Dealing with mental wellness and stress

Last year, I wrote about how stress landed me in the hospital. The fact that the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with my job loss, created a large amount of stress over the course of that year. Because of that stress, I stopped taking care of myself. And because of that, I got sick and ended up in the hospital.

That was last year. After more than a year, I managed to gain employment again.

Well, the cycle begins again. Lately, I’ve been dealing with enormous stress; not from one source, but from several. Much of it is deeply personal, so I won’t write anything specific about them. What I will say is that recent events triggered them, affecting me in numerous ways, including my job performance.

Unfortunately, because my job performance was affected, I was told yesterday that I was being let go. Although I was disappointed by the news, it also did not surprise me. My manager had to make a decision, and I didn’t want to be the one bogging down the team. Quite frankly, if our roles were reversed, I likely would’ve made the same decision.

That said, I believe that in order to truly fix a problem, you need to address the root of the problem. I mentioned that I was dealing with multiple sources of stress. I felt I was getting burned out, and that burnout was what ultimately led me to losing my job. But while work stress may have contributed to my issue, I considered that to be a symptom, not the root cause.

Indeed, my job issue wasn’t the only symptom I was seeing. I’ve been feeling a great deal of anxiety. Even activities that I usually enjoy, and am even passionate about, were affected. There were nights where I was scheduled to attend music rehearsals and CrossFit classes — two activities that I usually enjoy — and I had no motivation to go. That’s when I made the decision to contact EAP and get help. They set me up with an online counseling program (my first therapy session was this morning). Additionally, I reconnected with a local psychology practice with whom I’ve worked in the past.

I’ve long stressed the importance of your mental, psychological, and emotional well-being. In my lost job presentation, the very first thing I address is your emotional well-being. You need to get a hold of yourself before you can effectively move forward. If it means (safely) getting it out of your system, talking to friends, finding distractions (such as your favorite activities), or getting professional help, then do it. The online counseling offered by my EAP includes three free sessions, and I decided that I should take advantage of that.

Mental well-being is getting more attention within the fields of technology. My friend Tracy Boggiano does an excellent presentation about mental health in IT (a link to it is available on her website). Steve Jones also posts daily articles about how to cope with various issues. And while I can’t think of articles off the top of my head (if you know of any, feel free to list them in the comments below), I believe there are articles that discuss mental health within the technology industry.

There has long been a stigma attached to mental health. The fact is, mental health deals with exactly that: your health. If you feel that you might not be in “the right frame of mind,” or something might be bothering you, or you feel as though you’re acting peculiarly, don’t keep it to yourself. Get help. Go talk to someone, preferably someone who’s in a position to best help you (such as a mental health professional). These people are there to help resolve your issue(s), or at least come up with an effective way to cope with them. Once you get your mental health under control, many other things — your job performance, your thought processes, your relationships, how you approach life, and so on — will fall into place.

Now, in the meantime, if anyone has any job leads, feel free to send them my way…

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The right frame of mind is important for your overall health

I’ve been holding off on writing about this, but what happened to me is an important story to tell, and a cautionary tale for others who might be going through the same thing.

The photo you see above is me lying in a hospital bed about a month ago. And I want to tell you how I got there.

I have made no secret about how much the experiences of the past year have stressed me out. When I keep a regular schedule (and when I’m working), I have a routine that I maintain. And as long as I stick to the routine, I tend to do pretty well. If my routine gets upset, that’s when I get into trouble.

Well, the stress that I’ve endured upset my routine. My sleep schedule had been irregular. And I’ve been doing a terrible job of taking care of myself. The pandemic closure, in the early months, shut down gyms, which meant that I stopped going to CrossFit (which had been part of my routine). To make up for it, I started doing a Couch to 5K program. I had been doing pretty well with that program, until about halfway through, I was beset with injuries which also upset my (now new) routine. (The injuries were bad enough that I ended up going to PT to address them.) My extracurricular schedule, also part of my routine, had been disrupted because of the pandemic. I was stressed and overwhelmed. Things that I used to enjoy now suddenly seemed like a chore. To sum it all up, I had stopped taking care of myself.

