PASS SQLRally Orlando–We took the Checkered Flag

We did it!  SQLRally happened and, from everything I heard, it was a success!  That’s not to say that there weren’t some glitches and lessons learned, but we accomplished our goals:

1. Provide a low-cost, high-quality regional training event
2. Fill the space between SQLSaturday and the PASS Summit
3. Provide a taste of the Summit

It was interesting because I had some people tell me that the event had a SQLSaturday feel, and others say that it had Summit feel, so I definitely think that we filled in a gap nicely.

Practice Laps (Day 1)

The first day was pre-con day.  We had 260+ attend one of the 4 pre-cons.  I arrived at the event at 7am so I could do my job at the check-in desk.  Check-in went very smoothly and we only had 1 complaint repeated several times, “Where’s breakfast and coffee?”  We did not do a good enough job letting people know that there would not be coffee or breakfast served at the event.  This was a actually a pretty big oversight as anyone who has attended a SQLSaturday is accustomed to seeing something for breakfast.

I heard no complaints about any of the sessions and the volunteers at registration, in the rooms, and during lunch were fantastic!

For the evening we announced a meet-up at Buffalo Wild Wings and also the opportunity to continue networking at a local mini-golf place.  We had a great turnout of over 100 at Buffalo Wild Wings, and you could see people moving from table to table connecting and having a good time.  I actually felt bad for the wait staff as it had to be nerve-wracking to deliver drinks or a meal to a table and the next time you returned to the table, either no one was there or it was someone new.  From what I heard only a handful of people made their way to play mini-golf, mainly because everyone was enjoying the interaction at Buffalo Wild Wings too much.  Around 10pm a group of about 25 made their way to the Celebration Town Tavern to continue the social time until about 2am.  Needless to say it made for an short night.

Qualifying (Day 2)

After having been out until 2am, I arrived shortly after 7am to help with check-in.  Once again, check-in ran smoothly due to the hard work of the event staff and volunteers.  Since over half the attendees had checked in on Day 1 for the pre-con’s, we only had about 180 people to get through the line.  It was great to be part of check-in as I was able to greet most people at the start of the day.

We did have a couple of minor glitches during day 2.  The first occurred just before the second session of the day (9:40) when I was informed that there was a missing speaker.  As the person in charge of the program, I was a little peeved by this as I had NOT been notified.  I called the expected speaker, who had not checked-in, and got no answer, so I left a message and then moved on to plan B.  Plan B was to find a speaker from later in the day and ask them to move their session in to this slot, then I’d try to fill the slot later in the day.  The first speaker I found was Patrick Leblanc, who not only agreed to speak at that time, but chose to do a different session, so he could still do his session later in the day.  This is one of the things I love about the community, someone is always ready to jump in and help.  So I went into a full (100+) session room, announced that that scheduled speaker had not arrived, and that Patrick would be filling in.  I heard nothing but good things about Patrick’s emergency session, and had one person tell me it was the best session they attended in the conference!  Way to go Patrick!

The second glitch happened in the same room and track!  The speaker for the 90 minute deep-dive session got lost on the way to the location.  Fortunately Kendal Van Dyke and Karla Landrum were able to talk him in and he made it just in time for his session.  Needless to say I was also working to find a fill-in, just in case.  Fortunately the speaker made it, and from what I heard, the session went very well!

Thursday evening we had our SQLRally Overdrive panels sponsored by OPASS and MagicPASS, which were another of my responsibilities for the event.  I have to say I was concerned about the type of attendance we’d have for informal panels after people had spent a full-day in training.  Due to cost we could not provide food, but we did have 2 cash bars setup, to encourage people to hang around and network.  The three panels were, Speed Networking hosted by Kendal Van Dyke and Chris Shaw, Birds of a Feather tables organized by Jorge Segarra, and Conducting an Interview moderated by Kevin Kline.  The panels were scheduled to run from 5:45 to 7 and when the last session of the day let out, I have to admit some concern as only 3 or 4 people made there way to each panel.  My concern was unneeded as each session had over 20 attendees.  I did not get an exact count but we had between 70 and 100 attendees stay around and delay dinner for another hour of training.  In each of the panels we had to close them out at 7 because people wanted to continue the discussions!  Who says that SQL Server geeks don’t like to be social?

