PASS Chapter Leader Elections – What Should Nominees Be Asked?

A couple of chapters that I’m working with are getting ready to transition leadership of their user groups.  Change is a good thing, and we all need a break once in awhile, so I’m glad to see that these volunteer leaders are doing what’s best for them right now, but also reaching out and wanting to do what’s best for their members and their communities. 

In an effort to help out with a proper election process,  I started creating a list of questions to ask candidates, of course having the usual ones like “Why are you interested in leading a user group”, “What qualifications do you have that you feel makes you a good leader/candidate for this position”, “Do you have X number of hours in your spare time to devote to duties required in having a successful user group”, oh and my favorite, “Are you just plain crazy?”…KIDDING of course! 

I wanted to field from the rest of you, what do you think should be asked on such a survey?  And I’d also like to ask, what do you think is the best mechanism for tracking/collecting this type of information, is something like Survey Monkey good for this?  Or is there something more appropriate and/or more efficient that someone should use for this type of thing?  Also, any advice anyone has that they’ve gleaned from their own experiences in such a process, would be very welcomed! 

Please post all your suggestions here, versus twitter, so I can have it all in one collective spot.  Thank you in advance for your input!

One Week Away from SQL Saturday #72 – Hawaii

As I sit here with tears streaming down my face, I cannot even begin to tell you how elated I am to see that with still a week to go, that SQL Saturday Hawaii just broke the 150 mark for registrations.  This has been a long 5 months with lots of challenges to overcome, and am still battling, but to see that folks on the islands are just as excited to have this event coming to them as we all get here on the mainland, just fills me up.   I feel good knowing that each presenter, with only 3 tracks running, will likely average close to 50 in their sessions.  I can count on one hand the number of SQL Saturday sessions I’ve seen that had that many in them (keeping in mind this is just based on the ones I’ve been to in the past 3 years).

I know many of you are probably sitting there saying to yourselves why is she so excited about 150, many SQL Saturdays get way more than that these days.  Well, let me tell you a little story!  When I first called Mike Fors, the PASS .NET user group chapter leader there in Honolulu, back in October, (and Mike, I hope you don’t mind me sharing this story!),  I asked him if he had ever heard of SQL Saturdays, and went on to explain what these community events were all about.  After that, I asked him, “how many people do you think would come to a free day of training like this there in Honolulu”.  Well, his response shocked me.  He said “maybe 25”.  After picking up my jaw, I queried him as to why he thought that, and he said “there aren’t that many DBAs on the island, and those that are here, know everything there is to know about SQL”.  I held my laughter in so hard, my chest hurt!  But I had to respect the answers I was getting, and trust that he likely knew best, as he is actually living there, not me.  But knowing that not all SQL Saturdays are alike, and not all are expected to be super large events, and hearing Andy Warren’s voice in the back of my mind saying “even if 50 people get free training, it is a good event”, I decided to continue twisting Mike’s arm convincing Mike that we should forge forward and make it happen! 

So we officially announced the event on the website in January.  I kept watching the numbers and watching, and they stayed at 15 for a long time…and those 15 were the speaker submissions!  I was freaking out!  Kept emailing Mike and the other organizers, Jeff Bloom and Chris Bayot, and wasn’t getting any replies.  I finally reached out to Nancy Nasso at PASS, and asked her to try to get in touch with Mike.  She emailed him and expressed her concerns over the low numbers.  It turned out, none of them had emailed the announcement to their mailing list of members (Jeff and/or Chris run the SharePoint user group there).  Mike and I planned a call the very next day to discuss.  He tells me that things are very laid back in Hawaii, that no one plans anything that far in advance, that it would basically had been a waste of time to send emails out and to let folks know about it (of course I’m thinking of Pensacola, it’s laid back and I still start planning that event months in advance!).  His plan was to send the announcement out the day after their next user group meeting, which was back in February.  The 25^th to be exact.  Literally in less than a week, they were at 55.  I could breathe again!  

This past Monday evening Team SQL Saturday and I had a conference call, and the excitement brewing over there is just simply awesome!  They are all so pumped, have some great things planned for the speakers and the attendees, awesome authentic bento boxes coming in for lunch that day, and just overall thrilled to see that THEY are going to be pulling off a great event for their community.  A community that not many things come FREE to them, and not especially the quality of training that these folks are about to receive from some of the best presenters out there.  And the real icing on the cake for me, was to hear them say “Oh, we will be doing this every year from now on!”.  Mahalo guys (and gal, Chris is a WIT!), you made my day!

