Search results matching tag 'Leadership'

The Year That Was - 2012

KKline — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 19:31:00 GMT

2012 was, simply stated, a year that kicked my butt. When I wasn't struggling professionally, I was struggling personally. Health issues, culminating in a diagnosis of Type II diabetes, and the passing of my father soon after Thanksgiving marked my biggest struggles. I apologize to those of you who are normally on my Christmas card list for not sending any this year. The wind was not in my sails. On the positive side of the ledger, I made a scary but exciting leap to SQL Sentry midyear. This was a huge shake-up after 10 years with my previous employer, but one which has been met with unbridled enthusiasm everywhere I've gone. Thank you for the handshakes, high-fives, and hugs! We're doing some really exciting things at SQL Sentry (such as SQLPerformance.com and Plan Explorer Pro) and I hope to engage with you more than ever in 2013.

Blogging Activity, Plus Leadership Skills & Professionalism

2012 marked a bit of a shift in my content creation direction. I've seen an uptick in struggles in the non-IT part of our career - communications, leadership, motivation, goal-keeping, all of those sort of things. I feel like I have some wisdom to contribute in that space. So, in addition to technical blog posts, I been putting down more of my experiences and lessons learned on the interpersonal side of the IT career path. My top ten blog posts for the year reflect some of that new direction:

Do You Have One of "the Three W’s" to Sit on a Board of Directors? -- Important tips for any IT pro considering a role in strategy and executive leadership.
Timewarp: What Is a Relational Database? -- With all the talk about NoSQL databases, let's go back to the fundamentals.
Want Another Reason to Hate iTunes? -- A throw-away article that precipitated a maelstrom of comments. Them Apple fanboys are passionate!
Why Do IT Pros Make Awful Managers? -- Not all IT pros make awful managers, but when they're awful it's often for similar reasons.
High-Availability White Papers and Resources for SQL Server -- Read the latest about AlwaysOn Availability Groups, and more.
New White Paper: SQL Server Extended Events and Notifications -- SQL Server 2012 great augments the Extended Events feature set. Find out how.
Build Your Own Microsoft Operations Management Pack -- Resources to build out your own SCOM management pack.
Help Me Update the History of SQL Server -- I started with SQL Server when it was still an OS/2 product. Jeesh! Lots of versions have come out since then.
TIE: Recorded Webcast Available: Extend SCOM to Optimize SQL Server Performance Management and The Expert's Conference (TEC) - For AD, SharePoint, Exchange, PowerShell and Other Admins -- Pointers to a webcast about extending SCOM and the TEC conference.
A Fond Farewell to Quest Software -- I learned so much in 10 years at Quest Software.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph about blogging, I'm putting more energy into best practices for professional growth among IT pros. Along those lines of thought, I started a website called ForITPros.com with my long-time friend Joe Webb (Twitter | Blog) and, in partnership with SSWUG, developed a 2-DVD set and streaming media class called Leadership Skills for IT Professionals containing 14 hours of leadership and soft skills training specifically crafted for IT teams.

I've also been working with PASS on the Professional Development Virtual Chapter (VC), led by Mark Caldwell (Twitter). We've already got a full year of content schedule and are trying to figure out how fit in more sessions. Maybe moving to more than one webcast per month? The PASS Professional Development VC archive has lots of great content for you to review and future sessions are detailed at the PASS Professional Development VC homepage.

In-Person Activity

2012 was busy where I actually appeared in person or put in a big effort to write or create content. Here's a run-down: Articles (2), Conference Spoken (12), Customer Calls (88), Customer Visits (4), Magazine Columns (14) at SQLMag.com and DBTA.com, New Books (1) with Ross Mistry, PASS Chapter Presentations (12), Pre-cons/Full-day Seminars (4), SQL Saturdays (4), SSWUG Sessions (4), TechNet Radio Broadcasts (2), Technical Book Reviews (3), and Webcasts (10).

In 2013, I expect to travel a bit less. But I also expect to do many more webcasts. Let me know if you have some ideas about what you'd like to learn! One business trip that I refuse to give up, though, is SQLCruise. (Register!) I know it sounds like the worst possible way to learn. I mean who'd want to learn on a cruise ship in the Caribbean?!? (I hope you could detect the sarcasm dripping from those two sentences.) But here are two favorite aspects of of SQLCruise that are totally ferreals - 1) You simultaneously can relax and focus on learning. You are disconnected from the mainland. You don't have to worry about the mobile phone going off. 2) You get extended ours in a intimate setting with the top talent in the SQL Server world. It's always a pleasure to attend a conference session from the best in the industry. But you'll get hours of time to talk with these veterans of the industry about your specific problems and situations. It just doesn't get better than that.

Social Media

It's hard to believe that only a year ago, 2011, was my first year on Twitter. By years end, here's where my stats had moved: 5,507 tweets (up from 3,452 tweets), 661 following (up from 531), and 3,720 followers (up from 2,656) . I didn't check my social media numbers last year, so I've got no point of comparison. But I'm currently sitting at 2,327 LinkedIn connections and 1,157 Facebook friends. One of my standing policies on Facebook is that I don't "friend" someone who I haven't personally met. That doesn't help detangle the hopeless mess I've created by having only one identify on Facebook, both personal and public. So, on the one hand, I owe all of my longtime friends a big apology for all of the SQL talk and, on the other hand, a big apology to all of my professional friends for not posting enough news and advice while dilute my status updates with personal minutia. Oh well - it is what it is.