After the Overdrive panels we headed to Old Town for dinner and then SQLKaraoke.  75-100 people went for dinner and 50+ made it to the Blue Wave for SQLKaraoke.  I hung around and watched people sing, and, honestly, I was a bit disappointed because most of the singers were good!  I like to go to Karaoke to see people who can’t sing, but think that they can!  Sort of like the auditions for American Idol.

The Race (Day 3)

I actually arrived at around 8am on Friday because all but about 10 people had checked-in so I wasn’t needed to help with check-in and I knew all the 8:30 speakers were at the event and ready to go.  I was pretty exhausted at this point, so I spent the day just talking with people and also had a couple of meetings about SQLRally 2012 with the groups that are in the race (Dallas, Nashville, and Denver).

We had the sponsor raffle during the 4pm break, with one session following it.  Because we didn’t have one large room in the facility we had the raffle outside on the Solaris deck.  Andy Warren made some announcements, Mark Ginnebaugh talked a bit about chapters, SQLSaturday, SQLRally, and the Summit, and Kendal Van Dyke made some announcements and announced SQLRally Nordic coming up in Sweden this November.  Then I got to emcee the raffle.  Our sponsors came through with some great stuff (IPad, IPod, software, gift cards, and more).  I was pleased with how quickly we got through the raffle and announcements in about 20 minutes as that gave the attendees some time to make it back to the last session and grab a drink.

Final Thoughts

Other than having one speaker not show up, without any notification, the event went very smoothly.  This was due to the great job done by the event staff from PASS HQ, the volunteers, and the speakers.  I received a few “pats on the back”, but, honestly, it was an easy event to organizer because of the people listed above, without them the event would not have been successful.

Thanks to all who attended and were involved in making the inaugural PASS SQLRally a great event.  I hope to see you all at the Summit and the next US SQLRally!

PASS SQLRally is Next Week!

It’s hard to believe, but after months of planning and hard work, PASS SQLRally is next week!  I admit that, as one of the planners, I may be biased, but I think we’ve put together an exciting event.

Here’s a quick overview of the week:

Tuesday

Early arrivers can kick things off with an informal get-together at Johnnies Hideaway from 5-7pm.  So we have an idea of the room that’ll be needed please RSVP here.  Or, if you are little more ambitions you can start off your week by heading north to Lake Mary for the regular May OPASS meeting.  It’s about an hour drive through Orlando, but I think it’ll be worth it.  Visit the OPASS web site for details and an RSVP link.

Wednesday

Our pre-con day with 4 great pre-cons from Grant Fritchey (Blog|Twitter), Kevin Kline (Blog|Twitter), Plamen Rachtev (Blog|Twitter), & Patrick LeBlanc (Blog|Twitter) (and his Pragmatic Works co-workers).  You can get the details on each session here.  There is still limited space in each seminar, a great deal at only $199!

While we don’t have the budget for a full welcome reception like at the Summit, we have setup a couple of meeting opportunities, You can start the evening on the patio at Buffalo Wild Wings (RSVP) and then make your way to Pirate’s Cove for some min-golf (RSVP).

Thursday

In addition to a great day of sessions we have special WIT Luncheon sponsored by SQLSentry planned with Karen Lopez (Blog|Twitter), Adam Jorgensen (Blog|Twitter), and Melinda White, Mentoring Women in Technology: How to FInd or Become a Better Mentor.  Seating is limited so you must RSVP to shannon.cunningham@sqlpass.org on a first come, first served basis.

Thursday evening we are also offering SQLRally OverDrive panels from 5:45-7:00pm sponsored by OPASS and MagicPASS. 

Birds of a Feather discussions organized by Jorge Segarra (Blog|Twitter)

Sit down with a group of people who are interested in the same SQL Server and BI topics as you are. Interested in SSIS? Gather with your peers to discuss the problems you’ve encountered and solved. Each table will be moderated by an expert in that area.