Who’s Attending Your SQL Saturdays?

At SQL Saturday #57 in Houston I sat in on Geoff Hiten’s [blog/twitter] “Bad SQL” session, which I had missed while at the Tampa event, and had heard it was a great presentation.  (Sorry Geoff, this post isn’t about your session, although it was really good, I learned a lot).  At the beginning of his talk, which I’ve seen many other presenters do, Geoff took a hand count of who was in the audience, DBAs versus Developers versus Something Else (that would be the one I fall into). More than half of the room was developers and only a handful actual DBAs.  I knew that in Pensacola our experience has been along these same lines, both at our SQL Saturday events and our user group meetings, but I was surprised to see that a city the size of Houston seemed to show the same demographics in the audience.  This really peeked my curiosity about what the numbers must be like globally.

When I returned back to Orlando, I logged into the SQL Saturday admin site, in hopes that there was a report I could pull to see just what the percentages were for attendance at the two Pensacola events. No such luck. Wrote to PASS HQ, asked if they happen to have a report handy, or better yet, were they already collecting these stats, and would be so kind to share those results.  Again, unfortunately they did not.  So, had to do some manual calculating, luckily in a spreadsheet it is easy to do, just a bit time consuming.  (and yes, I put in a wish item to change the website to have checkboxes for job titles, so that a report could be produced neatly off the results, but certainly didn’t want to wait on that to get analyzing this data).  With what I did have access to, here are the results of the two Pensacola events combined:

• 25% – Developers
• 23% – DBAs
• 16% – Analysts
• 11% – IT Help Desk/Support
• 10% – Other (teachers, students, unemployed, just to give you a general idea)
• 8% – Administrators
• 7% – CEO/CFO/MGMT

Now really this doesn’t surprise me, like I said, our user group meetings in Pensacola pretty much mirror these same results.  And based on who is signed up so far for Hawaii SQL Sat, those numbers are already showing a much higher figure for developers.  So why is this?  Why are so many developers attending SQL Saturdays?  My extremely humble opinion is that more and more companies are not affording true DBAs, hince the “accidental” DBAs, which I know for many companies this is the case.  Developers are handling their own backup/restores, indexing, performance issues, etc (this is actually the case with the software development company where I work).  Which leads me to another question, being I’m so involved with sponsorships for many events and user groups, why aren’t more developer tool vendors sponsoring SQL Saturdays?  Seems to me the SQL Saturdays are pulling in just the right amount of crossover for them.

So as this post is titled, who is attending your SQL Saturdays?  I’d really love it if you’d post some of your results here or blog about it, so we can compare, especially the larger cities versus the smaller ones. Is there a difference?  Would love to hear your thoughts on why you think more developers than DBAs are attending SQL Saturdays.  I think the numbers will surprise a lot of you, not to mention, might help pull in more .NET tool vendors to sponsor SQL Saturdays!  YES, I am ALWAYS wearing my marketing hat!  You are SQL gurus, I am the community marketing guru backing all of you up…yes, cheesy pun not accidental.

Are You Providing Your Sponsors Feedback?

Many of you are very good at getting vendors to sponsor your meetings and events, but how many of you are providing back to your sponsors feedback after the fact?     

Recently it came to my attention from more than just a couple of software vendors, who support many of the user groups and events, that they aren’t getting feedback from leaders/organizers post the meetings/events.  With so many user groups out there and more and more events like SQL Saturdays and Code Camps happening, it really is important that you provide some details to your sponsors.  Without knowing how your meeting went, you could possibly be eliminating your group for future sponsorship from those vendors.  The market is very tight and with so many more user groups starting up and events popping up everywhere, it is getting tighter out there.  Most vendors have either a dollar budget or a certain number of user groups they can sponsor whether monthly, quarterly, or annually.  And many of them have created a system for themselves to know which user groups/events are doing what out there, and they can only know those details from hearing back from you. 

I know, I know, we all think, “well they must certainly be reading all the great post-event blogs about it, like we are all doing, right?”  Wrong.  Our sponsors do not have time to read every event’s blogs. Think about how many user groups are out there, and how many events are happening everywhere.  The sponsors wouldn’t have time to organize funding you because all their time would be consumed with reading.  Not to mention, you asked them for their sponsorship, in many cases cashola, so you should be making it YOUR priority to get back to them all the details that you can, especially if you ever want to be considered for sponsorship again. 