My blogging activity for 2012 was the lowest it's been in many years, down to 44 entries, down from 77 in 2011 and well into the hundreds in 2010. My answer to that sort of doldrums for 2013 is to get sloppy! And by that, I mean less of a perfectionist and more of a content machine that just cranks it out! Most of you, as my readers, have been very forgiving of a misplaced verb, a missing punctuation, or -heck- a totally malformed sentence that makes no sense at all. So I'm going to try much harder to churn through the 700+ nascent blog posts in my notes folder and get those ideas out there!

I hope to see you following me on Twitter soon! Thanks,

-Kevin

PASS Summit 2012, Day 1

KKline — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 15:18:00 GMT

One of the most positive experiences I can have, as a former leader of the PASS organization, is when I see a neophyte become a passionate support and champion for the community. On my first day in Seattle, before the event had even begun, I was stopped several by people who'd attended their first PASS Summit last year. But this year, they were excited to tell me that they'd started user groups in their own community, spoken for the first time at a PASS event, or even helped launch a SQL Saturday event.

Wow! To go from a complete newcomer in the PASS community to an active and engaged community chapter is a major achievement!

Many years ago, the founding board of directors wrestled with the major issues of how to attract new members at the same time while lacking major funds to create services and offerings attractive to SQL Server professions. Compared to other major professional IT associations, we simply lacked the money to do the cool things that we saw happening elsewhere.

But one of the things that we settled on is that, while we didn't have the money to put on a big dazzle-dazzle conference or to publish hard-bound conference proceedings, we could simple be a more giving, supportive community. Being more friendly, more encouraging, more supportive. Those were things that we could excel at which would cost us nothing.

In those days, I have to admit, it wasn't really a difficult calling to be the 'more' friendly professional association. With board members like Kurt Windisch, Joe Webb, Stefanie Higgins, and Wayne Snyder, being friendly came naturally. As new board members, like Rushabh Mehta and Bill Graziano and Tom Larock and Andy Warren, joined the leadership the idea of openness and friendliness became an institution ideal.

By 2006, the concept of 'sqlfamily' wasn't simply something we aspired to, it was an integral part of our culture. I can recall plenty of decisions being settled with the question of "Does this decision make our community more inclusive or not?" If it didn't, then we didn't do it. At other times, in the face of conflict, we asked ourselves "What's the high road? What's the right thing to do?" Our intent wasn't to do what was most advantageous, the most expedient, or the least costly, especially if we had to compromise on our ethics. Do what's right. Do what is helpful to our people. And then don't look back.

That certainly doesn't mean that we made all of the right decisions or that there weren't any situations where we wouldn't do it differently if we could do it again. But it did ensure that, when we made a mistake, we didn't have too many regrets.

So here we are in 2012. How has that early initial decision to focus on building a community of care panned out? The association now has 126,000 members, with more than 300 chapters around the world, and more than 60 yearly SQL Saturday events per year. The annual Summit is more than 300% bigger than our first event, with about 100 more sessions over the course of three days.

And, in my opinion more importantly, I'm being stopped on the street by people to tell me how excited they are to have started a new user group, spoken at an event, or attended a conference. It's in these moments that all of those hard years of work on the PASS board are crystallized as a valuable and worthwhile. Those decisions are still paying dividends today. The spirit of SQLfamily is stronger than ever!

Enjoy!

-Kev

P.S. I'll be speaking on Thursday and Friday at the event. Come see me!

Secure Your Spot at the Nashville SQL Saturday!

KKline — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 14:50:00 GMT

PASS SQL Saturdays are free 1-day training events for IT professionals interested in Microsoft SQL Server, providing a variety of high-quality technical sessions, all happen through the efforts of local volunteers. The leadership team of the local chapter of PASS here in Nashville (Facebook | LinkedIn) have worked hard to make this year's SQL Saturday a day of great training and networking.

The local NashSQL leadership team includes yours truly (blog | twitter), Joe Webb (Twitter | Blog), Louis "Dr SQL" Davidson (Twitter | Blog), Christina Leo (blog | twitter), and Shelton Dickson (website). We also get a lot of operational help from Matt LeBlank (LinkedIn | Twitter).

We think you'll find it's a great way to spend a Saturday!

Register for the free community day with 5 concurrent tracks of hour-hour technical sessions running all day long: www.sqlsaturday.com/145/eventhome.aspx

Also, we are very pleased to announce the SQLSaturday #145 Pre-con event on Friday, October 12th. We have four paid sessions available from established industry experts. Session details are provided in the links below.

Please be aware that each Pre-con is priced at a staggeringly cheap $129.95 + $8.14 processing fee.

Registrations made by August 31, 2012, will receive an EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION rate of an $99.95 + 6.49 processing fee!!!

Don't miss out on this fantastic offer! Register now: SQL Satuday #145 PreCons

A continental breakfast will be served and tea and coffee will be available throughout the day. Lunch will be provided.