About a month ago, I started having problems eating. Twice within two weeks, I got sick after eating. After the second time, my wife insisted that I go to the ER. Upon being examined, I was told, “we’re admitting you.”

For the sake of my personal privacy, I won’t say what it was that I had, except that it was not COVID. I will say that I remained in the hospital for a week. I barely ate anything during that week. My only diet was bags of IV solution that they sent through my system.

That was not a pleasant experience. I would not recommend that to anyone.

I have been home from the hospital for almost three weeks. I am slowly (emphasis on slowly) getting back to normal. Even as of this article, although I feel much better than I did, I still have not recovered 100%. My energy level is not what it was, and I get tired easily. And it all came about because I had become overwhelmed and had stopped taking care of myself.

The moral of this story is that your emotional and psychological well-being is just as important as your physical one; in fact, it can directly affect it. Your morale is important; in fact, it’s one of the things that I address in my job hunt presentation.

So take it from me. Take care of your mental well-being, and make sure you’re in the right frame of mind. Do what you need to do to roll with the punches. If you need to occasionally let off steam, do so. Get help if you need to. Get yourself to where you need to be, mentally and psychologically. Once you do that, you’ll be able to take care of yourself. Don’t end up like I did last month, and spend a week in a hospital bed.

The #Coronavirus chronicles, part 26: The evolution of emergency services — #EMS #EMT #Paramedic #Television #COVID19

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been spending a lot of time — probably too much time — at home. As such, one of the pitfalls is that I’m probably watching way too much TV. Yes, I know, I really need to get out of the house more.

With that, one of my more recent addictions is old Emergency! reruns on COZI TV. I have childhood memories of this being one of my favorite shows; I remember riding around on my bike as a kid, making a siren noise and pretending I was a paramedic. Outside of watching sports, I seem to have a thing for medical dramas — I’ve been watching shows like Transplant and the Chicago series, and I’ve also been a fan of M*A*S*H for many years.

Watching these old Emergency! reruns and comparing them against current Chicago Fire episodes makes me think about how much EMT, EMS, and paramedic services have evolved throughout the years. I think that evolution is fascinating — enough to the point that I’m writing a ‘blog article about it.

First, let me start with a little background information. Emergency! is largely credited with raising awareness of emergency medical services. The show also traces its roots to a report titled Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society (a.k.a. “the white paper”). The show takes place in the 1970s, and it’s a far cry from the EMS and EMT services with which we’re familiar today.

The pilot episode talks about the Wedsworth-Townsend Act (which is also the name of the episode). The episode largely focuses on the origins of the paramedic program in LA. In the episode, Dr. Brackett (played by Robert Fuller) makes a plea for passage of the bill to allow paramedics to provide emergency services. In the same episode, Firefigher John Gage (Randolph Mantooth) expresses his frustration after losing a patient largely due to not being able to get him the help he needed in time.

Emergency services changed all that. Before those days, an ambulance was nothing more than a station wagon with a stretcher; the idea was to get an injured person to medical help as fast as possible. Unfortunately, many people died before they could get the help they needed.

(I should note that the idea of getting medical help before transport was actually depicted in M*A*S*H — injured personnel often went to a battalion aid station before being sent to a M*A*S*H unit.)

In the show, the idea was to provide medical assistance — more than basic first aid, but less than a doctor’s services — to make the patient stable enough to transport him or her to the hospital. Johnny and Roy, the paramedics, were trained to apply those services, but in order to do so, they needed to contact the hospital (using the famous biophone) to obtain both instructions and authorization to administer medical services. Additionally, the paramedics served a dual role; while they were licensed to provide medical assistance, they were (I’m guessing first and foremost) firefighters whose primary role was search and rescue. They drove a truck mostly designed for search and rescue operations; it was not capable of patient transport. They had to call for an ambulance separately in order to get the patient to the hospital.