What kind of feedback should you provide?  Glad you asked!  First of all, numbers.  How many attendees were present at your meeting.  Even if you only average 20 attendees every month, that is fine, but they want to know this detail, no matter what the number is.  If you tell them nothing, nothing equals zero, so something is definitely better than nothing here folks.   Secondly, if you raffled off an item of swag they provided, tell them who won it and how about a pic of that person holding the prize. Vendors love to sponsor us, and can’t be at our meetings most of the time, so why not help them feel “included” so they can see the joy on that person’s face who won their prize.  Third, if you provided a demo of one of their products at your meeting, let the vendor know any comments or questions your group had.  Even if you received negative feedback about their product, they want to know this more than anything so they can take that information and make their products better.  In addition, they like to know what questions were asked, so that they can maybe include some marketing “blurb” on their websites and/or in their product literature so they can clarify the more commonly asked questions.  This type of feedback is invaluable to our sponsors, and is really the nuts and bolts to why they sponsor us.  Sure they love the community as much as we all do, but investing in our community needs to bring something back to them, and feedback is really what they are looking for.  A super simple request, and don’t they deserve it?  Heck yeah they do! 

So do your part leaders, take the time to send them a thank you email, but include in your email some details on how it all went.

It’s Official! SQL Saturday #72 Honolulu, Hawaii is On The Map!

April 1^st will be the first ever Hawaiian SQL Saturday in beautiful Honolulu.  Not only is the first SQL Saturday for the islands there, but it is also the first SQL Saturday in history to be held outside of the mainland (notice I didn’t add USA to that, as there is an event happening in Vancouver on Feb 26^th).  Special thanks to Jeff Bloom, one of the krewe of the .NET Users Group there in Hawaii for locking down the venue, Honolulu Community College, which has so generously offered the venue for FREE for our event, SWEET!

Now I know by now you are already looking at the calendar and saying, “What, a SQL Saturday on a Friday?”  Yes, we had to concede to a Friday event primarily for two reasons.  The HCC only has security until 2:00 on Saturdays, and the bigger reason, they turn off the air conditioning in the buildings at noon.  (Plus there is the argument that who would want to give up a Saturday in Hawaii!).  If you know your SQL Sat history, then you know this won’t be the first SQL Saturday held on a Friday.  SQL Saturday #58 was held on a Friday in Minnesota and had a turnout of over 200, so we are confident that a Friday event will do well.  And besides, what better reason to ask for the day off from work…free training that benefits their companies, what employer would say no to that.  With what sounds like to be the most expensive place to live, free training should be welcomed by these employers there.

Now you are also probably realizing that there are two other SQL Saturdays happening that weekend, Boston and Dallas.  We really did try to avoid this weekend, not because we felt there would be conflict for attendees, but for those who had already expressed interest in speaking at Hawaii’s event.  But unfortunately we had to go with what we could get, so we realize we will lose some great speakers to these other two events as those locations will of course be more cost effective for them.  Luckily this date did work out for Buck Woody (blog|twitter), as he is presenting a full day pre-con for us the day before the event. 

For those still interested in presenting in Honolulu, note, there will only be 3 tracks.  Two devoted to SQL and one devoted to Developers.  For those traveling over, we will do our best to give you at least two timeslots, so if you do register to speak, please post up more than one abstract.  For speakers being sent by a sponsor of the event, we will guarantee you at least two timeslots.  We of course are very interested in local speakers.  If you are local to Hawaii and are interested in speaking, please register on the website, but also DM me on twitter (@karlakay22).  Sponsors, we will have the sponsorship details posted over the weekend.  We plan to make it very affordable for our sponsors, as we hope that you will consider actually coming over or sending someone to represent your company.

Time to get cranking on the website!  Hope to see some of you there!

Mahalo!

The Most Incredible A$$ Numbing Movie Experience Ever!

Yesterday we headed down to Islands of Adventure, only a 30 minute drive from where we live now, but low and behold it was actually “At Capacity”, they weren’t letting anyone in.  I’ve been to this park dozens of times, never have I seen it actually closed due to too many people.