Conducting an Interview moderated by Kevin Kline (Blog|Twitter)

Conducting an interview can be intimidating and confusing.  What makes a good interview?  How do you differentiate candidates?  This workshop style session will consist of 3 short interviews.  After the interviews are complete the attendees will discuss how the interviews were conducted.  Your moderator, Quest SQL Server Expert Kevin Kline, will demonstrate three different, but common interview strategies used in the marketplace with volunteers from the audience.  We’ll ask questions about the interview strategies, like did the interviewer ask the most appropriate questions?  Did the interviewer conduct a good interview?  With the information the interviewer gathered, which candidate would you hire and why?  Let’s kick back, watch the show, critique the performances, and have a fun discussion!

Speed Networking conducted by Kendal Van Dyke (Blog|Twitter)

Do you have trouble meeting people? Need help starting a conversation? Based on the speed-dating model, you’ll spend a few minutes with several different people with a set of pre-defined questions to ask and answer. Take the time to exchange business cards as well. When moderator Kendal Van Dyke says, “Go!” be ready to make some new contacts.

Finally after the OverDrive sessions we are scheduling some time hanging out at Old Town, which has rides, restaurants, bars and more!  RSVP for this so we can help plan transportation.

Friday

We finish up with another set of great sessions and the sponsor raffle in the afternoon coffee break.  Be sure to drop your pre-printed raffle tickets in the appropriate sponsor raffle box and then be there to find out if you’ve won.  Here are the prizes:

DELL	Dell Mini
Confio	Bose Quiet Comfort 15 Headphones
Entrinsik	iPad 2
Enterprise Software Solutions	Western Digital TV Live Plus HD Media Player
Idera	$200 Amazon Gift Card
Melissa Data	iPod Touch 8g
Red Gate Software	SQL DBA Bundle License & SQL Developer Bundle License
SQL Sentry	Power Suite-Performance Monitoring and Optimising Solution
Quest Software	$100 Amazon Gift Card

Thanks again to the sponsors.  Without them the event would be much more expensive and not as fun!

What I am looking forward to?

I can’t wait to meet many of the PASS HQ folks who have helped put this event together.  I’m also looking forward to getting some time in Kevin Kline’s, Leadership and Team Management Skills for the Database Professional, Professional Development pre-con.  All the pre-con’s look great, but I think leadership is where my career is headed.  I haven’t maxed out my technical skills by any means, but I know many people better equipped technically than I am.   

I’m pumped for the OverDrive panels on Thursday night.  Those have been my baby, if they aren’t any good that’s on me, if the rock that’s due to Jorge, Kevin, and Kendal for the job they do in holding them together.

I’m really pleased with the way the event has come together, from the seed in Andy Warren’s (Blog|Twitter) mind, to the proposal we (Andy, Kendal, and I) submitted to PASS and then the execution by the entire team (too many to mention).  If you’ve ever been involved in planning an event you know how great it feels to see all the pieces come together, even when you don’t necessarily think they will.

There are still seats left for the event, so register today!

PASS SQLRally–Thoughts from an Organizer

There have been lots of blog posts about PASS SQLRally (Bing Search), but there haven’t been a lot recently from the organizers.  As today (April 12th) is the last day for the discounted $299 price I thought it would be good to talk about why I think it is a good model for an event, what I’ve done for SQLRally, and why you should attend.

Why is the SQLRally model good?

Because it is a partnership between local user groups and PASS.  This is a plus because you have the large event experience of those at PASS HQ, but also fresh ideas and new perspectives from the local people.  Just like in any endeavor, you can get stuck in a rut on how you do things and bringing in some new people brings in new ideas that haven’t been considered.  This means that each SQLRally will have a unique identity provided by the local organizers, but you get the experience of those who have put on multiple events.

Because it is regional.  The PASS Summit is a great international conference, but it is large, expensive, and a long way to travel for many people.  This means that you can’t necessarily make it every year.  Because SQLRally is regional, it is less expensive, more intimate, and accessible.  It also means that you the networking available to you is with more people from your region, which means the contacts you make may be more useful to you than national or international contacts you make at a larger conference.  Both have value, but local contacts can help you on-site or, if you are looking, provide you with local opportunities.

It is about the community.  This is YOUR event.  You selected the sessions from pre-con’s to regular sessions, you go to evaluate the abstracts and select the sessions that would be most valuable to YOU.

What I’ve Done?

My main areas of contribution have been in sponsor plan development, event programming, and speaker communication. 

