January OPASS Meeting Recap

On January 20th OPASS was pleased to have had Kevin Kline (Blog|Twitter) from our sponsor, Quest, present 10 Things Every Developer should know.  This was the first regular OPASS meeting to take place at the Hampton Inn in Lake Mary instead of the SQLShare offices in Altamonte Springs.  Due to the change in venue and the startup of MagicPASS in Celebration, we had several new faces attend, along with a few of the old faithful attendees.  As OPASS has transitioned to my leadership from that of Andy Warren (Blog|Twitter) we are trying some new things including the new location and adding some more developer-centric topics.  This topic was a good mix of information for the DBA, but also with good information for developers, so it was a great kick-off to the new leadership.  I couldn’t run the group alone the way Andy did for several years, so I’m thankful to have Karla Landrum (Twitter) as VP of Community Outreach who has gotten sponsors for almost the entire year and has helped with speakers and food.  She has brought some fresh ideas to try.  We had about 18 in attendance out of 27 RSVP’s.  Because Kevin also represented the sponsor for the night we gave him 90 minutes and he used it all.  He shared some good tips, and honestly, each of his 10 points could be a presentation all on their own (hmmm, maybe I’ll do that ).

As usual I had a great time, although having the meeting away from Andy’s office means a lot more work as all the drinks, swag, and miscellaneous other necessities have to be hauled in and out.  I needed to get there a little earlier than I did, so that I can do a better job greeting everyone and having a real check-in process, so I know true attendance.

Lastly, I’d like to see a few more people hang around afterwards for networking and social time, but it is harder for me with cleanup needing to be done, and trying to get everything in.  We need to work on setting and sticking with a schedule, but we will get there.

Up next is Brian Knight speaking on PowerPivot.  Visit the OPASS web site for more information.