So now what do we do?  After some lunch at Margaritaville, we decided to go to the Universal Cineplex and see Tron, and not just SEE it, but FEEL it, as they had it available in IMAX 3D. This was our first time seeing a movie at this theatre, and our first time seeing Tron since its release a couple of weeks ago (normally this type of flick, I would have seen at least twice by now).  If you are ever in Central Florida and want to see a movie, this is the place to go.  For starters, this AMC theatre has a full blown bar, with over 20 bottle beers to choose from (including my friend, Corona Light!), 6 drafts (which come super-sized at only $5.50 with $3 refills…if you are willing to tear yourself away from the movie to get a refill…good luck with that if you are watching Tron!), all liquors, and drink and shot specials daily.  I’ve been to theatres before that have only draft beer available, but never a true bar in it with high tops even, for the full bar scene experience. It’s even right next to the arcade area, so you can enjoy your adult beverage and still keep an eye on the kiddies.  The only thing that would have made it perfect for me would have been a pool table, although probably not a good idea, as I would likely miss the beginning of the flick.  

This theatre was very clean, including the bathroom, but the gem of it all was indeed the IMAX theatre itself.  Very comfortable rocking, reclining chairs with of course the standard these days, arms that fold up and away.  Lots of seating and lots of space between the rows, so you can actually lean back and not be in the person behinds you way.  The most amazing part though is the experience of those seats when watching a great action flick like Tron!  It truly was ass numbing, right down to my tingling toes, and that sensation lasted for about an hour after leaving the movies. 

Tron absolutely exceeded my expectations, as I was skeptical being I loved the first one so much.  Jeff Bridges was of course amazing as always, and they did a great job with the computer digitizing of his face from when he was young.  And of course, the GRID!  All the attributes of the arcade game of Tron brought to real life USERS!  Users versus the Programs (wonder how many geeks were really rooting for the Programs).  With the added features of the IMAX, the jet setting, racing games were felt all the way through your body.  I had seen a Blue Angels’ air show via IMAX once, which was really great (although not a amazing as seeing the Blues’ show in person), but seeing a regular movie via IMAX really added to the entire experience of it.  You really felt like you were in the part of the movie, and in this case, the GRID!

 I had no idea just how much more “awesomeness” IMAX would add to the moving going experience.  If you have the option to see it in an IMAX theatre, DO IT! It is worth the few extra dollars!  And if you happen to be an annual pass holder for Universal Studios, be sure to use it for two bucks off. 

Oh, and my favorite quote from the movie: 

Dr. Walter Gibbs:  User requests are what computers are for!

Ed Dillinger:  Doing our business is what computers are for!

SQL Saturdays Gone Wild!

Now that I’ve surely gotten your attention, first let me apologize that no this post is not about any underground rumors that folks are going to start doing risqué videos of SQL Saturday groupies.  Granted, I’m sure they would likely be just as successful as SQL Saturdays have become, since geeks are the shizzle!  What I want to talk about is the increasing number of SQL Saturdays and some of the struggles I am hearing about, and maybe hopefully offer up some advice to those who have upcoming events or to alleviate any doubts to those debating on whether or not to host a SQL Saturday in their town.

SQL Saturdays are defined on the SQL Saturday wiki site as follows: “It’s a one day free training event that targets SQL Server professionals. It’s held on a Saturday because many IT professionals have a difficult time taking time off from work for training. Training sessions are conducted by members of the community, sharing tips, tricks, and techniques that they have learned and want to share. So far the events have been in the well known conference style; multiple tracks with multiple speakers per track, but that is certainly not the only possible format.”  

It seems like many feel like in order to have a successful SQL Saturday that they have to have many tracks, try to squeeze in as many speakers and topics that they can, and raise enough funds to put on what could turn out to be comparable to a super mini Summit all crammed into one day.  As stated above, that certainly is not the only possible format, and from what I’ve heard, the desires of those who gave birth to SQL Saturday is to see more smaller events in more cities.  The more cities portion of this equation is getting covered, but are folks really going for the one or two track days?  Some are and have, but many are not.  Let’s talk about what effect this is starting to glean out there that folks are writing to me about.

