27Apr 2015 by Grant Fritchey 20 Comments

Benefits for Some, All or Only a Few

PASS, Professional Development
As a member of the PASS Board of Directors I attended the PASS Business Analytics Conference (BAC) recently. You can read more about it here and here (as well as here). Let me start with an important note: I am voicing my opinion here as an individual, not an official stance of the PASS organization. There is controversy around the BAC because of a whole bunch of things, but one question in particular bothered me. It was suggested that the people attending the BAC were just consuming the worth or value that other people who paid for the Summit generated. At first, I just dismissed this concept. It stuck in the back of my mind though. Suddenly I realized why. Yes, the BAC was partly paid for by Summit. The…
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23Apr 2015 by Grant Fritchey 14 Comments

PASS Board Update: April 2015

PASS
It's been a pretty interesting month on the board. First, we did have a little problem. I'm sure one or two of you may have noticed that the SQL Saturday web site was down for a moment. Well, three days. Joking aside, this was a serious problem, but my involvement was largely peripheral since I'm in charge of Chapters. I tried to help out a little, offering what support I could and, if nothing else, supplying an ear, willing to listen. Quite a few people took advantage of that. I communicated all their information up the chain to HQ and the other board members. Nothing has been held back. Next, we've started the budgeting process. That's fascinating. As well as a giant pain in the... well, anyway. Thankfully the people…
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31Mar 2015 by Grant Fritchey 6 Comments

PASS Board Update: March 2015

PASS
Hello all, It's been a while since my last update. Sorry. I've just been traveling and presenting and working on books and this slipped through the cracks a bit. I'll try to do better in the future. Nothing major to report. As a board member I've been working primarily on two things. First, I've been polishing my goals for the Chapters Portfolio. I'll publish those below. Next, I'm working on the budget for Chapters for next year. In between times, a lot of what I do, is work with Regional Mentors (RM) and Chapter Leaders (CL) on an individual basis. As much as the stuff that PASS as an organization is involved with is around technology, the PASS organization, especially Chapters, is all about people. And you know how people…
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16Mar 2015 by Grant Fritchey 8 Comments

How To Speak At SQL Saturday Events

PASS, Professional Development
The PASS SQL Saturday events are meant to be a place to grow the pool of speakers, provide a mechanism for the speakers to learn, and fulfill the PASS goals of Connect, Share and Learn. So, you've decided you want to start speaking at a SQL Saturday event. Cool. You went to the <Insert Large, Popular, SQL Saturday> event last year, so you submitted this year... and didn't get accepted. Now what? First, submit. You won't get accepted if you don't try. SQL Saturday, especially the big, popular ones, may not be the best place to present for your very first time. In fact, with the large ones, you may not get accepted because people who already have a reputation are submitting to those (we all want to talk to big…
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26Jan 2015 by Grant Fritchey 11 Comments

My First Board Meeting

PASS
Parents, you know that feeling you get after you've brought home that brand new baby (or in my case, babies) where you suddenly say to yourself, "Oh damn. What have I done?" Yeah, that's my feeling after my first board meeting. But let me give you a run-through of how it was. Note, I can't pre-publish any board decisions. I'm also not giving you a blow-by-blow account of the discussions (especially since there were no blows, at all). This is a story of the types of things we did, how it went, how I feel about it. This is my blog, my blog post, my thoughts and feelings. This does not represent an official PASS communication. We good? While the board meeting itself is, for me, only a two day affair, we tacked a…
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16Jan 2015 by Grant Fritchey 10 Comments

Two Weeks on the PASS Board

PASS
The one absolute promise I made about serving on the PASS Board is that I would let you know what I was doing there. Well, we're two weeks in and I figured now was a good time for a report. Next week is my first board meeting (and I will report back on how that goes). I'll be presenting the goals I've worked up for the Chapters and see how many of them we can get approved and then how many of them we can deliver. In the time I've had on the board so far, a big part of what I've been doing is learning about what has gone before. What kind of goals did we have for last year. Which of them were delivered. Which weren't. Why. What's…
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13Nov 2014 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

PASS Summit 2014 Speaker Idol

PASS
For the first time ever at the PASS Summit, a competition was held to select a speaker for the 2015 Summit. This competition was organized and run by Denny Cherry. You can read all about what he thought of the event right here. I was asked to take part as a judge. I was on the panel for all the preliminaries and then sat in the room for the final. Here's what I thought of the event. First off, thank you to the PASS organization for taking a chance. This is a deviation from the way things have been done. Trying new things can be difficult, but the organization stepped right up and supported this addition to the rich pageant that is the Summit. Second, I want to thank Denny…
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11Nov 2014 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

I’m Still Not on the Board

PASS
I'm just back from the PASS Summit 2014. What a great event. But this year, it was a little different. I did a lot of the usual things, presented a pre-conference seminar to about 130 people, helped out at the Red Gate booth, presented a session on execution plans on Friday, went to a few after hours events (that included karaoke). You know, the Summit. My tenth one. But, I am starting the process of transitioning onto the board. This will be my first report on the work I've been doing around that. However, please let me point out something, that was made very obvious to me during the event, I'm coming on to the board, but I'm not yet on the board. I say this because whatever work I…
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06Nov 2014 by Grant Fritchey 7 Comments

PASS Summit 2014: WIT Luncheon

PASS
Since I'm starting on the board in January, I've stopped taking part in the bloggers table during keynotes. First time since they had a bloggers. But, I am going to blog through the Women in Technology (WIT) Luncheon because I just love getting to take part in this amazing event. For the luncheon this year, they have changed the format. Instead of a panel, they're just talking to some really interesting people who have been doing amazing stuff supporting growth of women within STEM types of work and education. First up is Kimberly Bryant, the founder of a non-profit organization called Black Girls Code. She started out trying to build a for-profit startup, but when she found that there just weren't that many women in technology. But when her daughter…
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17Oct 2014 by Grant Fritchey 7 Comments

Why Haven’t You Changed Everything?

PASS
The first in what I hope will be many regular reports on what I'm doing on the PASS board. To answer the question that I've already been asked (who had 47 hours in the pool?), first, I'm not on the board yet. I was elected to it and my term starts in January. So, don't expect a lot in the way of ongoing structural changes at the organization instigated by me. Second, I'm the lowest of the low on the board (after I'm actually on the board), so I won't be making a whole lot of changes at all (whether I wanted to or not). Third, the board is a board, a bunch of people, who get to vote on things, so even if I were able to call a…
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