Educating yourself will make a SQL career more fulfilling Chris Wood Educating yourself will make a SQL career more fulfilling

Agenda Who is Chris Wood Why Educate Yourself Daily Feeds Twitter Lets Look at Bloggers Lets Look at PASS Local User Groups SQL Saturday’s Virtual Conferences Online Paid training MOOC’s Books SQL Training companies Conferences PASS SUMMIT How to get value for your money Questions How do I plan a conference Agenda

Why am I doing this? I hear people say they cannot pursue training because of the expense Professional training can be expensive but there are ways to make it happen

Who is Chris Wood I am an Englishman who emigrated to Canada in 1982 I started my DBA career on CA-IDMS in 1989 and in 1997 on SQL 6.5. I have been to 12 PASS SUMMITs , 2 DevConnections and a three-time Tech Outbounder. Helped organize 3 SQL Saturday’s and presented at 4 Twitter @ChrisAVWood Email ChrisAVWood@outlook .com

Why Educate Yourself We are in a rapidly changing IT world. What may have been a lifelong career could be replaced in a short period of time Not many people know who I am. Some high ranking SQL people at Microsoft know me.

Examples I am lucky to know Mala Mahadevan – look at her story https://curiousaboutdata.com/2016/09/23/11- years-of-pass-summit/ Jes Borland http://blogs.lessthandot.com/index.php/uncatego rized/help-my-company-wont-pay-for-training/ This is a story of my 11-year association with PASS, and the many ways it helped me grow as a person and in my career. And the many ways I saw other people grow. Tim Mitchell (b | t) asked me an interesting question: “What should you do if your employer won’t support your career development?” It’s a question I had to answer early in my career, and I am going to share my challenges and solutions. Make time for learning, and put a priority on it.

Examples Eugene Meidinger http://www.sqlgene.com/2017/05/30/keep ing-up-with-technology-a-guide-to- drinking-from-the-firehose// I often ask people with more experience than me “How do you stay relevant in our field?”. I joke that I live in perennial fear of being replaced someday, by a 22 year-old with no family commitments. Really, it’s a joke. Really, it’s a fear.

Daily Feeds Brent Ozar Unlimited - http://www.brentozar.com/ SQLServerCentral - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/ MSSQLTips - https://www.mssqltips.com/ SSWUG - https://www.sswug.org/ Kendra Little - http://littlekendra.com/

Twitter Lots of SQL experts and bloggers use Twitter Great way to find out about blogs and new products/features Use #sqlhelp hashtag

Lets Look at Bloggers SentryOne - https://blogs.sentryone.com/ https://sqlperformance.com/ SQLSkills – Insider Newsletters - https://www.sqlskills.com/newsletter/ Brent Ozar - https://www.brentozar.com/ SQLBlog - http://sqlblog.com/ Microsoft SQL blogs - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlreleaseservices/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sql_pfe_blog/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlsecurity/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlserverstorageengine/ Lets Look at Bloggers

Lets Look at Bloggers - contd https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/ https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/957826/where-to-find-information-about-the-latest-sql-server-builds/ Microsoft SQL Server Version List- http://sqlserverbuilds.blogspot.ca/ Ola Hallengren - https://ola.hallengren.com/ SQLHandle - http://sql-sasquatch.blogspot.ca/ Voice of the DBA - https://voiceofthedba.com/ Niko Neugebauer- http://www.nikoport.com/columnstore/ Feedly for aggregation - https://feedly.com/i/welcome Lets Look at Bloggers - contd

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/168596/ Kevin Kline, currently of SentryOne and one of the founders of PASS, told us a story about the founding of the PASS organization that I had never heard before. When they first started organizing PASS, 20 years ago, they had almost no funding. They wanted to put on an event, the first PASS Summit, but they had no idea how they were going to compete with much better funded events. Kevin then said that, while they can’t necessarily put on a better event, they can be better people. They would create a culture based on the concept of being aggressively friendly. Origins of PASS

(P)rofessional (A)ssociation for (S)QL (S)erver has existed since 1999 Best known for PASS Summit Offers many virtual user groups that hold a number of webinars Now offers a Career Center 24 Hours of PASS Lets Look at PASS

Local User Groups Lots of places have PASS user groups I belong to EDMPASS that has existed since 2009 Most groups have regular meetings with local or remote presentations SQLSkills offer presenters A good chance to meet with other Data Professionals in your area Microsoft offer speakers Good opportunity to start speaking Local User Groups

A local event that was created to give attendees an idea of what PASS Summit was about Many of the #sqlfamily make an effort to present in the smaller locations Some have become big, regular events (Louisville, Madison and Vancouver) SQL Saturday’s

Virtual Conferences Redgate – SQL in the City https://www.red- gate.com/hub/events/sqlinthecity/ Brent Ozar Unlimited – GroupBy https://groupby.org/

Online Paid Training PluralSight - https://www.pluralsight.com/ Global Knowledge - https://www.globalknowledge.com/ca-en/

MOOC’s - Massive Open Online Course Coursera - https://www.coursera.org/ Khan Academy - https://www.khanacademy.org/ edX - https://www.edx.org/ Udemy - https://www.udemy.com/

Books Mostly at a cost – could be free as a PDF New book on SQL 2017 Admin

SQL Training companies SQLskills - https://www.sqlskills.com/ Brent Ozar Unlimited - https://www.brentozar.com/

Conferences SQLConnections - http://itdevconnections.com/dc18/Public/Enter.aspx SQLIntersection - https://devintersection.com/#!/ Tech Outbound - http://www.techoutbound.com/

Conferences Connections and Intersection are multi product conferences SQL section is just a part of the conference Usually held once or twice a year in places like Orlando, Vegas, Dallas, San Francisco

Tech Outbound – was SQL Cruise Currently happens on a cruise ship – will change to other locations Needs cruise ship booking before registering with Tech Outbound Classroom sessions mostly when sailing Includes dinner meetings and photo shoots Likes students to bring family – learning plus vacation Supported by RedGate and SentryOne

PASS SUMMIT First held in 1999 Just had the 19th one in Seattle 12 in Seattle with experiments in other parts of the US Most time its 2 days of pre-cons followed by 3 full days Keynotes on at least 2 days Keynotes used to announce new versions Great for DBA’s originally but has certainly expanded into all that is in SQL Server now Many different forms of sessions – General (75 Minutes) and Half-Day (2 ½ hours

How to get value for your money There are three components to a conference Registration fees Travel Accommodation

Questions

How do I Plan if I want to attend Content Location Value – opportunity and contacts Can this be a vacation Would my wife want to go with me How can I afford this How easy is it to get time off