SQL Saturdays in the past have depended primarily on funds provided by vendors.  Things that I am now hearing from smaller hosting cities is that they are having a hard time getting higher level sponsorships (more dollars), and some not getting anything at all from some vendors who have supported a good amount of these events previously.  But as it turns out, even those who are in the larger cities that are having their 2+ event are having a hard time getting what they standardly have been able to raise in the past.  So, it isn’t whether you are a large city or a small one, it is happening everywhere, and why? Because of the number of these events coming is the obvious answer, but it is also the amount of the sponsorship levels being proposed by the hosts of these events.  In talking with several vendors recently, some have budgeted a certain number of SQL Saturdays to sponsor in 2011 and some have a dollar amount budgeted and are trying to determine how best to invest those dollars and spread them as best they can, and some are a combination of the two.  Being in marketing for a software vendor myself, although I’m sure this is just common sense to most anyway, a vendor is going to sponsor where they see the highest return on their investment.  I believe many of them wish they could sponsor ALL the SQL Saturdays, as many of the regular sponsors are just as much about community as we are, but that just isn’t practical from a business point of view.

The fact of the matter is if the size of the event were down-scaled, then the costs associated with putting the event on would go down, thus allowing vendors to sponsor more cities out there, and still providing to your communities a great free day of training.  I think less tracks is actually desired by attendees, as it was a complaint on several of the evals I received from the last SQL Saturday in Pensacola.  When you have too many tracks, too many great topics, all in the same hour, it makes it hard for folks to choose which one to attend, and at the same time, they feel like they are missing out on something else that would have been just as useful for them.  I know now that if I were hosting another event in Pensacola, I would definitely be down- sizing it (which I just checked because my memory isn’t what it used to be, SQL Saturday #14 we had 5 tracks and SQL Saturday #22 we had 6 in Pensacola, although we had combined some non SQL tracks due to some large sponsorships from vendors on the developer side of the tracks, something I saw OK to do being Pensacola is so small).  And now that I am helping with putting on a SQL Saturday in Hawaii, the plan is to definitely keep the number of tracks down to at a maximum of 3 (and one of these being a developer track, since the PASS chapter in Honolulu is a .NET user group…I couldn’t expect them to help put this event on and not cater to their needs, that would make for a bad hostess indeed).

Along with scaling down the number of tracks, I recommend offering sponsors lower priced amounts for your highest sponsorship levels.  This too is something I am planning for Hawaii, which still in the works, but I am thinking I might just offer one sponsorship level, and if a vendor is able to be onsite to exhibit, I welcome them without them having to pay more to sponsor the event.  I don’t imagine too many making it to Hawaii, but if they can, then I want to help make it reasonable enough for them as possible since travel costs are going to be involved and likely very high, and really this is my plan because I love having vendors onsite, they add to the fun and value for our attendees.   Am I worried about costs for the event, sure, but with it having fewer tracks, my costs should be down for things like the speaker party and shirts, lunches for the attendees, any venue costs (as some colleges charge an insurance fee per room), and other smaller misc. costs.  But if everyone overall would lower their sponsorship levels, more SQL Saturdays could be sponsored by the vendors.

Another suggestion I have for those trying to drum up funds, lean more on local companies, especially industries like recruiting companies.  Your event has a lot to offer to recruiters, a day packed with IT professionals, some (and I tend to find many) who are looking for a job.  It’s like an all-you-can eat buffet for recruiters.   And I would even maybe include in your highest sponsorship level for companies like recruiting firms, sole recognition.  Meaning, they pay the top dollar, they get to be the only one of their industry allowed to be onsite for your event. (By the way, this works really well for local user group meeting sponsorships, letting the recruiter speak about current openings they are trying to fill for the first few minutes of your meeting).  Other local companies that I’ve seen attracted to sponsoring SQL Saturdays are those who provide technical trainings, such as New Horizons, obviously technology based companies (believe me, you likely have one or two even in your small towns, as Pensacola surprisingly has many), many that provide website designing/hosting, colleges, staffing firms, even your local Better Business Bureau is a good one to talk to.  They are typically budgeted so many dollars a year to invest back into the community. 

There are many avenues for fund raising, but again, keep in mind that you don’t have to have a monster-sized event.  If you have never had a SQL Saturday, and really want to host one in your town, DO IT!  Your community will welcome it, regardless of size.  Attendees appreciate the free day of training and that is what the grassroots of SQL Saturdays is all about, providing free training to your community.

What are some other ideas for raising funds out there from those who have had a SQL Saturday in the past or are planning to sometime next year?  I’d also like to hear any ideas that sponsors/vendors out there have for maybe helping get more SQL Saturdays sponsored in 2011.