Two New Slide Decks. Plus, the Week in Colorado.

KKline — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:03:00 GMT

I had the honor of traveling the great state of Colorado last week, speaking at the PASS chapters in Boulder, Colorado Springs, and Denver. At all three events, we had a stellar attendance and, at least in Denver, broke all the records in recent memory both in terms of overall attendance and in first-timers. Denver, in fact, was standing room only and had nearly 30 first time attendees. Great news! I also want to give a special shout-out of thanks and appreciation to Chris Shaw (Twitter | Blog) whose hard work and tenacity ensured that all of Colorado got to see me speak. From left to right, Gabriel Villa (Twitter), me, Chris Shaw, and Rebecca Mitchell (Twitter). If it weren't for Chris, I wouldn't have been there. Thanks for putting in the time, amigo!

New Slide Decks!

During the 3-day jaunt, I presented two of my more popular sessions. These are updated slide decks, in case you want to download them here:

UG - End-to-End Troubleshooting

and

UG - Top 10 SQL Server Administration Mistakes

Be sure to check in the Slides area of the website, if you want to see the links for SpeakerRate, and in the case of several of my presentations, white papers, video recordings, etc. It's the People that Matter

A Blast from the SQLPASS Past!

I've always tried to maintain the relationships I built with the founding members of the PASS board of directors. After their time on the PASS board, almost all of them have moved on from SQL Server to other adventures. Pam Smith, the first president of the organization, is now a professor. Guy Brown, the second president, is now the director of IT at his same employer, rather than just SQL Server as when he was on the PASS board. A few, such as Kurt Windisch, a former VP of PASS, and my good friend Joe Webb (Twitter | Blog), are still active in the SQL Server space. One relationship that I've enjoyed over the years is with PASS' original Microsoft liaison and now a Denver-area software entrepreneur Steve Murchie (at right) running his own healthcare IT outfit. Steve has been a source of inspiration to me and also of great advice for all things startup-related. It was great to connect with Steve and catch up on his latest doings.

I also got to enjoy an evening out with the local attendees after the Denver user group meeting. It was great to hang out with folks there. I got to meet Kevin Cox (twitter), a member of Microsoft's incredibly talented SQLCAT group, and for whom I was a technical editor on a SQL Server v6.5 book back in the Neanderthal era. That shows just how old both Kevin and I actually are. Other cool folks that I got to meet included Steve Wake, Mike Fal, Marc Beacom, Jason Kassay, Jason Horner and my ol' buddy, Kelly the Greeley Geek.

On top of that, long-time SQL Server MVP and all-around awesome guy Steve Jones (Twitter | Blog) visited. I kept him out way too late that night which, to be honest, isn't usually my style. But the good conversation propelled us on past midnight.

The Good Folks at SQL Server Professional and Windows IT Professional Magazines

I've written for SQL Server Professional (formerly the artist known as "SQLMag") in some form or another starting from my first cover article for them way back in the mid 1990's. My Tool Time column has been going strong there since, oh, around 2006 iirc. For most of the time I've known the folks at SQLMag, they were located in Loveland, CO but they were able to move to some incredibly nice digs just up the road in Fort Collins. In all the many years, I've written for them, I'd never been to their offices - until now. It was great to visit and break bread with Megan (to my right), Blair (across), and Jaylee (across and to my right)!

I've always supported SQLMag and encourage you to subscribe. On top of the goodness already in the digital magazine, there are some neat developments coming down the pipeline with SQLMag which I think we'll all enjoy. Be sure to subscribe today! (You can click the badge on the left or simply go to http://www.sqlmag.com).

What's Next?

My current travel schedule is pinned up on this blog post HERE. However, I also know of a couple on-line appearances and probably a trip between the long gap between now and my next in-person appearance at the Orlando SQL Saturday at the end of September, where I'll also be teaching a pre-conference seminar (register HERE for the seminar).

SSWUG

The first on-line event to note is my a presentation by SSWUG of my Leadership Skills for IT Professionals video series, starting on August 24th. Sign up using the hyperlink (note that a video plays immediately upon loading the webpage, in case you want to be ready to pause or stop it). You can also buy a DVD set of the 14 hours of leadership training content.

24HOP - The 24 Hours of PASS Event

I'll also be speaking on the topic of influence in the next 24 Hours of PASS coming up on September 20th and 21st. Registration for the twenty-four hours of around the clock presentations is completely free and well worth your time. Check the schedule for the event and register! Even if you can only watch one or two sessions (or even zero sessions), be sure to register so that you'll automatically be notified when the sessions become available as streaming media.

Enjoy!

-Kev

-Follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook

Do You Have One of "the Three W’s" to Sit on a Board of Directors?

KKline — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 17:28:00 GMT

Let’s get one thing clear right off the bat – I’m not typing “Board of Directors” repeatedly throughout this blog post. It’s just too much typing. BoD will have to do. Live with it.

Perhaps, you’ve been paying attention to the PASS Twitter feed, read the newsletters, or otherwise stay abreast of happenings within PASS. If you haven’t, here’s a news alert – it’s time for a new round of the PASS leadership cycle. And since this is the season of PASS nominations, I thought it’d be an appropriate time to share some of my lessons learned about effective BoDs.