For the sponsor plan development, I got to work with Al Schuler and Craig Ellis and I think we did a great job since we sold out the sponsorships.  It was a great learning experience for me because I got some insight into how to market an event to sponsors and how to break out some thins apart from general sponsorship. 

Andy Warren and I developed the speaker selection process which consisted of breaking the submissions into categories within each track for voting purposes.  We spent a lot of time discussing how that should work and putting sessions into each category.  Our goal in categorizing the submissions within each track was to ensure variety in the sessions.  It’s really easy to pick all the performance tuning sessions as you know those will be popular, but that wouldn’t make a well-rounded event.  Once the sessions were voted on, I communicated the results to the presenters, selected the wild card & deep-dive sessions, and then put together the event schedule.

I’ve also been working on what I’m calling SQLRally Overdrive, which is 3 more laid-back sessions on Thursday evening from 5:45-7:00 pm.  These sessions will be designed to have more interaction between attendees and facilitate networking.

Why Should You Attend?

SQLRally brings much of the Summit experience to you.  We have a great mix of seasoned Summit presenters along with up and coming speakers who have a lot to offer.  With the more intimate setting it should be easier to make new connections and develop those relationships.  You’ll learn from people who are DOING the same job you are, and be able to take home practical solutions that you implement the Monday after the event.  Check out the ROI page for what you can take to your boss to convince him/her to allow you to go to SQLRally.

I hope to see you there!

PASS SQLRally Professional Development Vote Done and the Development Track Vote is open

Congratulations to the winners in the Professional Development Track Vote for PASS SQLRally.  You can see the winners at http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/Agenda/Sessions/SessionsProfessionalDevelopment.aspx.

Now the voting is open for the Database & Application Development Track.  The various links you need are:

• See the abstracts
• Vote
• Register to get email notifications for the upcoming votes.
• Register to Attend!

This vote will work a little differently than the Professional Development vote as this track has been broken down into 11 categories based on the topics submitted to simplify the voting process.  You will vote for 2 sessions in any category with more than 2 sessions and 1 session for any category with only 2 sessions.  The top vote getter in each category (top 2 for Summit Spotlight) will be put on the schedule.  The alternates will also have chance to make our Wild Card track.

Presenters – don’t forget to market your submission(s) on your blog and via Twitter/Facebook, etc… 

Voters – be sure to let everyone know you voted using Twitter and the #sqlrally hash tag.  It has been fun to watch the voting on Twitter.

Remember, you don’t have to be attending SQLRally to vote,  you just need to be a member of the community!  Vote today!

Who Should Vote for PASS SQLRally Sessions

Adam Machanic (@AdamMachanic) asked on Twitter if people who aren’t planning on attending PASS SQLRally  should still vote for sessions on the schedule.

My answer is a resounding “Yes!”.  If you are a PASS member, it’s free so you should be, you should vote.  It was pointed out by Aaron Nelson (@SQLvariant) that, if only registered attendees could vote, there would be a lot of attendees who couldn’t vote because they haven’t registered yet.

The idea behind the community vote for SQLRally is that the community (not just attendees) should decide, within the rules, what sessions should go on the schedule.

Is it a perfect system?  No, but does give the community greater ownership of the event, which I think is a good thing.

So How Do I Vote?

First you have to opt-in to the voting process.  If you are a PASS member you should have received an email with a link to the “voter registration” page.  Once you register you will receive one email per week for the track up for vote which will contain a user specific link to the “ballot”.  Then you follow the instructions in the email and on the ballot.

PASS SQLRally Update–Voting Pushed Back

In our original plan for PASS SQLRally we had set this week as the week to start voting for sessions.  Unfortunately we are having to push back the voting for 1 week.  The original schedule was:

• Professional Development: Jan 4-9
• Database & Application Development: Jan 10-16
• Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment: Jan 17-23
• BI Platform Architecture, Development and Administration: Jan 24-30

This has been changed to:

• Professional Development: Jan 10-16
• Database & Application Development: Jan 17-23
• Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment: Jan 24-30
• BI Platform Architecture, Development and Administration: Jan 31-Feb 6

Why has this happened? 

There are a variety of reasons beginning with the fact that we put the event on a very aggressive schedule and didn’t plan for enough time between the PASS Summit and SQLRally voting, especially with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years being sandwiched in between.