OPASS 2010 Holiday Social Recap

Tuesday evening was the last user group meeting of 2010 for OPASS, and this one was less of a meeting and more of just a “Thank You” to our members here in central Florida.  We had an attendance of around 50 which we encouraged members to bring their spouses or a friend with them.  We did start with some very exciting announcements which included:

• Info on upcoming virtual trainings
• Special thanks to the sponsors that helped make the Holiday Social a huge success, those being SQLShare, Consultis, RedGate, Idera, SQL Server Central, Apress, Wrox, PASS, and Microsoft
• Info on SQLRally
• The “birth” of MagicPASS in Celebration, south Orlando, led by Kendal Van Dyke
• Pam Shaw of the Tampa SQL Server Users group was able to come over and join us, and she discussed the upcoming SQL Saturday #62 and provided flyers to everyone with details on “Day of Data”
• Jack Corbett discussed some changes that OPASS is trying out in 2011 (more on this below)
• The Q1 speaker line-up for OPASS which are Kevin Kline, Brian Knight, and our INETA mentor here in Florida, Ken Tucker
• Other verbally committed speakers for 2011
• And lastly special thanks to our 2011 Quarterly sponsors, those being RedGate, Idera, and Telerik so far

One of the things that Jack, our new fearless leader (stepping into some big shoes, since Andy Warren handed over the baton), is trying for the OPASS meetings is a new location, moving further north of Orlando to Lake Mary, putting more distance between MagicPASS and ONETUG (the .NET user group that meets in downtown Orlando). The other change OPASS is trying out is adding more variety to the meeting topics, mixing in more than just SQL.  Currently the plan is to have the primary topic be SQL one month, and something developer related the next month, but adding a short “shot” topic of the opposite technology for each month.  So for example, in January we have Kevin doing “Ten Things Every .NET Developer Should Know About SQL Server”, and our 15 minute “SQL- shot” presentation is going to be done by a local member.  Of course we will have to be flexible with speakers schedules, so it may not be exactly every other month that we switch between developer related and SQL related topics, but each meeting we intend to have at least something to offer to both walks of life.  Lake Mary is like a tiny silicon valley here, with many IT companies, so this is what prompted both the above ideas, thus hoping to increase the number of folks who can attend the monthly meetings, and offering MagicPASS to those that are further south of here. 

We ended the meeting with a Dirty Santa game, known to others as many things like Yankee Christmas and White Elephant.  All the gifts were swag and licensed software provided by our sponsors, with a few Christmas type gifts for those who attended that aren’t into “geeky toys” (I know, who doesn’t love this stuff!).

Based on the many comments and emails post the event, all in all I think most everyone had a really good time.  Two things that I am personally happy to see come out of it, we had a seasoned speaker named Lilly Schmidbauer offer to speak on SQL at a future meeting, and we are hoping she will sign up to speak at SQLRally and the upcoming WIT 24HOP.  Keep an eye out for her!  The other great thing, and something I was really hoping for, I was approached by a local company interested in sponsoring some meetings next year.  Local support is something we are really trying to get more of here in this area, and happy to see that along with Consultis, someone else sees the value in this type of community support and what the OPASS mission is all about.

Happy Holidays everyone!

A Different Type of Meeting, Magical Even

With quite the year of change for Rodney and me, and the PASS Summit 2010 behind us, we decided it was time to finally start exploring some of our other interests.  One in particular was to seek out and join an established writers group.  Now that we are settled down for a bit here, and Orlando being the size that it is, we figured there likely had to be one in this area.  So last Tuesday I did a quick search and lucky me, found a group having a meeting not only the very next evening, but on a topic that is something we have wanted to explore for years, travel writing.  With all the travel that Rodney and I do, and all the great cities we get to see, whether it be for work, vacations, or community events such as SQL Saturdays, we really wish we had taken more time to actually blog or write articles about the places and sites that we’ve been so fortunate to see.  I think we just have been so caught up in the technical world for so long, we lost our “beat” somewhere along the way to one of the common passions we both share, well make that two, non technical writing being one and photography being the other.  And sure we make mentions of places in our posts, and include pics of presenters and fellow geeks, but typically those posts are focused on the event, not so much about the host cities themselves.  I’m even ashamed to say that of the last four trips I’ve been on, I have not taken one picture of anything outside of the event or business for which brought me to these places.  I was excited when I heard there was a PhotoWalk organized for that Monday at the PASS Summit, but quickly disappointed when I learned that it was during the same time as the SQL Saturday Round Table, which being as passionate about SQL Saturdays as I am, I wasn’t about to miss that, not for something that would have been more or less a guilty pleasure for me.   However, had I gone to this writers meeting before the summit, I think I just might have changed my mind and asked for acquittal from the Bossman (if you don’t know this already, that’s my nickname for Andy Warren). 