Having spent over a decade sitting on various BoD’s, I can testify that the most effective directors are those that bring at least one of the three W’s to the table. (I learned the three W's from a former executive director of PASS, Jon Lindberg). Note that the three W’s are not characteristics or traits. They are behaviors, that is, observable sets of activities. The keywords in the previous sentence are observable and activities. You might have every intention in the world of doing the three W's. But if other people on the BoD cannot observe that you are performing the actions, they don't exist. The three W behaviors are Wealth, Work, and Wisdom. They’re major behaviors in my leadership ethos, called servant leadership. (I’ll talk about servant leadership in another post at some time).

Let’s talk about the three W’s in detail:

Wealth

This is simple and direct. Some directors come to the boardroom with a checkbook and they’re willing to use it to further the goals of the organization. Because they fund strategic initiatives of the organization in cash or in-kind, they literally change the reality for the organization. Directors with this W remove barriers and constraints that would otherwise end many discussions and initiatives before they got off the ground due to lack of resources.

However, directors with wealth are usually their as a part of their job. In other words, their employer has a strategic reason for supporting the success of the organization. Therefore, directors with wealth often seek to ensure that the organization is tracking against certain high-level goals that coincide with the goals of their employer. This is not to say that such directors have ulterior motives. They are typically very ethical and insightful members of a given BoD. But this perspective also means that a director with wealth may be interested in activities or metrics which other directors have considered. After all, if you were to pony up big dollars for a new initiative on your child’s soccer team (say, new training equipment) you’d also want to ensure that money was spent to greatest effect.

Note that wealth doesn’t always mean cash. It can mean many other things - your presence is a form of value. (Many times, directors come to BoD meetings and proceed to work on their email. That's a major breach of sharing your wealth of knowledge). Here’s a more concrete example. Back in the early 2000’s, around 2003, PASS received a significant amount of in-kind support from Compaq Corporation at the encouragement of then Microsoft liaison and board member Ryan Trout. (In-kind support, by the way, is support that has a cash value, but is an action or activity offered instead of actual cash). In effect, Compaq conducted a major direct mail campaign to their sizeable SQL Server user base to help drive attendance at the PASS Summit and to encourage interest in both the international organization and local user groups. This contribution marked a major turning point for PASS both in terms of high-level vendor support and in visibility to the SQL Server user community.

Axiom: The golden rule, for directors with wealth, is “he who has the gold makes the rules” with all the positive and negative connotations that holds.

Work

There’s no getting around the fact that the directors who are most willing to invest personal time and energy are the most effective. (And I mean the term “effective” in the most literal sense of “having a measurable effect on the enterprise”). In a typical strategically-oriented board, the extent of work is usually to remain current on all important reading material, to strive to be aware of shareholder issues and concerns, and to formulate opinions on important strategies for the organization to consider or implement as a form of guidance for the CEO and COO.

In a portfolio-oriented board, such as the structure used by PASS and many other large IT professional associations (including most of the other major database BoD’s such as IOUG, IDUG, ISUG, ITUG, and Share), directors not only have the burden of the strategic director, but also act as the head of a specific function of the organization. For example, in a portfolio-oriented BoD, a single director might be responsible for growing and guiding the local chapters of the association (the Chapter Portfolio), another might be responsible for driving value back to members (the Membership Portfolio), a third might be responsible for the selection and implementation of the content delivered at major events (the Program Portfolio), and so on. There is no doubt that some directors are much more effective than others at managing a portfolio and leading a group of volunteers within that portfolio.

While a full discussion of the best practices that make some directors really effective at this second W could fill a couple additional posts, I’ll put a few quick hallmarks here in case you’re curious:

Priorities

Smart directors set their sights on a very short list of goals that follow the SMART standard. And by “short list”, I mean a list with no more than three goals. The goals are achievable and, usually, not terribly expensive nor complex to implement. If one of their top goals turns out to be much more expensive or complex to get rolling, then they move on to their next most important goal that is easily achievable.

Axiom: It is better to make small, measurable gains than to set big goals that never get accomplished.

Alignment

Smart directors make sure that the goals they’re working to achieve complement the overall strategy of the organization. This alignment provides a strong incentive for other members of the BoD to back their proposals and to act as allies in the event that a board vote is needed to settle the way resources will be directed or whether a proposed goal is accepted by the board as a new policy or program. Alignment of goals with the top-level strategy of the organization also means that successor directors will have a much easier time continuing where the original board member left off because the work simply makes sense. Plus, when a director’s goals seem unusual or very different than other goals of the organization, organizational resistance is sure to come in to play.

Axiom: Unless there’s an emergency, it is better to couch visionary change within the overall strategy of the organization than it is to introduce changes that represent a major shift in long-standing culture, priorities, or processes.

Focus

Directors who have a short list of goals are also much more successful when they devote their energies to …, oh wait a sec, gotta check email. Just kidding. But I hope you get the idea.