These days, these roles are different (Chicago Fire does a good job of depicting this — I should also note that, as far as I understand, Chicago Fire and Emergency! are actually technically accurate; they aren’t just medical gobbledygook). In many locales (it may differ in different jurisdictions — I’m mostly generalizing this description), fire department paramedics are themselves medical professionals; they no longer require instructions or authorization from doctors (again, to my knowledge, this depends on the jurisdiction). They themselves drive the ambulances, and the ambulances themselves are often emergency rooms on wheels, a far cry from the vehicles where their only function was to transport patients as fast as possible. And the roles of paramedic and search/rescue personnel are mostly different, not combined as in Emergency! (in Chicago Fire, these different roles are depicted by Ambulance 61 and Squad 3, respectively).

A couple of personal thoughts about the comparison between Emergency! and Chicago Fire: first, although I haven’t been able to find any citations to support this, I don’t think there’s any coincidence in that Chicago Firehouse 51 shares a unit number with LA County Fire Station 51 (which would support the influence that Emergency! had). Second, I would love to see an episode of Chicago Fire in which the characters of John Gage and Roy DeSoto make at least a cameo appearance. (Dick Wolf, if you’re reading this, can you make that happen???)

I hope you had as much fun reading this impromptu history of emergency services as much as I did writing about it (and I apologize for any inaccuracies I might have written — please feel free to correct them in the comments if I did). Funny what pops into your head while you’re watching TV…

The #Coronavirus chronicles, part 25: Taking the “distancing” out of “social distancing” #COVID19

Before I get into this article, I want to make one thing extremely clear. This article has NOTHING to do with circumventing pandemic protocols or ignoring the advice of Dr. Fauci, the CDC, the WHO, or any other medical professionals. That is NOT what I’m about to write. Please, please, PLEASE keep wearing your mask, get your COVID shots, and maintain physical social distancing. Above all, be safe.

Now that that’s out of the way, let me get into what prompted this article.

Earlier today, this random thought popped into my head. I posted it to my Facebook, and I want to share it with all of you as well.

I’m sitting here thinking that possibly the thing I miss most during the pandemic is simply the ability to go out and have a drink with a friend.

Granted, the part about “having a drink” is irrelevant. I say that as a catch-all for going out for a beer, wine, coffee, soda, lunch, dinner, dessert, watching a ballgame, going to a movie, and so on. (I could also say “hanging out in your friend’s living room;” it’s within the same spirit of what I’m writing about, but it’s in a private, not public setting, which people are likely doing, anyway — hopefully, COVID-safely. But I digress.)

I don’t know whether the fact that today is St. Patrick’s Day had anything to do with this thought, but what did prompt it was an urge — and a basic desire — to pick up the phone, call a friend, and tell him or her, “let’s meet up at (some favorite local hangout) this Friday night*.”

(*Before any of my local friends take me up on this, be advised that Syracuse plays San Diego State on Friday night, so my attention will likely be focused on the TV.)

Raise your hand if you miss getting together with friends — and I’m not talking about virtually over Zoom. Yeah, me too. The last in-person social event I remember attending was the after-party for SQL Saturday out in Rochester in February of last year. Since the pandemic began, I’ve had almost no in-person interaction with any of my friends, other than my wife (I’ve had a few, but they’re few and far-between). I would love to get together with friends to talk hours on end about world events, music, sports, family, or even about absolutely nothing. Don’t get me wrong; I love my wife, but there’s something to be said for sharing your thoughts, news, and feelings with someone whom you’re not sharing your lockdown experience 24-7 over a forum other than Zoom. Humans are mostly social animals, and interaction with other humans is therapeutic, even if you’re introverted.

(And if you do consider yourself to be introverted, don’t feel obligated to talk. Just being there is very helpful, too.)

Every now and then, I’ll get on the phone with a friend of mine, and we’ll talk for hours — sometimes, about nothing more than random thoughts that pop into our heads (if he’s reading this, you know who you are). We’re the kind of guys who can spend hours talking about “absolutely nothing.” Regardless of what we talk about, I find our conversations to be therapeutic, and I feel like a lot of stress has dissipated, even if I do have something on my mind.

So, if you’re able to do so COVID-safely, take time to hook up with your BFF. You might find the experience to be rewarding and stress-relieving, especially during this time of pandemic and social distancing.