The writers meeting was hosted by the Orlando Area Writers Group, a regional affiliate of the Florida Writers Association, and is organized by Rik Feeney.  The attendance at this meeting was around 30-35, and the demographics of these individuals comprised mostly of those who have either already written a novel, or several novels even, to those that are writing their very first novel.  Someone else in attendance was my fifteen year old daughter.  Yes I dragged her along hoping that since she loves photography and is getting a new camera for Christmas, that maybe the meeting would inspire her to start her first blog and take an interest in writing.  (No luck, at least not this time).  There were two presenters on the topic of travel writing, Bob Jenkins and Rick Sylvain.  Bob wrote many years for the St. Petersburg Times here in Florida, and is now freelancing (www.bobjenkinswrites.com). Rick currently works for one of the truest kingdoms of magic, Walt Disney World, as the Publicity Director (www.wdwnews.com).  It was an absolute treat and inspiration to not only hear about the tales of these two extensive world travelers, but the advice they provided was absolutely invaluable to those of us who have only dabbled in writing, and having the curiosity to take it to the next level. 

Part of their presentation was a reference to a website called Transitions Abroad, an article called “The Seven Myths of Being a Travel Writer” written by Tim Leffel.  I could list out all seven myths here for you, but I highly recommend reading the entire article, as each of these seven items come with some great advice and tips for those seriously considering being a travel writer.  With that said, I will share with you one of the things that I took away from that meeting, and that I think is good advice for those who are still reading this and interested in travel writing. 

The presenter said many times the word “serendipity”, by Webster’s definition, “the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for”.  It is true with almost everywhere you go, an occurrence (good or bad) or a site or a person or object, that certain something that makes that trip most memorable.  The same holds true for almost every picture you take (I say almost because there are certainly pictures that I have come across in my collection that I have no idea where or when they were taken), that there is undoubtedly some memory attached to most of those photos, and one in which I have now come to realize is likely worthy to be written about.  This was the part of the presentation that really opened up my near tearing eyes,  all the serendipity that I’ve been blind to, and unfortunately has caused me to regret not writing more about all the adventures Rodney and I have been on.  And sure I could write about them now, but don’t trust that my memory will be able to do those moments their due justice.  Even if I had written and no one else ever published or read of my musings, at least my children could read these stories to their children.  (Note to self, must get back to writing a daily personal journal…why did I ever stop).  The magic I took away from this meeting has guaranteed me that I will not let these things get past me again. My goal is to write about every city I visit from this day forward.  I will even write about things that I come to see in Orlando, not just the things that I have never seen or heard about before, but even Disney and all the magic it still continues to bring to my family no matter how often we go. 

Many of you in the technical world blog about the SQL Saturdays, user group meetings, and other events that you travel and present at, and make mention of the cities and occasionally sites you saw there, but I challenge you to try this, make it two separate blogs.  One blog about the event, and then a separate one that will be devoted entirely to the city or piece of serendipity you experienced while visiting that city.

What is a PASS Regional Mentor?

This is one of the questions I get when I email or tell someone that I am now a PASS Regional Mentor for the Heartland region, which usually leads to their next question “but don’t you live in Florida?”  I’ll admit when I first expressed interest to PASS that I wanted to be an RM, I had hoped it would be covering the SouthEast region, but each region has two mentors, and the SE had been assigned already to Jorge Segarra (Blog | Twitter) and Adam Jorgensen (Blog | Twitter), two fantastic contributors to the SQL Community.  However, I can now say that the path I was put on was meant to be, as it enabled me to immediately contribute and help out the SQL Community in some very rewarding ways. 