I’ve seen a lot of brilliant individual directors who, upon prioritizing their work, spent enormous amounts of time and energy working on other people’s problems, working on their own issues at the wrong level, or talking about an issue way after its major parameters have been decided. I’m not saying stop helping others or stop discussions. But I am saying that a portfolio director must remember that the success of their team is their success. Many IT professionals are used to being individual contributors and so they feel that if they’re busy and working hard, it must be good, right? No. If the director isn’t working to achieve the goals of their portfolio, they’re basically not working at all. Here are some common traps that damage focus:

A common way IT pros on a BoD lose their focus is to get into the details of a new program or process. For example, say that PASS wanted to introduce a cool new feature on their website. An unfocused director would immediately begin to start designing the system in their mind – “We’ll use Active Directory to authenticate new users and then they’ll connect to the services using that cool REST-ful technology I’ve wanted to try. And maybe we could use SSIS packages to…” You get the picture. The BoD hasn't even fully fleshed out the business plan for the new program and yet this director is off and running after the specific technological solution to the problem. The problem that is not yet fully mapped out and understood. Remember, directors are supposed to assess and manage the business value of any given process or new organization program, not sling code. By focusing on the intimate details of the technology first, the director short-changes the business value of the initiative. It's like the programmer who starts writing code before any requirements are understood or documented. I’ve seen directors invest huge amounts of time into initiative which, in the broad analysis, were only half-baked and not worth pursuing. The focus must for a director, first and foremost, be about business value. (As a side-bar to this line of thought, many directors are the only person who can make certain important decisions. If that person is encumbered with relatively routine but demanding work, they actually shortchange the organization of their true value. If the VP of Finance is spending a lot of time working on a technology problem, they're not just working on technology - they're also NOT WORKING on financial matters).

Another common mistake that IT pros make when managing a portfolio is failing at delegation. IT pros, as I mentioned earlier, are usually most successful when they’re a strong individual contributor. They’re used to being judged on their own technical skill. They’re not used to being judged on the success of a team. Consequently, inexperienced directors frequently under-delegate and/or under-communicate which leaves volunteers feeling unwanted and unimportant. In the same vein, directors may act rudely to their committee members or other volunteers, or may simply treat them like employees –definitely not the way to treat a volunteer. This behavior is like torching your own support network. Volunteers can quickly become demoralized, or even quit, when they feel unproductive or unwanted.

Axiom: As a smart director of a portfolio, it is better to focus on business outcomes and the success of the team than it is to perform the detailed work yourself.

Wisdom

Dictionary.com tells me that wisdom is “knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action”. Money cannot buy wisdom. It can only be earned through many years of manifold experiences. Some young people are wise and insightful, but frankly it’s usually the grey-headed types who’ve usually lived through enough dumb decisions to recognize when a pattern in a social situation or set of human behaviors is being repeated. A great example of wisdom on the PASS board comes from the two CA representatives who sit on the board, Neil Buchwalter and Rick Bolesta. In addition to serving on the PASS board for perhaps longer than any other sitting board member, they’ve also both sat on other boards before and concurrently with the PASS board. Their stability, deep history, and analysis of the interplay between people (or groups of people) are extremely important to the successful workings of the board.

You might thing, based on what I’ve said described about wisdom, that a wise director is prone to pontificate and engage in long-winded discourse. Nothing could be further from the truth in my experience. The typical wise director tends to be brief, interjecting comments and thoughts of great weight and importance. What they say is usually worth careful consideration. Conversely, directors who spend a lot of time talking are often the least worth listening to. Many long-winded directors often use discussion to figure out what it is they really think about a given situation. Wise directors already know what they think and, when the speak, produce fully formed thoughts and arguments in a given situation.

In some cases, a BoD can help build institutional wisdom through diversity. As I mentioned earlier, wisdom is earned through experiences (usually bad experiences). When the members of a governing body like a BoD are young and/or inexperienced, they can supplement their breadth of experiences by selecting members of a variety of background, ethnicities, nationalities, ideologies, orientation, etc. This broaden of perspective raises the quality of dialog, helps identify problems and issues in policy discussion, and helps to foresee major obstacles on the horizon.

Axiom: Wisdom and insight are crucial in building a base of institutional knowledge, context for key decisions, and insight into the highest-probability for success in socially complex situations.

If you’re involved in a governing body of some kind or are considering volunteering with PASS (or any other BoD for a professional association), do a little introspection. Do you possess one or more of the three W’s? Or do you have big dreams or a burning ember of ambition? What do you need to learn to equip yourself with one of the W’s?

Let me know what you think!

-Kevin

Come See Me. I'll Probably Be Just Down the Street Soon!

KKline — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:02:00 GMT

Even though I've recently changed jobs, I'll still be speaking at a lot of SQL events across the country and internationally. There are still a few trips that I've yet to finalize, in particular with the fine folks in Houston, run by my friend Nancy Hidy (blog | twitter), and my friends in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, run by my friend Mark Ginnebaugh (blog | twitter). Also, do to some missed deadlines, it looks like I won't be speaking at the Nordic SQL Rally this fall. My bad! On the other hand, you can see when checking my roster, that I hardly have time to catch my breath with this travel schedule.

I'll also be doing several on-line events with the PASS Professional Development Virtual Chapter, run by Mark Caldwell (blog | twitter), through out the year.

