but Buffalo last year was the first time that I spoke at an event where the attendees were predominantly female. STEM professions tend to be predominantly male, so there have been efforts by groups such as SWE and WIT to get more girls and women interested in pursuing STEM careers. That comment I got today in the networking lounge meant a lot to me, and I like to think I’m doing my part to contribute.

As I write this, there’s still a couple of hours left in this event. I’m going to see how the rest of the day winds up, maybe do something for dinner, then make the two-hour drive back home. Looks like the weather has cleared, the roads are clear, and I think it should be smooth sailing back home.

Speaking this Saturday at #WELocalHartford #WELocal @SWETalk #SWELocal #WELocalHartford2023

This Saturday, March 4, I will be speaking in Hartford, CT, at the WE Local conference, presented by the Society of Women Engineers! This will be my second time speaking at this event; last year, I spoke at their conference in Buffalo.

I will be doing two presentations.

At 9:30 am in room 24, I will be doing my presentation about surviving an unemployment situation, titled: “I lost my job! Now what?!?” I will discuss topics such as how to deal with your emotions, how to improve your job prospects, and how to pass the time while you’re out of work.

At 11:45 am, also in room 24, I will do my technical writing presentation titled: “Tech Writing for Techies: A Primer.” Technical writing is likely the most misunderstood and ignored technical functions. This presentation is intended to clear up many of the misconceptions behind technical writing, explain why it’s important for your organization, and ways to improve the process.

To view the agenda for this event, click here! Hope to see you in Hartford on Saturday!

Speakers Are Normal People

This is a great post by Steve Jones. I have made a lot of great friends through my association with SQL Saturday and PASS. I can tell you firsthand that #SQLFamily is real!

Voice of the DBA

The #SQLFamily is amazing, at least I think it is. Like many families, it’s welcoming, supportive, and comforting. It’s also maddening, frustrating, and exacerbating at times. Like most families, or at least the ones I know, it’s not perfect, but it’s what we have and at the end of the day, most of us get along with each other.

It’s also an open group of people. In general, we welcome people with open arms and smiles. Those of us that are more visible or prominent are willing to listen to, help, and support anyone. I was overjoyed during the recent PASS Data Community Summit, where I had the chance to see so many people that I haven’t seen in person in 2-3 years. I met many other interesting people for the first time and enjoyed the experience.

Not everyone feels the same way. I loved seeing Kimberly Tripp and Paul…

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New old presentations

As I mentioned earlier, I have a few speaking gigs coming up, including one in Hartford, CT in March. I’m actually doing two presentations for Hartford: my job hunt presentation (which seems to be one of my best sellers; I’ve done this presentation several times, and I will also be doing it for STC Summit), and my presentation on technical writing. So, I downloaded the WE Local PowerPoint templates from their speaker’s resource page so that I could apply them to my presentations.

I haven’t yet applied it to my job search presentation. To be honest, I’m not terribly worried about it. It’s mainly a matter of transferring my material to the new template, so it shouldn’t be a big deal.

The tech writing one, however, was another story. When I looked at my slides, I realized just how much it needed to be overhauled. It wasn’t very well organized, it was out of date, and I’ve grown considerably in my profession since I last gave that presentation (the last time I presented it was in New York in 2019). The presentation badly needed to be rewritten. So I spent my entire afternoon this past Sunday putting it into the WE Local template.

When I was finished, what I had was practically (though not exactly) a brand-new presentation. It is better organized, more clear, and I included points that I did not address before I restructured it. I think the new (old?) presentation is much better than it was. Not only am I looking forward to giving it in a couple of months, I’m also looking forward to submitting it to more events.

Likewise, I also plan to revamp my presentation about — well — presenting. I’ve only given this presentation once, and quite frankly, not only is it not very good, it’s also narrowly focused, and like my old tech writing presentation, it’s also not very well organized. Although I haven’t started yet, I essentially plan to pull a This Old House on it, completely tearing it down, and rebuilding it. I already have an idea in the back of my head as to how I’m going to do it, and I’ve already rebranded it (in fact, I even submitted it to SQL Saturday NYC in May).

I’ve been trying to come up with new presentation ideas. I’ve mentioned to people that I’ve reached the point where I’m starting to recycle submissions to PASS Summit and other conferences. I might still work on some new ones (stay tuned). But in the meantime, it’s worth my time to take some of my older presentations and give them new life.

January Monthly CASSUG Meeting — @CASSUG_Albany #SQLUserGroup #Networking

Greetings, data enthusiasts, and welcome to 2023!

Our January meeting is scheduled for Monday, January 9, at 5:30 pm! We will meet in person at Datto, 33 Tech Valley Drive, East Greenbush, NY.

For more information and to RSVP, go to our Meetup event page at https://www.meetup.com/capital-area-sql-server-user-group/events/290677447/

Our meeting schedule is usually as follows:

• 5:30 PM: Food, soft drinks, and networking
• 6:15 PM: Chapter news and announcements
• 6:30 PM: Presentation

We usually wrap up between 7:30 PM and 8:00 PM.