Originally I had been assigned to the MidWest, because at the time there wasn’t anyone to cover that region.  Well at the same time that I became RM, I had finally broke down and signed up for twitter.  In following various different personalities on twitter, I quickly came to recognize some of the very strong and positive influencers out there.  Immediately I wanted to start finding myself a co-RM for the MidWest, and was delighted to see that Arie Jones (Blog | Twitter) was up in Indiana, a super energizer that had presented at my first SQL Saturday up in Pensacola two years ago.  Finding someone living in the MidWest region I felt was necessary since I needed someone to be “onsite” to help cover the turf “up close”, such as speaking/attending events and user group meetings in that area, so I luckily still had AJ’s email and did a shot out to him to see if he’d be interested in being an RM, and long story short, he said YES!  So off I sent an email to Douglas McDowell (Blog | Twitter) to arrange a call between the two of them.  So great, I now had a partner that I knew was going to be as excited as myself in this new role.  So mission complete, but oh wait, who is this @wendy_dance person, so full of positive energy and feedback and apparently loved by many!  Continued to check out her profile on twitter and wouldn’t you know it, she is a Tribal Fusion Bellydance Director lives in Illinois, another MidWest region state.  Well it just seemed to make sense that she should be an RM, with all her influence and great following, so I sent her a DM and asked if she thought she might be interested, tagged Douglas and her together, and voila, Wendy Pastrick (Blog | Twitter) was on the PASS RM train. 

Ok, so that left just a few regions that still needed someone, so I volunteered for the Heartland region to work along with Cincinnati’s SQL User Group leader and PASS RM, Matt Rigling (Blog | Twitter).  Why Heartland, it was closer to the SE, almost anyway.  This region includes some very northern states, Michigan and Ohio, but also what I consider southern states, Kentucky and Tennessee.  Also having clients in two of these states will help to get me at some of the events in these areas.  (Already looking forward to SQL Saturday #60, although Florida girl in Cleveland in February, yikes!)

That answers question two, why Heartland, now back to question one and title of what will be the first of several blogs while on this journey as a PASS Regional Mentor.  I am finding that many chapters don’t know what a Regional Mentor is primarily because they just either didn’t have an RM or state that they never had their RM ever contact them.  I believe some realignments of regions occurred and created more RM territories, so that would explain if they really didn’t have an RM assigned to their region prior to now (although I do believe that even though fewer RMs existed,  fewer chapters existed as well, hince why now there are two for each region).  If you are a Chapter Leader and are not sure who your RM is, you can find all of them listed under the PASS Chapters tab at www.sqlpass.org.  As far as those who say their previous RM never contacted them, personally that wasn’t the case for me when I led a chapter.  Andy Leonard (Blog | Twitter) was our RM here in the SE, and he checked in with me at least once a quarter, and I was able to reach out to him anytime I needed anything.   Maybe other RMs just weren’t that available, I don’t know, as I really can’t answer to what might have happened in the past.  I can only share with you what I know as of now, and over the next several posts, will share with you our plans and how we intend to execute our ideas.

In general, a PASS Regional Mentor can be defined as the following:

• Passionate community volunteer

–        Dedicated to PASS and the SQL Server community

–        Understands the value of giving his/her time and talents to helping others increase their knowledge and skills and improving the overall community

• PASS ambassador

–        Understands PASS and its mission and represents the best of PASS to Chapters in his/her area

–        Works to keep PASS accountable, on track, and meeting the needs of its members

• Primary point of contact for Chapters

–        RM facilitates 2-way communications: resources, benefits, and news from PASS to Chapters and Chapter needs and feedback back to PASS

–        RM knows who to contact at PASS, at the local/regional Microsoft office, area sponsors, etc. if Chapters need something or have questions

My goals are quite simple.  Stay closely connected with Matt and the chapters in our region.  Encourage and mentor folks on hosting SQL Saturday events where they haven’t had one yet.  Help chapters with filling empty speaker slots at their monthly meetings.  Connect sponsors to those hosting user group meetings, SQL Saturdays and other events.  Work with chapters and speakers to possibly “piggy back” nearby user groups.  Volunteer at as many events as I can this next year (so far the most I’ve done is 6 in one year, not counting user group meetings).  Pretty much all the things I did as a Chapter Leader, so why be a Regional Mentor?  Guess that brings us to question three.  I think being an RM is going to give me a much farther reach in helping chapters that are truly “in the need”, and at the same time assisting PASS in getting those needs heard and met. 

I’ll keep you posted on how things are going, good or bad.  And hey, feel free to share your comments on what you feel as RMs we should be doing for you and the SQL Community.  We are working to retool and define this new RM legion every day, and since we are here to benefit you, your input is very much welcomed.