Here's what's on the docket up through the start of the holiday season:

New York City

SQL Saturday 158, August 4

The Colorado User Group Tour

Boulder PASS user group meeting, August 14

Colorado Springs PASS user group meeting, August 15 (Register here for Colorado Springs PASS user group meeting).

Denver PASS user group meeting, August 16

Comatose, August 17 (Not an actual city in CO).

Orlando

SQL Saturday Performance Tuning Pre-Con, September 28

SQL Saturday 151, September 29

Online

SSWUG 2012 Fall vConference, Oct 2-4, (Please register using code 'VCKEVIN'. I will personally hug you, virtually.)

Lincoln

SQL Saturday Performance Tuning Pre-Con, October 5

SQL Saturday 165, October 6

Cedar Rapids

East Iowa PASS user group meeting, Oct 8 TBD

Quad City PASS user group meeting, Oct 9 TBD

Nashville (Go Titans!)

SQL Saturday Leadership Skills for IT Pros Pre-Con, October 12

SQL Saturday 145, October 13

Seattle

SQL Connections, Las Vegas, Nov 1-4

PASS Summit 2012, Seattle, Nov 6-9

Let me know if you're nearby and if you're coming to any of these events. I'd enjoy seeing you personally and getting a chance to shake your hand!

Hope to see you soon,

-Kevin

-Follow me on Twitter!

-More content at http://KevinEKline.com

The Next Chapter: Inspiring and Motivating

KKline — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:41:00 GMT

I’d like to start this post first by thanking everyone who sent well wishes, both public and private, about my decision to move on from Quest Software. It was very uplifting and encouraging to hear from you!

So, again, the question of “Where am I off to?” The answer is SQL Sentry. I’m joining them as Director of Engineering Services, with a focus on technical sales and marketing, as well as a heavy dose of R&D design work. (Read the press release here).

In case you haven’t encountered SQL Sentry before, they’re a small Southern company concentrating on the SQL Server market. In anticipation of questions about why I might chose to work at SQL Sentry, I can sum it up in a word: potential.

SQL Sentry is loved by their customers. Their products are strong. Their R&D team is exceptionally talented, achieving master-level knowledge of SQL Server itself. Their internal processes are agile and direct. Their strategies, priorities, and ethics are a direct match with my own. That special, magical alchemy of great technology, inspired customers, and enthusiastic culture is exceedingly rare. And the potential for new achievements is, in my mind, unmatched elsewhere in the industry.

Let’s (specifically, let US, not just me) move the ball forward…

The most effective technology evangelists not only paint a picture of how new technologies can improve the lives of their audience, they literally inspire their audiences to act on that vision. (Sidebar: Would you like to see more blog posts and proscriptive guidance on how to be a technology evangelist, either internally-facing or external? I’ve not really seen much content on that topic.)

SQL Sentry has empowered me to spread a simple message - that there are no IT projects; instead there are business projects which use IT to accomplish their goals. That means you’ll still be seeing me in all the familiar venues – conferences, blogs, magazine columns, and such. That means I’ll also be serving as your technology evangelist back into SQL Sentry around our internal R&D efforts!

I’ll be working hard to spread the word, not only about SQL Sentry, but also about SQL Server and the awesome community we have built around SQL Server. Make no mistake – the SQL Server community didn’t happen by accident. It was built up over years through conscious choice and repeated action of people like you. And today, I want to encourage you to renew your mind and spirit. Don’t just shuffle through the day. Continue to add to our community. Continue to make it better.

Wondering where to start? Here’s the easiest thing in the world to do to start making our community better. I ask you to commit to responding with a comment to those posts that you’ve enjoyed. Just try it for one week. Even if all you have to say was “I enjoyed that” or “You gave me food for thought” or “Here’s how I felt about what you said”. If you don’t feel like you’ve added value after your week long trial, then stop. But I think you’ll find it such a positive experience that you keep going. We’re social creatures. Sharing makes us feel better and be better. To reiterate, communication is not a one-way street. Only by providing your input can we elevate that most pedestrian form of communication, messaging, into the infinitely better form of communication called dialog.

Let’s start that dialog today!

Again, thanks so much for your support and encouragement. Best regards,

-Kevin

-Follow me on Twitter!

A Fond Farewell to Quest Software

KKline — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 23:01:00 GMT

The week of the 4^th of July is a happy week for Americans. Most families get out for a parade, a fireworks display, a picnic in the park, a movie where Will Smith puts the beat down on a bunch of aliens, or an afternoon at the pool or lake. We celebrate the contributions of our service men and women. We honor veterans. We drink a lot of beer. We reflect on the founding of our nation and the meaning of “Independence Day”.

My own reflections over the Independence Day holiday took me in a new and rather unexpected direction. After ten-and-a-half immensely rewarding years at Quest Software, I have decided to seek new opportunities.