The #Coronavirus chronicles, part 24: Coping with the stress #COVID19

I’m not going to lie. The mental stress of being out of a job (ten months, and counting) is affecting me in many ways. I’ll talk about the mental stress (which is what this article is mostly about) in a minute, but before I get into that, let me talk about something that has been affecting me physically.

Last year, gyms were closed down due to the pandemic. As a result, I wasn’t able to attend CrossFit classes. For me, one of the biggest benefits of CrossFit classes was that it created a routine. I tend to be a creature of habit, and as long as I stick to a routine, I’m generally okay. With the gyms closed due to the pandemic, that routine was broken. I didn’t stay active at home as I would’ve liked (although I did attempt a Couch to 5K program). I started developing issues with my back and my shoulder (which continue even as I write this), enough to require physical therapy. Now, the gyms are back open, but I’ve been dealing with physical issues that prevent me from working out as I’d like. Thankfully, PT seems to be alleviating these issues, and I’m hoping to become active again soon.

That said, the past year has affected me mentally and psychologically, and I’ve fallen into some bad habits. I haven’t been as active with my business as I should be. I’ve been moody, and I seem to have mood swings easily. The constant battle of looking for employment has been extremely taxing and frustrating. A lot of activities that I normally enjoy haven’t been giving me much pleasure as of late.

I could keep going, but the last thing I want to do is write a woe-is-me article where I feel like I’m trying to solicit sympathy. I’m not (at least I don’t think I am, anyway — maybe some of you might disagree, but I digress). Rather, I’m laying out the scenario so that I can write about coping strategies (and I’m writing this for myself as much as any of you who might be in the same boat). In my job hunt presentation, I talk about making sure that you take care of yourself. This article is about practicing what I preach.

Before I started this article, I sat in my home office, thinking about “what should I do to get back on track.” I thought about a number of things, and I’d like to share them with you.

First of all, I revisited one of my hobbies: songwriting. I’ve been working on an idea for a new song, and I opened my notation app to revisit it. I’m finding that doing so is pleasantly distracting; it gets my brain working on something productive. Doing this makes an adjustment to my mental activity which, I believe, will improve my mental and psychological state over the long run.

I was also fortunate enough to be contacted by a friend of mine who said he might have a project for me. We spoke, and I told him I’d look at it. It’s not gainful employment per se, but it’s another productive distraction to get me going again. On that same topic, I also have other projects for my clients that I need to revisit as well.

Other friends have other coping ideas as well. I highly recommend Steve Jones‘ series of articles about daily coping. His suggestions make a lot of sense, and I find that they improve my mood (I’ve even told him as such).

I need to do something physical as well. My doctor recommended that I do a minimum of five minutes of physical activity per day. At the time of the recommendation, I was in serious pain (directly related to the conditions I mentioned at the top of this article) so I wasn’t able to do this right away, but now that they’re somewhat better, I feel like I can partake. I do have an exercise bike; I will be making use of it. Additionally, I will be investing in some resistance bands and PVC pipes (to do pass-throughs).

And, if nothing else, I’m also trying to come up with ideas for ‘blog articles.

You need to take care of yourself before you can take on your responsibilities. These might sound like small moves, but small moves add up. Things like this can reinvigorate yourself and get you back on track. And once they do, you can be productive again.

#DataSaturday

After the demise of PASS, a common question among data enthusiasts and PASS members was, “what happens with SQL Saturday?” SQL Saturday was backed by PASS, and as such, when PASS disappeared, so did SQL Saturday.

Enter Data Saturdays, the successor to SQL Saturday. As I write this, the first Data Saturday is in progress, in Guatemala (virtually, of course).

I’ve applied to speak at the first Data Saturday in the US (so far), event #5 in Redmond, WA on April 17. I submitted three sessions: my presentations on ‘blogging, job hunting, and networking.

When I submitted my sessions, I was a little surprised to see my information come up in the speaker’s profile. My initial thought was that they had exported and imported my profile and presentation info from the PASS.org site, but I don’t think this is the case. Data Saturday uses Sessionize to coordinate events, and as it turned out, I already had a Sessionize profile; I had created it last year for Albany Code Camp, where I had applied to speak last year; of course, the event was wiped out due to COVID. I did notice, on my Sessionize profile, that my submissions are in evaluation for Albany Code Camp on September 25, so I’m assuming that that event is rescheduled for that date.

