Tag: Presentations

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Events Syndication

Upcoming Presentation: SQL Server 101 Series

I’m extremely proud to announce that I’ll be a part of a fantastic webinar series being put on by Pragmatic Works on SQL Server 101. Basically a 2-week-long series of webinars covering all the information you need to know to get started in SQL Server. I’ll be leading off the week with Introduction to Managing a SQL Server Database where I’ll cover some of the basics for an administrator getting started in the field. That same afternoon make sure you catch Patrick LeBlanc (aka @patrickdba on Twitter) presenting on Beginning T-SQL (register here for this session).

The rest of the week has some amazing presenters and content with folks like Steve Jones (Blog | Twitter), Brad McGehee (Blog | Twitter), Brian Knight (Blog | Twitter), Adam Jorgensen (Blog | Twitter), Christian Bolton (Blog | Twitter), and Devin Knight (Blog | Twitter)! HOLY CRAP, how did my name get mixed in with this elite bunch?!? Each session has its own registration link so make sure you register for the ones you think you’ll make as registrations are limited to 1,000 per session. Hope to see you all online that week!

SQL Server Global Webinar Series event page

Register for my talk here

And finally here’s a video introduction from Brian and Devin Knight about what to expect that week

Categories
Syndication Tips Uncategorized

Technical Presentations: Give it a Shot!

If you have never done a technical presentation I HIGHLY recommend you do try it at least once. Volunteer to speak at your local user group or SQL event. Andy Warren (Blog | LinkedIn) recently added the idea of mini-presentations to both his user group meetings as well as the upcoming SQL Saturday #21 in Orlando. The mini-presentations are 15-minute time slots to give first-time presenters the opportunity to practice technical presentation and public speaking skills. If a user group or event is a bit too much for your first time do what I did: user your co-workers! The first time I was going to present my PBM talk I didn’t want to go to my user group without practicing first. So ask your co-workers if they wouldn’t mind letting you practice on them during lunch hour. It makes it much easier doing the presentation to a group of folks you already know and are comfortable with so its a good way to ease into the public presentations. Heck, if you’re feeling really saucy you can start a series of lunch-n-learns within your department and provide free training for everyone: Win-win y’all!

Still don’t have the warm and fuzzies? Well the fine folks at PASS have compiled a great list of resources for learning how to present at events. Check that page and there are TONS of great advice from absolutely awesome speakers like Steve Jones, Kimberly Tripp and Paul Randal.

The last few months I have been travelling around presenting on Policy Based Management at various groups and events. At each event I have learned something new either from conversations with the audience or things simply not going right which cause me to work on those things the next time. But the one thing I haven’t really gotten much (other than the occasional side conversation with a few folks) is presentation feedback. I’ve signed up over at SpeakerRate.com and have put up the different events I’ve spoken at so far. So if you’ve had the pleasure/displeasure of attending one of my sessions I would really love some feedback. Thanks in advance!

Categories
Events PASS Virtualization Syndication Syndication

PASS Virtualization VC Webcast: Virtualizing SQL Servers

For those who don’t know, PASS has several Virtual Chapters. Each VC has its own distinct topic they focus on. The most recent VC established is the Virtualization Virtual Chapter (say that 3 times fast). Our group is dedicated to helping spread the education of virtualization to folks who are thinking of jumping into the virtualization realm with their SQL Servers. We’re pretty excited as we have some top notch virtualization experts such as Duncan Epping (Blog | Twitter), Scott Lowe (Blog | Twitter) and Brent Ozar (Blog | Twitter) who will be syndication their blogs on the Virtualization VC’s blog feed.

Tomorrow afternoon Wednesday, September 30th at 12pm EST | 4pm GMT, the PASS Virtualization Virtual Chapter is proud to host our first webcast featuring Denny Cherry (Blog | Twitter) discussing the pros and cons of moving SQL Servers into a virtual environment. We’ll be talking about when it’s a good idea, when it’s a bad idea, and why there’s no hard-set answers. We’ll be focusing on how to make this decision and how to gather the metrics you need to make a good decision. Audio will be provided through the speakers. This presentation will be presented via Windows LiveMeeting so make sure you arrive early and make sure everything is ready to go on your end. See you tomorrow at the presentation!