Today, I wanted to publicly reflect on my time at Quest Software, saving my next blog post for some thoughts about my new endeavors. I could probably write a short novel about all of the great experiences and learning opportunities I had over the last ten years. Part of the reason it might make a good novel is because my memory is notoriously weak and my creativity is equally strong. I might just make up details to fill in the fuzzy recollections. Just sayin'... But just to give you a taste, here’s a brief timeline of my ten years at Quest, highlighting some of my favorite experiences:

I joined Quest on January 2^nd of 2002 as Senior Product Architect to design the tools that would become Quest’s first foray into the SQL Server database market. Quest dominated the Oracle tools market but was at square one for tools in the SQL Server space. I’m grateful to Eyal Aronoff, CTO in those days, and Guy Harrison (blog | twitter), current leader of the Melbourne office, for mentoring me through the near-comically hard process of designing and building software products that can sell. Dax French, then product manager, taught me about the concept of salability. Oh, it’s easy to put requirements down on paper. But that’s about as close to a finished and sellable product as a laptop is to an abacus. I also learned a whole heck of a lot about software development from Patrick O'Keeffe, and about corporate politics in a worldwide development organization, especially from Julie Ackerman, then VP of Operations.
In late 2003, I became the Director of Technology for the SQL Server Solutions Group. (Yeah! We had a team name and a few products!) Hiring your own team is a dream for many leaders in IT. And I have to say with more than a little pride that the organization we built included the most intelligent, energized, and fun people I’ve ever known. Being empowered to hire a team, set goals, and deliver on them was a fantastic, though demanding experience. . I’m thankful to the team for their incredibly hard work and unsinkable ethics: John Theron, Johnny Ortez, Lee Grisson, Joe Motley, Hassan Fahimi, Israel Kalush, and so many others. I’m grateful that my more experienced peers on the other major dev teams, Rony Lerner and Steve Rosenberg, enthusiastically taught me how to answer the needs of both a sales-driven corporation and a deadline-driven engineering process.
Throughout this time, I experienced the full support of Quest’s executive leadership as a Microsoft MVP and, even more so, as a founder and eventual president of PASS. I can’t emphasize enough what a big deal this was. The leadership of PASS was an incredibly difficult workload to support, basically equivalent to a second full-time job, and also a difficult period in my life personally. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to fully thank the top leadership of Quest for allowing me, around 2006, to move some of those PASS hours into my day job at Quest. I literally could NOT have served two terms as president of PASS without this level of support. Yeah! Now I was back down to an acceptable number of hours per week, including the time spent on PASS, blogging, etc with my day job.
In 2005, I again ventured into new territory and new experiences. I never in my wildest dreams anticipated that I’d someday learn about and actually work on M&A deals. I knew Quest did some M&A from our acquisition of Leccotech, bringing in the outstandingly talented Claudia Fernandez and Darren Mallette, among many others, and FastLane, where I learned a lot from David Waugh. But that’s exactly what happened when Quest finally acted on my advice to acquired Imceda, where I got to meet and work with the likes of Douglas Chrystall (twitter), Jason Hall (twitter), and David Gugick (twitter). During this time, I learned an amazing amount about executive leadership from some of the very best in the IT industry – Vinny Smith, Doug Garn, Charles Ramsey, Steve Dickson and John Newsome. I think they’d probably laugh to hear me say this, but I have confess that I was at the level of “barely able to hold my fudge” intimidation whenever I breathed the same air as these guys. But I also watched them closely, tried to absorb their wisdom, and emulate their behaviors that engendered the success of the company.
2006 marked another new adventure for me at Quest because, for the first time, I began to work more heavily on technology evangelism than on product development. We now had several products which needed more attention and focus on campaign-driven marketing efforts. Billy Bosworth joined as our new VP and General Manager. Christian Hasker (twitter) joined as our new Director for Product Marketing, while Heather Eichmann and Andy Grant joined the effort. This team rocked! We became a team of thought leaders that influenced the way the rest of the company did business. I learned an enormous amount from these folks about advertising, marketing, technology evangelism, and community building. I could easily write a book with anecdotes and lessons on how to be an effective technology evangelist. Charles Ramsey, president of Quest during those days, bestowed the title of “Technical Strategy Manager” upon me due to all of the time I was spending on a wide cross-section of activities for sales, marketing, R&D, as well as interfacing with Microsoft’s SQL Server team, to name a few, Paul Randal (blog | twitter), Kevin Farlee, Gert Drapers (blog), Joe Yong, Bob Ward (twitter), the late Ken Henderson, Jimmy May (blog | twitter), Mark Souza (twitter) and the Jedi of SQLCAT, and many others.
I still remember fondly how a friend had forwarded a “tweet” from a certain Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) about him being excited to sit in my session at the PASS Summit in late 2007. My first thought was “What the heck is a tweet?!?” My second thought was "I should meet this guy!" Before long, though, I was working with Brent in his new role as our full-time technology evangelist whence I moved to Pre-Sales to work more directly with large customers and key accounts - and where I have been ever since (until now). During that time I learned how to give a really good product demo from Jason Hall, David Swanson, and Ari Weil (If you don’t already know how to give a good product demo, check out http://www.secondderivative.com/ and buy their book post-haste). It was also very education to learn from great Pre-Sales leaders like John Milburn and Robb Dunewood. I also learned a whole lot about the awesomeness of Camtasia – which you should buy right now if you ever do recorded presentations. Brent stayed with us for a couple years, teaching me an enormous amount about social media and, although I’d been blogging since 2004, a whole lot about how to be a better blogger. Someday, I hope to actually apply what I learned from Brent.

