PASS Board Update: First Year

This represents my 12th month on the board so I thought I would recap my time there so you know what I’ve done, haven’t done, etc.

A year ago I took over Chapters as my area of responsibility, what’s known as my Portfolio. Wendy Pastrick had been ably running it quite well, so I had big shoes to fill. The first thing I had to prepare was a set of goals for the Chapters. I’ve blogged about them and the process and I reported on my success in meeting them (mostly) at PASS Summit this year. Over the year I’ve welcomed a number of new leaders, new Regional Mentors and new chapters into the fold. I’ve worked with Carmen and Karla at HQ, and we’ve done a good job (in my opinion) in meeting the requirements of the Chapters. We put together some very useful meetings at Summit for the Chapter Leaders and Regional Mentors (even if I did scare the RMs, just a little).

I’ve put together 14 posts this year directly related to my time and work on the board. I’ve reported on the work I’ve been doing and my thoughts on various topics related to the organization and the community. One of my promises when I ran for the office was that I would be as open, as approachable, as communicative (without violating Board confidentiality) as I could be. I know that I’ve been pushed to be more communicative and I’ve tried to meet those challenges. I think I’m still probably a little overly conservative in what I say and share here, but I’m attempting to be as open as is appropriate. I’ll push myself on opening up more. Feel free to call me on this too.

I’ve been assigned a new portfolio for next year, SQL Saturday. I’m working with Tim Ford now to understand, in more detail, where everything is at, his current goals and status, and, frankly, create some goals of my own. I’ll gladly share what I’m thinking about. First, yes, we need to continue to improve the web site. There are a bunch of enhancements underway, but I’m not going to talk about any of that until it’s more under my control (and I know I’m not stepping on IT or HQ). Next, I’m thinking that, while completely and utterly protecting the brand, I’d like to find a way to increase the level at which we let people localize the event branding so that it feels more like their own. For example SQL Saturday in the local language instead of English. Possibly localizing the logo (again, we have to protect the brand and the trademark first, assume that). This comes out of the conversations I’ve had with people at Summit (I think those conversations, which I had last year and again this year, are the most useful thing I’ve done as a member of the Board. I’m going to continue doing that regardless of my role in the organization). I’ll be reviewing the notes I took from those conversations so that I can glean any other good goals from them.

We have another board meeting this week to round out the year. This makes 15 posts. I’ll continue to share next year, especially early on when addressing the goals, plans and delivery. As always, I’m actively soliciting your feedback. Let me know what you want done.

UPDATE: 16 posts for the year. I have an update to this post available here.