It took longer than anticipated to break down the submissions into categories within the tracks.  Our goal was to have 11 categories (one of which would be Summit Showcase) for each of the main tracks (DBA, Dev, BI) based on the distribution of topics within the track.  That becomes more difficult when a third of the submissions in a track are locked into the Summit Showcase category.  Yes, that many Summit speakers are interested in SQLRally as well.  Another sign that this will be a great event.

We needed to communicate with some of the people who submitted abstracts to clear up some confusion we had when reviewing their submissions and we had to give them adequate time to respond.

Finally, we decided that we wanted to make the voting process an opt-in process.  So we will be sending out an email to the PASS member list with a link asking you to opt-in to the voting process.  Only those people who opt-in will be emailed the voting link each week.  The planning team was concerned that PASS members who are not interested in or able to attend SQLRally would consider the voting emails to be spam, if we sent each voting announcement out to the entire PASS member list.

What’s the final outcome?

The event team believes that delaying the process by a week and giving the voters more time to review the abstracts will lead to a better event.

The planning of SQLRally has been a learning process for all involved as it is the first one.  We are identifying issues in the process so that the next group planning a SQLRally will have a solid foundation to build upon.

Thanks for your patience. 

PASS SQLRally Call For Speakers Update

Well, we have 3 days left in the PASS SQLRally Call for speakers and we are doing well.  We have over 70 completed submissions, there may be more in a “saved” state, with a great mix of topics across the three main tracks of Development, DBA, and Business Intelligence. 

One area where we currently have a limited number of submissions is in our Professional Development category.  Our goal is to have 3 professional development sessions (one a deep dive) so we’d like to have double-digit submissions in this track, so that the community will have nice group of sessions to choose from.

With our goal of having 48 unique speakers, we are still looking for more submissions across all tracks and for all levels of ability, from 100 level to 400 level topics.

So, have you submitted yet?  If not, what's holding you back?  Here’s a post by Brent Ozar that talks about how community involvement helped propel his career forward: Rock Stars, Normal People, and You.

(Note - if you have submitted you might want to double check that your abstracts are in a "submitted" state; we've noticed some abstracts are in a "saved" state which means they're still considered a work in progress)

One Week Left in the PASS SQLRally Call For Speakers

There is only one week left to submit your abstract for the PASS SQLRally.  This is a great opportunity for you to take your career to the next level!  You've likely spoken at user groups, SQLSaturday's, and Code Camps to groups of 20 to 50, but now you get an opportunity to speak to a group of over 100! The next step from here is the PASS Summit!

I know, you are probably like me, where you think that you don't know enough to speak at this level. Well, we are both wrong! If you are knowledgeable enough to speak at smaller events you are knowledgeable enough to teach someone something at SQLRally. SQL Server is such a large product that no one can know it all, so we all have people who know more than us and people that know less, help those that know less by sharing your knowledge. You don't need to be an MVP or be a Microsoft Certified Master, you just need passion and desire to share your knowledge. There's no better way to become an expert at something than to teach it to others. Here's your chance, submit your session(s) today! Give the community the opportunity to vote for you!

Not sure how to write an abstract? See Andy Warren's post, SQLRally Call for Speakers Closes December 15, 2010 for some tips and visit the PASS Speaker Resource Page.

PASS SQLRally Call for Speakers and Registration Open!!

Call for Speakers

With the close of the PASS Summit today, the call for speakers for PASS SQLRally has opened!  so those of you who submitted to the Summit and didn’t quite make it, break out your abstracts and send them in!! We will be taking submissions through December 15th.  You can see the qualifications on the Speaker page on the SQLRally site.  I’m really excited about this event and excited to see how many sessions we’ll have submitted.  SQLRally will have 4 tracks:

• BI Platform Architecture, Development and Administration
• Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment
• Database & Application Development
• Wild Card – which will include 3 Professional Development sessions and 3 sessions from each of the other 3 tracks.

Included in each of the tracks will be “Summit Showcase” sessions that are selected from submissions by experienced Summit presenters.  As this event is designed to be a “taste” of the Summit these sessions will really give you a chance to see what the Summit is like.

