“Um… you know… on second thought… he’s probably not that entertaining in person anyway…”
Next week, I will attend my first-ever PASS Summit in Seattle. (Well, first ever as an attendee – I did visit PASS a couple times as an MS employee, but really just for private meetings). From monitoring the attendee excitement on Twitter, it appears that this is the highlight of the year for SQL pros worldwide.
And it seems at least as SOCIAL as it is professional. Witness, on Twitter, the following streams: #passawesomeness, #sqlkaraoke, and, I am not making this up… #sqlkilt.
The SQL community is a bit foreign to me. My background, of course, is not SQL – I come more from the “front end” side of the equation (but I’m happy to say that I *can* explain the difference between Inner and Outer joins. See? I do know *some* things.)
But hey, there are a million technologies. No one can know them all. But the SQL community goes a bit beyond – there is something *different* about these folks. They are just SO community focused. At TechEd, I accosted Thomas LaRock, aka SQLRockstar, and asked him point-blank what’s up with the SQL Community. He blogged his answer here (the comments at the end are also worth a look). So I’m pretty jazzed to attend.
Where I Will Be
Assuming that you are the least bit interested in attending a conference about SQL and then talking to someone whose core expertise is not SQL, here is where I am going to be (click for larger version).
Basically, the green items are the ones I have chosen to attend, even though many in blue were VERY tough to pass up. The two circled in orange are the two places I am guaranteed to be just sitting/standing around talking to people, but feel free to ambush me elsewhere. I am quite friendly and would love to meet you 🙂
Spotting me in the crowd
I’m excited to meet people. Everything is more fun that way, even just saying hi. So I have been debating dying my hair PowerPivot green. But I am told (by @samanthahhh ) that will destroy my hair and I will look like a freak for months – not good when I visit clients.
I’ve been told multiple times now that I look nothing like my profile picture. Well, that pic is 3 years and 30 pounds ago, before the PowerPivot Diet. In fact, one longtime online contact, the first time we met, exclaimed, “whoa, I thought you were going to a lot shorter and skinnier!” Hmmm… not sure what to think of that.
So here’s a decent picture of what I look like – me and Kasper at TechEd this year (me on the right – the taller and less skinny one).
I may even wind up wearing goofy clothes that id me, like these. No promises though, depending on weather and mood 🙂
Hope to see you there!