We’ll see if I’m picked to speak for the Redmond event. There are a number of additional Data Saturday events listed as well; I haven’t yet decided what other events I’ll apply to speak. Even though the events are virtual (for now), they still require some work, and I’m wary of spreading myself too thin, despite my desire to speak at more events.

In any case, I’m looking forward to participating in this next endeavor. I’m looking forward to contributing toward these conferences, and, as always, I’m also looking forward to reconnecting with my #SQLFamily friends.

Goals for 2021

So, for my first post of 2021, I figured I should list my goals (I refuse to call them “resolutions”) for the new year.

• First and foremost, above everything else, find new employment. I have been unemployed since May 1. For those of you keeping score, that’s eight months. 67% of my 2020 was spent in unemployment. Getting a new job, for me, is priority number one above everything else.
  
  I do have a couple of relatively promising leads, but I’m not out of the woods yet. Hopefully, things will be turning around very soon.

• Do more with my business. In 2020, as a direct result of my losing my job, I started an LLC. I managed to pick up two clients. It’s good experience, but not enough to pay my bills (hence why I’m still looking for employment). I haven’t done a lot with it in the last few months of 2020. I want to devote more time and energy into it in 2021.
  
  I readily admit that I slacked off on this as the year went on, and I don’t want to let it slip in 2021. I intend to keep this endeavor going, even if I do land new gainful employment.

• Get back to the gym. COVID-19 kept me from getting into my CrossFit gym more than I would’ve liked, but the pandemic wasn’t my only issue. I developed back and arm issues that kept me from being more active than I wanted to be. Simply getting out of bed without pain is a chore for me right now. Hopefully, I can get back to being as active as I was before the pandemic.
  
  Speaking of the pandemic…

• Travel. The pandemic is my biggest (but not the only) roadblock for this goal; my other major roadblock is making sure I have the money to do so (see “find new employment” above). I enjoy traveling, and I wish I could do more of it. Since the pandemic began, I can count on one hand the number of trips I took away from home (trips to the grocery store don’t count).
  
  Trips for SQL Saturday have satisfied my desire to travel for the past several years, but now that PASS will be no more, I might need to find another outlet for my out-of-town speaking engagements (more on that in a minute). I also told my wife that I want to take a relatively significant vacation somewhere once the pandemic is over. She and I have both encountered a lot of stress this past year, and I think we both need to find a way to relieve it.

• Find speaking engagements. One thing I’ve discovered about speaking for SQL Saturday is that I enjoy presenting. I’d like to do more. My last in-person speaking engagement was SQL Saturday in Rochester last February. I was also scheduled to speak at SQL Saturday in Chicago (which would’ve been my first SQL Saturday where driving was not feasible), and I had applied to speak at a local code camp. Both of those were wiped out by the pandemic.
  
  My friend Matt Cushing encouraged me to sign up for the Idera Ace Program, which would provide funding for me to take part in more presentation opportunities (not to mention that it would look good on my resume). Since I first started presenting regularly, all of my in-person speaking engagements (with the exception of 2019 PASS Summit) have been within driving distance of my home in the Albany, NY area. There is a reason for this: traveling costs money. The Idera Ace Program would provide more opportunities for me to speak at nonlocal events (pandemic notwithstanding, of course).

• Do more house projects. These past several months at home made me realize how much I want to do with my house, and how little I’ve done to attain that goal. (I’m talking about “fun” projects, as opposed to chores.) Money has been a major detriment (again, see “find new employment” above) as well as energy (see “get back to the gym”), but time has not; since I don’t have anywhere to really go, I have no shortage of time on my hands. There’s a long list of projects I’d like to do, such as finish my basement, build a backyard patio and entertainment area, build a porch, and so on. While I don’t necessarily expect to finish these in 2021, I’d like to at least take steps toward those goals.

There are a lot of other things that I’d like to do, but I think this is a good list for now. (I reserve the right to amend it.) In general, I’m hoping for a better year, and 2021 supersedes the dumpster fire that was 2020.