Here’s even more great news, YOU will select the sessions on the schedule.  The event team will evaluate submissions for eligibility and group the sessions into categories within each track (BI, DBA, Dev, Professional Development).  YOU will then have the opportunity to vote on the session you’d like to see in each session.  Abstracts will be available for viewing and comments shortly after the call for speakers ends and voting will take place in the month of January.  Here is the voting schedule:

• Professional Development (Jan 3, 2011 to January 9, 2011 at 11:59 PM EST) (3 categories)
• Database & Application Development (Jan 10, 2011 to January 16, 2011 at 11:59 PM EST)
• Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment (Jan 17, 2011 to January 23, 2011 at 11:59 PM EST)
• BI Platform Architecture, Development and Administration (Jan 24, 2011 to January 30, 2011 at 11:59 PM EST)

Be sure to check out the Speaker Page on the SQLRally site for details.

Registration

Even if you aren’t interested in speaking you can still attend.  Registration is now open and how can you beat 2 days of training for $299 + a full-day pre-con for $199?  Don’t forget that we are limited to 600 attendees, so register early to make sure you get a seat!

Sponsors

We are excited to already have 3 sponsors on board:

• Dell
• Confio
• SQLSentry

On the off-chance that a SQLSaturday sponsor reads my blog and you have an interest in sponsoring SQLRally, you can!  We have limited number of sponsor opportunities, see our sponsor page for contact information.

We are confident that this will be a GREAT event and hope that you can come.

Vote for the Pre-Con’s You’d Pay to Attend

If you read this blog you probably already know about the PASS SQLRally and that we are doing things a little bit differently for this event.  The first thing that we have done is let YOU decide what we offer for the 4 pre-conference (pre-con) seminars.  We had a committee rank the submissions and took the top 3 from each category and put them out for the community to vote on.  Here are the links for the sessions to vote on:

BI Sessions: http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/PreConsforVotingBI.aspx

DBA Sessions: http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/PreConsforVotingDba.aspx

Developer Sessions: http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/PreConsforVotingDev.aspx

Misc Sessions: http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/PreConsforVotingMisc.aspx

I have to say that in each track there are 3 AWESOME choices and I’d attend any of them.  I’m not just saying that, I’ve reviewed the abstracts and outlines and I know I’d learn something I can use in every session.

I’ve seen several of the presenters speak and they all are excellent.  As a matter of fact one presenter was recently voted the best presenter at SQLSaturday #49 – Orlando!  You can’t get better than that!

So, if you haven’t voted, vote now!  SQLRally is YOUR event so make it the best event it can be by being involved.

PASS SQLRally – Session/Speaker Selection

Hopefully by now you’ve heard about the PASS SQLRally event that will be held in Orlando, May 11-13.  Andy Warren, Kendal Van Dyke, and I are the local members of the planning team and we are making our best effort to give you a look behind the curtain to see what it takes to make an event like this happen.  Session/speaker selection is an area we are concentrating on because we would like to have the selection process be one of the differences between the SQLRally and the PASS Summit.  Andy has already shared his thoughts and Arie Jones has a very well-thought out response on his blog here. 
This post focuses on the regular community sessions while Andy had already blogged about the Pre-Con process.
So what are our goals in the session/speaker selection process?

1. Provide a high-quality event that provides a “taste” of the Summit. 
2. Provide a growth path for speakers. 
3. Involve the community in the process. 
4. Build a process that can be used as a template for other events.

So what are our plans for meeting the goals?
It really starts with being transparent in the process and getting input from the community along the way.  This is why we are making the effort to blog about what we are doing and thinking.  Some of our thoughts on session/speaker selection have been:

1. Solicit abstracts similar to the Summit process but with a twist.  A selection committee, likely consisting of a representative from the host chapter and 2 representatives from other local chapters, would rate the sessions and present at least 3 sessions (as available) for each slot to the community for vote.
2. For 8-12 sessions, invite 24 previous Summit speakers to take part in SQLRally.  We’d provide this list to the community who would pick the 8-12 speakers that they would like to hear from.  These would be the “name” speakers for the event that get your boss to foot the bill.
3. Invite best of Summit speaker for each track to present their 2010 Summit sessions.
4. Solicit topics from the community and then have speakers submit sessions for those topics.
5. Allow chapters to “nominate” speakers.  Invite those speakers to submit abstracts.
6. Assign session selection for different tracks to local chapters.  For example, Orlando and Richmond might vote on DBA sessions, Tampa and Atlanta on BI, etc…