Thanks to Datto for sponsoring our event!

Our guest speaker for the month is Taiob Ali!

Topic: What the heck is a checkpoint, and why should I care?
An 8K page is the fundamental unit of data storage in SQL Server. SQL Server performs every data modification operation in memory (buffer pool) for performance reasons and does not immediately write it back to disk.

This is where checkpoint comes into play. The Database Engine periodically issues a checkpoint on each database. A checkpoint writes the current in-memory modified pages (known as dirty pages) and transaction log information from memory to disk. It also records this information in the transaction log.

This session will explain why you should care and know about the checkpoint process and the different checkpoints that SQL Server does. I will show you exactly what happens during a checkpoint, how you can influence the interval of checkpoints, and changes made with checkpoint settings in SQL 2014 and SQL 2016+.

Taiob Ali

Taiob Ali, Microsoft Data Platform MVP, is an accomplished technical leader with a proven record of success. During his last 17 years, he has worked with the Microsoft Data Platform and MongoDB, both on-premises and cloud. His experience includes all three major business sectors: finance, e-commerce, and healthcare.

Taiob is currently working at “GMO LLC” as a Database Solutions Manager, focusing on cloud migration, automation, improving, and streamlining operational workflow. He is a regular speaker at local and virtual chapters, Data Saturdays, and Azure conferences. He is a board member of the New England SQL Server User Group, founder of ‘Database Professionals Virtual Meetup Group’, and organizer of Boston SQL Saturday.

Upcoming speaking engagements (as of 12/27/2022) #SQLSaturday #WELocal #SWELocal #STCSummit

With only four days left in 2022, I don’t have any more speaking engagements in 2022. I do, however, have a couple lined up for 2023! Besides, it’s been a while since I posted one of these updates…

I am confirmed to speak at the following events.

• March 3-4, 2023, Hartford, CT: WE Local Conference: I will be speaking at a conference hosted by the Society of Women Engineers in early March. This will be my second time speaking at this conference; I also spoke at this same conference in Buffalo last year. For this conference, I will be giving not one but two presentations: “Tech Writing for Techies,” an introduction to technical writing to technical people who don’t get tech writing, and “I lost my job! Now what?!?,” my presentation about the job hunt and surviving an unemployment situation.
  
  My job hunt presentation seems to be pretty popular, because I will be giving this same presentation at…

• May 16, 2023, Atlanta, GA: STC Summit: This is a large national conference that takes place May 14-17. I am scheduled to speak on the 16th! I am especially excited about this conference, because I have been involved with STC for a little while, I’ve been wanting to get more involved with them, and speaking at STC Summit has been on my bucket list. I can now check that off my list! I’m also excited because Atlanta is a brand-new city for me. I have never been to Atlanta (other than changing planes at the airport, which doesn’t count)!

There are also a couple of SQL Saturdays to which I intend to submit. As of right now, neither of them is open yet for submissions, but I plan to submit to them once they’re open.

• May 6, 2023, New York, NY: SQL Saturday #1048, NYC: I pretty much attend NYC SQL Saturday every year (in fact, NYC was the first SQL Saturday I ever attended, way back in 2010), so I will likely be there, regardless of whether or not any of my presentations are selected.

• October 14, 2023, Burlington, MA: SQL Saturday Boston: The site for this event isn’t up yet; right now, it’s only a “save-the-date” on the SQL Saturday website. Nevertheless, I’ve attended Boston SQL Saturday a number of times, and I’ve become close with the folks out in Boston, so I will definitely submit when this one opens. That said, October is a long way away, so I’m hoping I don’t have any conflicts with that date!

So that’s what I have on my presentation calendar for next year. Hopefully, I’ll see you at an event near you!

Happy holidays, winding down 2022, and what’s in store next

As I write this, it’s the day after Christmas, 2022. Hopefully, those of you who are reading this had a wonderful holiday season. I hope you had a great Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or whatever your holiday celebration of choice is! For me, personally, Santa didn’t leave me much, but honestly, the older I get, the less important tangible Christmas gifts get. I got to spend quality time with my wife and my (now-13-year-old — !!!) niece, and that was the best Christmas present I could’ve asked for.

Now that 2022 is almost over, a lot of people spend time reflecting upon the past year, and trying to figure out what the new year will bring. I am no different, and I have to say that it has been a very eventful 2022.

I won’t get too much into it, as I try to avoid writing about things that are too personal in my very public ‘blog, but I will mention that 2022 was a very trying year. I had to deal with family issues this past August, which included one parent’s death and the other parent facing twilight years of life. (As I write this, the latter is still an issue and is ongoing.) Around the same time, we also dealt with the deaths of one of our beloved pets and a couple of friends of mine from college. To say that this made 2022 a very trying year is probably an understatement. All I could think about is a quote from the fourth Indiana Jones movie: “We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away.” Professionally, I lost a job, got another one, and nearly lost the second one (disclosure: I managed to pull myself out, and am still employed there as I write this). I will not get into any details about the second one, except to say that I discovered something very personal about myself, and although it wasn’t directly related to the other personal issues that I just wrote about, those issues did nothing to help my situation.