Meeting Invite Link: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join?id=BP7D93&role=attend&pw=x_](2cfJ4

Categories
Events Presentation Review Syndication

OPASS User Group Meeting: Review

Well last night I presented my Policy Based Management presentation for the Orlando SQL PASS User Group aka OPASS. The meeting was held at the End-to-End Training (now called SQLShare.com) offices which is a nice facility ran by Andy Warren (Blog | LinkedIn). The meeting started off with a short bit of networking where Andy has everyone introduce themselves to their neighbors and get some discussion going. I thought this was a nice little touch and lets people work on their networking skills.

First up for the night was a mini presentation on Backup Basics with Todd Holmes (LinkedIn), a DBA for Channel Intelligence in Celebration. The mini presentation is a 15-minute presentation slot that Andy came up with to encourage new speakers to cut their teeth on public speaking and technical presentations. Todd did a great job with such a broad topic and even went the extra mile in showing examples via T-SQL code. Todd will also be doing this mini presentation at the upcoming SQL Saturday #21 in Orlando.

After Todd’s presentation there was a short dinner break and I got setup for my PBM presentation. Andy said he was curious to see an hour-long presentation went on Policy Based Management since he thought it was a topic that could be covered rather quickly. Funnily enough my presentation ran just a tad over an hour and I could have kept going! There were some hiccups here and there with my VM taking a little longer than I would have liked to open certain things but demos didn’t blow up like they did at the last SQL Saturday. I also got a chance to show the audience EPMF in action (sort of). I showed the script run that used PowerShell to apply existing policies and dump results into a database repository. The example failed because I tried to open Reporting Services page on VM which had the hardened IE settings enabled that didn’t allow scripts to run so I wound up just showing a screenshot of the dashboard view. Hopefully this demo helps people take SQL 2008 and PBM back to their jobs and look like rock stars for virtually no money (except for cost of SQL 2008 Standard license after they see how awesome this is).

After the meeting I stuck around and talked shop with Andy, Jack Corbett (Blog | Twitter) and Kendal Van Dyke (Blog | Twitter) which was pretty awesome as we talked about all things SQL. Always a good time when you get quality geek time in. Overall it was a great time and a big thank you to the group for having me out there. If you’re in the Orlando area make sure to check out the group!

Categories
Events PASS Policy Based Management Presentation Syndication

Upcoming Talks:Orlando SSUG and SQL Saturday #21

It’s going to be a fun month! Next week I’ll be speaking at the Orlando SQL Server User Group on Policy Based Management 101. I also got confirmation that not only was my PBM presentation accepted for SQL Saturday #21 on October 17th but I’ll also be doing a MINI session on SQL & Twitter:A Perfect UNION !

I’m REALLY psyched about SQL Saturday as there are going to be some awesome presenters there such as Andy Leonard (Blog | Twitter), Ken Simmons (Blog | Twitter), Joe Webb (Blog | Twitter), Brian Knight (Blog | Twitter), Kevin Kline (Blog | Twitter), Andy Warren (Blog | Twitter), Buck Woody (Blog | Twitter), Kendal Van Dyke (Blog | Twitter), Chad Miller (Blog | Twitter) and many more! The speaker lineup looks like a veritable PASS Summit East Coast edition. If you can’t make it to the Summit this year (and I highly encourage you to do so if you can) then definitely try to make it to SQL Saturday #21!

And as if the lineup of talks at the SQL Saturday event wasn’t enough to blow your mind, the week leading up to it there is a week of day-long training seminars! Again, this looks like a rock star line up featuring Andy Warren, Brian Knight, Kevin Kline, Andy Leonard and Buck Woody. Each session is $150 and WELL worth the investment.