03Apr 2015 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Speaker of the Month: April 2015

Professional Development
One of my favorite events of the year is the SQL Saturday in Silicon Valley. They've had four of them and I've gone to three (had to miss last year, scheduling conflict). It's a fantastic event and Mark Ginnebaugh (b|t) does a great job putting it together. In fact, this year, we got to listen to Ross Mistry and T.K. Rengarajan have a "fireside chat" for the keynote. For those who don't know, Mr. Rengarajan is just a VP at Microsoft. Yeah, he simply runs the ENTIRE FLIPPING AZURE DATA PLATFORM. That's all. They had a few demos and showed us unreleased code and new versions of SSMS not yet available publicly (including functionality around Query Store and execution plans, my little heart was going pitter-pat). Anyway, if you missed it, you…
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13Mar 2015 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Speaker of the Month: February & March 2015

Professional Development
It's not a question of scheduling. I just haven't been to lots of community events in the last several months so that I can see community speakers and find one to give an award to. I've been trying. So, we're giving out two awards this month (my blog, my award, my rules). Unfortunately, neither one is going to a full-blown community speaker. Hey, not my fault. I'm trying. Anyway, on with the show. The first award goes to ALL the speakers on the SQL Cruise. That's Jes Borland(b|t), Jeff Lehman(L), David Klee(b|t), and Kevin Kline(b|t). Look, I get it, Tim Ford(b|t), the guy who runs SQL Cruise, goes after top speakers (and, somehow I get in too). But, until you've watched these people present, in the long form sessions that…
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02Jan 2015 by Grant Fritchey 5 Comments

Speaker of the Month: January 2015

Professional Development
I love it that my first post of the new year is going to be Speaker of the Month. I'm really enjoying doing these because I'm getting to attend a lot more sessions at the events I go to in order to get choices. But, please, don't bug me. If I can attend your session, I will. If I can't... Anyway. Speaker of the Month for January 2015 is William Wolf (b|t) and his session "Common Coding Mistakes and How to Mitigate Them" that was delivered at SQL Saturday DC. This was a good session. It was informative. I really liked how Bill (I'm going to use that because it's easier to type and despite looking like the Demon Biker of the Apocalypse, he's a bigger sweetheart than I am) kept…
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08Dec 2014 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Speaker of the Month: December 2014

Professional Development
For the month of November I was at the PASS Summit and Live360, so I didn’t get to find new speakers to see (heck, I didn’t get to see any sessions at Summit this year). But, that didn’t mean I didn’t get to see great speakers. I did (Rimma! Rimma! Rimma!). Live360 had some amazing presentations. I do like the mixed events like Live360 because I enjoy crossing into dev sessions as well as database sessions. My speaker of the month for December 2014 is Bradley Ball (b|t) and his session “Inside the Query Optimizer” Oh, before I go any further: HEY BALLS! Sorry, but Brad had us do that at the start of the session. I figured I’d just carry it on. Anyway, wow. What a great session. Brad’s delivery…
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05Dec 2014 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

Speaker of the Month: November 2014

Professional Development
I have been very remiss in my blogging of late. Apologies. One thing I haven’t blogged about is Speaker of the Month. I’m behind. So, I’ll be posting two of them over the next few days in order to catch up. First up, Speaker of the Month for November. I went to quite a few events in October, but I actually didn’t get to see too many sessions. However, the few I saw were actually quite good. Speaker quality is just going up and up. I finally got to see someone present that I’ve known for years and years, but just never had the opportunity to sit in on a class. Well, I sat in on one, and this is the result. My speaker of the month is Kathi Kellenburger(b)…
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09Oct 2014 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Speaker of the Month: October 2014

Professional Development
I saw a whole bunch of great sessions last month. I was all over the place from Las Vegas to San Diego and then Antwerp and Utrecht at Connections, two different SQL Saturday events and SQL Server Days. The speakers just seem to keep getting better, making this more difficult. But, I was privileged to see someone's very first time presenting and he did a great job. My speaker of the month is Enrico van de Laar (LinkedIn, Twitter) and his session No More Waiting - An introduction to SQL Server Wait Statistics. Let me say up front, I messed up his plans when he asks right at the start "Is there anyone here who doesn't speak Dutch?" and I was the lonely hand going up in a room of about…
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05Sep 2014 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Speaker of the Month: September 2014

Professional Development
This month I'm very grateful because I was given the opportunity to present at DevLink in Chattanooga. I got to meet a lot of new people and see presentations by people that just don't hang around SQL Server specific events. It was great. I'm going to apply next year (depending on scheduling of course) and I'm applying for a lot more development conferences. I still get to see friends present, Louis Davidson, Kevin Boles and Kevin Kline were all there. But I get to see new people. Speaking of which, speaker of the month for September 2014 is Josh Lane (b|t) and his presentation AWS vs. Azure, Which One Is Right for You. The thing that I found the most amazing about this presentation was how even-handed it was. Josh Lane…
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01Aug 2014 by Grant Fritchey 6 Comments

Speaker of the Month: August 2014

Professional Development
Speaker of the Month is now officially one year old. I went back and reread my first post. The goals were for a relentlessly positive experience. Reading back through the twelve posts, I feel like I hit that mark pretty well. Yes, I've always pointed out places where improvements can be made, but I think I've done it in a constructive and positive manner. Plus, I'm picking your session (if you get picked), as the best session that I saw that month, which is pretty darned positive in and of itself. I also promised it would be random and arbitrary. Mission accomplished. I've considered wrapping this up. I did it for a year, just to see what the response would be. I didn't have much more of a goal in…
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11Jul 2014 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Speaker of the Month, July 2014

Professional Development
Another month another bunch of great presentations. I almost don't want to do this any more. It's hard. I sit through a presentation and I think, "Well, here's the winner this month." Then I go to another presentation and I think, "Well, fudge, now one of these people loses." Then I go to a third and I'm simply blown away. And now I have to pick. Well, it's hard. So let me do this, I'm going to declare two winners this month, but only review one of them. Hey, my blog, my rules. First, I want to award speaker of the month for July 2014 to Wayne Sheffield(b|t) and his presentation Table Variables and Temp Tables that I saw at SQL Saturday 294. What's my measure? That I learned stuff…
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06Jun 2014 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Speaker of the Month, June 2014

Professional Development
It's not like I can't find plenty of great presentations here in the US, but, while I was over in Belgium at Techorama I checked out several of the presenters there. They were awesome. This was the first ever Techorama. It's a developer focused event, but there was stuff there for data-centric people too. They had a great international collection of speakers from all over. The venue was a movie theater which was a lot of fun to present in, although may be a little too comfy to watch presentations (I fell asleep in one, I sure hope I didn't snore). It was such a great event that I decided to pick my speaker of the month from there. I saw a bunch of very good presentations (even the one…
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