Requiem for #PASS — #SQLFamily

Many data professionals, myself included, are shocked and saddened by the announcement that PASS will cease operation on January 15, 2021. I’m sure that a large number of data ‘bloggers will be posting their thoughts regarding PASS’s announcement; this is only one of many such articles, I’m sure.

I know that PASS has been under a great deal of scrutiny by its members, and even I, myself, have been critical of PASS in the past. Three members of the board of directors resigned within the past few weeks, and the organization had been consulting with legal experts regarding its future.

I’ve always taken great pains to be apolitical (it’s one of my most, if not the most, hated topics to discuss). I don’t know much about any of PASS’s inner workings or governance, and quite frankly, I don’t want to know. I’m sure there’s a lot they could’ve done better, but I’ve never been privy to it. (Indeed, one frequent criticism I’ve heard has been their transparency — or lack of.)

As someone who has been a member of PASS for some time (since attending my very first SQL Saturday in New York City in 2010), I would prefer to talk about everything that PASS has given me. So I wanted to take some time to reflect on the things that PASS has done to enhance my professional career.

When I attended my first SQL Saturday (#39 in New York City back in 2010), I knew right away that I wanted to be involved and contribute to the community. The question was, how? I remember looking around at other attendees at the Microsoft office (back then, it was held next to Radio City, not at the Times Square location like it is now) and saying to myself, “these people probably know more about SQL Server than I do. What can I contribute to this organization?”

On that same trip, I met Dan Bowlin on the train heading down to the City. Along with Joe Barth, the three of us founded the Albany SQL user group. Through my association with that group, I also met Greg Moore and Ed Pollack; the three of us currently maintain the group’s leadership team. Since those humble beginnings, our user group has remained strong. We hold our own when compared to user groups in larger cities; indeed, we frequently say that we “punch above our weight.” And although Dan and Joe moved out of the area several years ago, I still remain friends with them to this day.

One evening, during one of our user group meetings, I had a thought: I’ve been adept at talking the language of technology to people who don’t understand it. Would that make for a good presentation? As that meeting progressed, I jotted some notes down; by the end of the meeting, I had enough fodder for an entire presentation. I ran my idea past a few people, including Greg and Ed. They all told me, that was a great idea! Run with it!

That idea became my very first presentation, which I first presented in 2015. Since then, I’ve presented that session at several SQL Saturdays and at PASS Summit.

I wrote previously about what happened after that first presentation. I discovered that I enjoyed presenting and attending events such as SQL Saturday. Additionally, I also noticed some subtle changes to my professional development. I found that I was passively getting better at what I did. I gained more confidence in my abilities, I became more assertive, and I was increasingly being recognized for the things I did. I even remember one manager telling me, “we recognize what you’re doing with all these conferences where you’re speaking; keep up the good work!”

I now have several presentations that I do. I have presented at numerous SQL Saturdays, PASS Summit, and a number of user groups, both in-person and virtual. I even did a podcast!

It wasn’t all about professional development. I made a number of friends through my involvement with PASS and SQL Saturday — people I likely wouldn’t have otherwise met, and whom I love dearly. In addition to my association with PASS, I’ve connected with these people through Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. These people have become a part of my life, and I am as close to these people as I am to any of my family or circles of friends. And because of this, my professional network is stronger than ever.

I love to travel. I wish I could do more of it (usually, lack of time or money — and these days, the pandemic — keeps me from doing more of it). I’ve written before about my SQL Saturday (and other PASS) travels. These speaking opportunities gave me chances to visit places I don’t normally get to see, not to mention that they got me out of Dodge for a little while.

I attribute all of this as things that PASS has given me.

I’ve been thinking about whether or not it would be feasible to resurrect PASS. In addition to PASS, I am also a member of STC. Unlike PASS, STC charges dues to its members (using a tiered structure — the amount of dues you pay depends on your tier). Conceptually, STC is very similar to PASS; they are a professional organization that represents a specific profession (PASS represents data professionals; STC represents technical communicators). STC also does a number of things that PASS did not do; they have publications that they publish regularly, for example. If PASS is able to reorganize, I’m wondering if they’d be open to restructuring using a model such as STC. Of course, I suspect one of the reasons why PASS was popular was that they didn’t charge dues. If PASS is to be solvent, that might be something to consider.