What I will mention is that my personal issue was the fodder behind the article I wrote about taking care of yourself.

But enough about the crap that I had to deal with in 2022. Let’s talk about the good things that happened.

I did experience a lot of good things this year. Let’s start with my speaking schedule. Although things are still picking up after the pandemic, I did make it to speak at four in-person events this year, including a new one that had nothing to do with PASS, and my fourth consecutive time speaking at PASS Data Community Summit (or its equivalent).

I still shake my head that I’ve spoken at four straight PASS Summits. I don’t consider myself a SQL expert; as I often say, although I do have SQL experience, my knowledge of SQL falls under the category of “knows enough to be dangerous.” But I’ve been picked to speak there four times, so I must be doing something right!

I think the sentiment of speaking at events like these was best summed up by this tweet from a first-time speaker during PASS Summit.

I sat down at this table and thought, "no way I belong at this table". Within an hour, not only did I feel like I belong, I was on a mission to tell everyone they do too. @SqlrUs @SQLEspresso @mrdenny @jqmtweets @sqldbawithbeard @cathrinew @spaghettidba @PianoRayK #sqlfamily pic.twitter.com/3xBf2wP32S

— Josh @gt1gt1@dataplatform.social (@gt1gt1) November 20, 2022

Not all my 2022 successes were professional. I got to play several gigs with my rock band. I spent some time accompanying a local musical. My alma mater’s football team went 7-5 and is heading to a bowl game. And I got to attend countless events that allowed me to connect (or, in some cases, reconnect) with friends and family. While I did deal with a lot of issues in 2022, I’m happy to say that I’m definitely on the upswing.

That brings me to what’s next moving forward. I’ve received word that I’ve been invited to speak at two more events: another WE Local conference, and at STC Summit! I’m especially excited about the latter, because I’ve been a member of STC for a little while, and speaking at STC Summit has been a bucket list item for me. I also saw save-the-date entries for SQL Saturday as well (including one in NYC that my friend, Thomas Grohser told me about when I was in Seattle last month), so there will likely be more opportunities for me to speak as well. There are also numerous opportunities that are crossing my path. I won’t write about them all now, partially because none of them are in stone, but mostly because there are a lot of them, and I don’t remember them all! So I have a lot to look forward to in 2023 and beyond.

So, that pretty much sums up my reflections. I hope to be doing more as my issues are farther in my rearview mirror, and my upswing continues! Stay tuned for my exploits in 2023, and I hope all of you are on a similar track!

Speaking at #WELocal, Hartford, CT, March 3-4 @SWETalk #SWELocal

Today, I received word that I had not one, but two presentations accepted for the WE Local conference in Hartford, CT in March! This will be my second time speaking for this conference; I spoke at the WE Local Conference in Buffalo last year.

I would’ve been happy if just one submission was accepted, but for this conference, they selected two!

I’ll be doing my presentation about the job hunt titled: “I lost my job! Now what?!?” about surviving an unemployment situation. This is the same presentation that I’ll be doing at STC Summit in Atlanta in May.

I’ll also be doing my session about technical writing, titled: “Tech Writing for Techies: A Primer.” This presentation is intended to raise awareness of technical writing — which I’ve often referred to as “the Rodney Dangerfield of technical professions” — to a technical audience.

This should be a fun conference! It’s the second time I’ve presented for the Society of Women Engineers. It’s an opportunity to bring my sessions to new audiences, new professions (engineers, rather than data people), and a new town (although I’m no stranger to Hartford, CT, this is my first time speaking there). I’m very much looking forward to this event!

See you next March in Connecticut!

Speaking at another Summit! @stc_summit #STCSummit

The weekend before I left for PASS Summit, I received an exciting piece of news!

I learned that I have been selected to speak at the 2023 STC Summit in Atlanta, GA! STC Summit takes place May 14-17, 2023!

I am excited about this event for a number of reasons. First, it’s my first Summit experience unrelated to PASS. Second, it’s for STC, which is an organization with which I’ve been involved, off and on, for a number of years, and is actually more closely related to what I do. Third, I’ve been trying to become more involved with STC, which includes speaking at events, Fourth, I have never been to Atlanta (other than changing planes at the airport, which doesn’t count), so I will be experiencing a new city. And finally, it’s an opportunity to network with a new group of people, specifically a group of peers who are more closely related to my profession!

The presentation they selected is my session about job-hunting and unemployment, titled: “I lost my job! Now what?!?” In spite of the relatively pessimistic topic, this is actually (I think) one of my better presentations, and I’ve used it to (hopefully) help many people out as they seek new employment.

I’ve been wanting to get more involved with STC for a while, and getting an opportunity to speak at STC Summit has been a bucket list item for me, so this is a pretty big deal for me! I’m excited about the prospect of presenting to a new audience and to network with a group of my peers!

We’ll see you in Atlanta next May!