These ideas lead to some questions where we would love to hear what YOU think:

1. Is there anything wrong with the Summit process?
2. Who would/should be on the selection committee?

Having selected sessions for SQLSaturday and been on the Program Committee for the PASS Summit 2010, the hard part is deciding what is more important the content or the speaker.  A great speaker can make poor content look good, while a poor speaker can make good content look bad.  So should the community vote on the speakers or the sessions?  Maybe a combination of both?
Speaker requirements:

1. Except in special situations such as those Summit speakers invited to submit and voted on by the community, not a Summit 2010 presenter.
2. Experience presenting at chapters, SQLSaturday’s or similar events.  We’d ask where, when, and what they have presented.
3. Preferably a session that has been presented before.  As Arie points out this may mean we miss some “new” features, but when I pay for an event I want to know that the material has been done before.

A key point in all of this is that we want the process to be repeatable so subsequent events can re-use and build on the process.  While I wouldn’t say that the next local group that puts on the SQLRally would have to use the same process we use, I do hope that the framework we have laid will be able to be used to make their job a bit easier.
Please leave comments on the blog as we definitely are interested in YOUR thoughts on the process.  There are no guarantees that your ideas will be included, but they WILL be considered.

East Coast PASS Event Options

After asking members about where the PASS Summit should be located and then deciding to keep it in Seattle for at least the next two years despite a clear majority of respondents desiring a central or east coast location, the board decided to look into holding a smaller event on the east coast in the spring.  You can read my original opinions on these decisions in my post, PASS Releases Survey Results & Summit Location – Reactions.

Since that post I have had the opportunity to work with Andy Warren (@SQLAndy) and Kendal Van Dyke (@SQLDBA) on a proposal to PASS to host the smaller east coast event in Orlando capped at 500 attendees for $299.  The event would be 2 days with a pre-con offered at $149.  As we went through the process of putting together the proposal my opinion changed for these reasons:

1. The involvement of local/regional people in organizing and staffing the event through Chapters.
2. It is inexpensive enough to draw people who probably wouldn’t attend the Summit , yet enough of a taste of the Summit to draw them to the Summit, especially if the event comes with a discount for the Summit.
3. It provides another step in the growth path for speakers by providing the opportunity for PASS Spotlight speakers to do a Pre-Con, and regular PASS/SQLSaturday speakers to do a Spotlight.
4. It provides a growth path for local leaders.  Run a chapter, a SQLSaturday, and a Regional PASS event, then you are, in my opinion, better prepared to move on to the PASS board or other PASS leadership position (regional mentor, committee manager, etc...)
5. The proposed event is small and inexpensive enough to happen in more than 1 location per year, especially if the Summit discount is offered.

After working with Andy to put together this proposal I was invited to a PASS board conference call (minutes here login required) where the board was going to discuss this proposal along with 2 other proposals.  The other 2 proposals were:

1. A $995 event that tries to bring as much of the Summit look and feel as possible.  In my opinion, this would be too close in cost and feel to the Summit so it would likely reduce Summit attendance.
2. A $499 event that would be bigger than our proposal, but smaller than the Summit.  This event would be very similar to the Orlando proposal with more frills and more PASS involvement and less local involvement.

It just happened to work out that Andy was only available for the first half of the call, so I was THE representative for the Orlando proposal for the second half of the call.  The great part of the call was that PASS HQ recommended our proposal right from the start, and while there were some good questions asked, the board members were onboard with this idea.  I was a little surprised by the lack of discussion, but I also think that may have been because the groundwork was laid before the meeting.  The board decided to have PASS HQ continue working with Andy and I to firm up numbers and plans for the Orlando plan.  I’m really excited to work on this event.  I’m involved with planning my second SQLSaturday right now and this event will definitely be beyond that experience.

You can read Andy’s take on the meeting and event here.  So what do you think about the idea?  Would you be willing to pay $299 + expenses for a training event like this?  Have we left anything out?