I think it’s important for professionals in any field to have an organization such as PASS. They provide opportunities for networking, guidance, reference, and development that wouldn’t otherwise exist anywhere else. What PASS has done for my career and professional development is incalculable. The demise of PASS represents a big, big loss. I sincerely hope that PASS is able to come back in some way, shape, or form, and be stronger than ever in doing so.

#SQLSaturday Minnesota — the debrief #SQLSat1017 #SQLSatMN

I don’t think I have to tell anyone what a crazy year 2020 has been (and I won’t belabor the point). As such, many of us have had their fill of Zoom meetings and virtual conferences. I’ve heard a lot from people, myself included, about their dealings with pandemic fatigue and how burned out they are by virtual conferences.

And then, along came Minnesota SQL Saturday.

Before today, I’d spoken at or attended four virtual PASS events: SQL Saturdays in Albany, Memphis, and Montreal, and PASS Summit. In spite of the challenges faced with putting on virtual events — uncharted territory for all of us — the events went about as well as they could. There were glitches and lessons learned, but for the most part, they went about as well as virtual conferences — being put on for the first time — could go.

Minnesota, however, raised the bar. The event went through a great deal of thought and planning, and it showed. This is not a slight against other events, as we were all breaking new ground in putting together virtual events; rather, Minnesota demonstrated a better way to do it.

I’ll start with Friday night. At many of the in-person SQL Saturday events where I’ve spoken, organizers put together a speaker’s dinner on Friday night. In lieu of that, Minnesota organized a Zoom session allowing speakers to get to know the organizers and other speakers (Memphis did the same thing). In addition, however, Minnesota also organized a test run using GoToMeeting sessions (the virtual meeting application of choice by PASS) to make sure that speakers could test their sessions and get comfortable with presenting online. Although I’d previously presented via GoToMeeting before, I found that this went a long way with helping me to get comfortable with the technology, the session, and knowing what to expect.

Additionally, throughout the day for SQL Saturday, the Minnesota crew set up a separate chat application using Discord (an application that I understand is popular with gamers). Through this application, speakers and attendees had an avenue through which they could mingle and chat using different channels. They had channels set up for each meeting room, as well as a “lunch room” (where people could converse during lunch) and a speaker’s channel (roughly the equivalent of a speaker room). I don’t remember all the channels they had set up — I do remember channels called #jobs and #hallway — but I thought using this application was a great move.

One of the things that is sorely missing from virtual SQL Saturdays is the ability to randomly converse and chat. At in-person events, one of the best parts is to randomly bump into #SQLFamily and chat about a variety of subjects, or randomly start chatting about session topics in the hallway, or whatever. Networking is a huge part of SQL Saturday. By nature, that dynamic is nearly impossible to duplicate at a virtual event. Of course, no virtual event can ever duplicate the things you’d experience at an in-person event. But by employing a technology such as Discord, they managed to fill that gap quite nicely.

I also liked that room moderators introduced speakers and topics. They all included slides to start each session, which also included reminders to solicit the sponsors, their local user group, and various other standard announcements. The format was similar to PASS virtual groups, where the group moderator would start with the intro before the speaker went into his or her presentation.

Overall, Minnesota did a great job with their virtual SQL Saturday. Bravo! They demonstrated that a virtual event could still be exciting and fun, and not the same old virtual event that everyone else does. Granted, I’m looking forward to when we can start attending in-person events again. But by employing out-of-the-box ideas like these, virtual events don’t have to be the same old, same old log-into-a-virtual-room events that we’ve become accustomed to experiencing.

#PASSSummit2020 part 5: The debrief #PASSSummit #PASSVirtualSummit

(Ed. Note: I had intended to get this out last week, but a family emergency prevented me from doing so, so this article is a week later than I’d wanted to post.)

Now that I’ve had the weekend to recover from a busy PASS Summit 2020 week, I can write about my thoughts and impressions.

Overall, I thought PASS did a good job with holding a virtual PASS Summit under trying pandemic circumstances. These are, after all, trying times, and we have to play the cards that we’re dealt. That said, there were some glitches.

I’ll start with my own presentation. I had prerecorded my session, per instructions from PASS. My initial impression was that I would do my presentation live, and the recorded session would serve as a backup in case I ran into any problems with my presentation. That turned out not to be the case. PASS used my prerecorded presentation. I was, however, required to stand by to field any questions from attendees.

So, before the appointed time, I logged in and opened a chat window. My friend Andy Levy was kind enough to join me in the video chat room, and we chatted about a variety of topics while we waited.

The appointed time arrived, so I started my video. I found that it was impossible to monitor the chat rooms to field questions and to watch the video at the same time, so I turned off the video; after all, I had no pressing need to watch my own prerecorded presentation — or so I thought. I found out, much to my chagrin, that a number of slides had no audio to go with it.

This was a big disappointment. My first instinct was to point the finger at PASS and tell them, “your technology didn’t work,” but that would’ve been disingenuous on my part. When I prerecorded my session a while back, I went back and did a quick listen of each section I recorded to make sure it was okay. When I was finished, I watched some of the presentation, but not all, and that was my mistake. I probably should’ve watched the entire presentation to make sure it was okay, but I didn’t. That was a mistake on my part to which I will own up. That said, it’s my understanding that there were a number of other presentations that also had audio problems (in fact, I tried to sit in on one that had issues, and they ended up rescheduling it — for a time that I couldn’t attend), so I’m guessing that it might not have entirely been on me.

I did post to the chat that I was available in the chat room for any questions, and a few attendees took me up on it. We ended up having a great discussion (and Andy, who also has his own ‘blog, was great with answering some questions and contributing to the conversation). In that sense, we ended up making lemonade out of the technical lemons.

That said, I haven’t yet looked at the feedback, and I don’t look forward to doing so.

A few of my friends also wrote their impressions of PASS Virtual Summit. I haven’t yet had a chance to read them, but I’m posting them here, both for you to peruse and for my own reference.

• Andy Levy
• Greg Moore
• Steve Jones

With that, here are a few of my quick thoughts regarding PASS Virtual Summit 2020.

As I mentioned earlier, these are trying times, and PASS did a decent job with Summit, given the cards they were dealt. The pandemic has affected them, as well as many of the rest of us (as of this article, I’m still looking for a job — it’s been over six months now), and PASS is dealing with those effects. As critical as I — and others — might be of PASS, I want them to survive, and I sincerely hope that they’re still around when we emerge from the other side of this pandemic.

I was not particularly fond of their decision to make use of mostly prerecorded sessions. I would have much preferred to have done my session live. PASS’s concern was with potential technical glitches with live sessions, so their thinking was that a prerecorded session would alleviate that situation. In fact, the opposite happened. The prerecorded session was the glitch, and I never had a problem with my live connection. While I understand why PASS decided to do it that way, I found the decision to be somewhat questionable.

(And if anyone reading this would like to see my presentation, I did this same presentation for the Professional Development Virtual Group back in January. You can view the recording of my January presentation here.)

Overall, I did enjoy PASS Virtual Summit, but as anyone who has attended PASS Summit or other virtual events can attest, the experience just isn’t the same. For me, a huge part of the appeal of events like these is the opportunity to network and to connect with my friends whom I don’t get to see that frequently. To their credit, PASS made accommodations with networking events and channels, but there’s only so much you can do, and only so many people you can see, with online channels. There’s something to be said about randomly bumping into one of your friends while walking down the hall.

Another big part is the travel. I love to travel, and I wish I could do more of it (pandemic aside, usually the lack of time or lack of money keeps me from traveling more). I enjoyed visiting Seattle last year, one of my favorite west coast cities to visit. This year’s Summit would’ve been in Houston, a city I’ve only visited once before.

Overall, I enjoyed PASS Virtual Summit, but it was not without its faults. Hopefully, PASS can take the feedback and lessons learned from this event, and use it to create a truly spectacular experience the next time around. Hopefully, the pandemic will be over for the next time, but these days, you can never tell.