From that early team, we built a culture of trust with our customers, attempting at every turn to add value to what we built. And it shows. Our products have won a multitude of awards and plaudits. I’ve seen a host of product launches and major new releases. I cannot take nor deserve the credit for these great tools. I was merely a very small part of the team that brought them to life.

I’m so very proud of the full-stack monitoring and alerting in Spotlight, of the unmatched analytics in Foglight Performance Analysis, of the raw value of LiteSpeed. I’m also very proud of the evolution of Toad, from a small and practical aggregation of utilities, into a full suite for developers, data modelers, and data analysts. Add in the unique scalability testing features of Benchmark Factory and I can say without any apology that we built the definitive and comprehensive platform of tools for the database professional.

Working deep in technology has always been interesting and exciting. But my favorite part of the job has always been interacting with customers and partners. It’s an uplifting experience to share the ways in which the Quest tools empower customers to do things they’ve never been able to do before and to make their jobs and their lives better. Meeting our clients on four continents over the course of thousands of presentations and meetings has been a top highlight of my career. Whenever I interact with customers, I want the focus to be on mutual learning. Customers teach me as much as I’ve ever taught them.

As time advanced, though, I gained insight into why some periods at Quest were more enjoyable than others. The laser-sighted focus of our early, smaller organization was a definitely highlight. The rhythm of business travel also picked up dramatically in recent years, with a commensurate decline in my overall health and wellbeing. Clearly, I needed a change.

You might be asking “If it was so good, why are you changing things?” Well, I’m not leaving because of a negative of some kind. I can assure you that it is not because I’ve had some kind of personality conflict, disagreement over strategy, or that I’m otherwise unhappy with Quest. Quite the opposite, I’m leaving because I’ve been offered an new opportunity that is both very exciting and enormously reinvigorating.

To all of you that I’ve already mentioned mentioned by name, and to the multitude more whose name I wasn't able to record above, I owe a debt of gratitude. I wish you not goodbye, but the fondest of farewell.

Farewell is also in order because to you, my readers because, well, you’ll still be seeing me in all the old familiar places. So where am I off to? Tune in next Monday for that bit of news.

Until then. Enjoy!

-Kev

-Follow me on Twitter

One Week Until Louisville!

KKline — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 18:04:00 GMT

Louisville has a special place in my heart because it was my brother's home for more than 15 years. I spent a lot of time on I-65 traveling from my home town of Huntsville, AL to visit my bro in Louisville and New Albany, after he bought a place on the north side of the mighty Ohio River. It's always felt like a home away from home, even long after he moved on.

SQL Saturday 122 is just around the corner and I'll be speaking both in a full day, pre-conference seminar plus a couple sessions at the SQL Saturday itself.

Leadership Skills for the IT Professional

My pre-con is all about learning the essential leadership skills to lead IT people. It's designed for IT technologists who've been promoted into a leadership role and find that their technology skills don't readily transfer into leading people. Details for the class and registration are available here at Leadership Skills for IT Professionals. As is traditional at IT conferences, professional development classes don't get as much attendance as the hard technology classes. So, please spread the word to other IT leaders in your organizations and help me fill the class. It's fully applicable to other IT disciplines besides DBAs and Developers, so tell your Exchange admins, HelpDesk bosses, and others.

If you're interested in the topic, but can't attend for some reason, consider purchasing my DVD set and/or the streaming media. Get the details here for the vConference and DVDs on Leadership Skills for the IT Professional.

SQL Saturday 122 Sessions

I'll be presenting in a few sessions at the SQL Saturday itself, including my popular session SQL Server Internals and Architecture. I'll also be sitting in the Women In Technology panel at lunch, filling the 'token male' quota and offering my perspective as the dad of three daughters and three step-daughters urging them on to bigger and better things. Right after that, I'll be presenting one module of my leadership training called Communicating Upward, which is all about influencing your boss and your boss' boss.

Please spread the word. I hope to see you there! Enjoy,

-Kev

-Follow me on Twitter!

ITPro, Re-architect Your Life

KKline — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:21:00 GMT

Have you ever found yourself wanting to make a major shift - in skills, in roles, in relationships? One of my good friends, Jimmy May (Blog | Twitter), accomplished a set of major career and lifestyle revisions including relocating to Redmond, taking on a huge new level of job responsibility as part of the Microsoft SQL Customer Advisory Team, and achieving the noted accreditation of Microsoft Certified Master.

Jimmy and I were chatting about undertaking major life changes like these and, as is often the case, his thoughts were too good not to share. Be sure to explore these excellent career development resources. So here were some great pointers from Jimmy:

I’ve referred you before to J.D. Meier. Incredibly powerful guy. Here are some brief yet powerful posts:
What’s the Challenge?
http://sourcesofinsight.com/2011/06/24/whats-the-challenge
101 Ways to Motivate Yourself and Others
http://sourcesofinsight.com/101-ways-to-motivate-yourself-and-others/

Want more?
30 Days of Getting Results
http://sourcesofinsight.com/30-days-of-getting-results
Take a Tour of Sources of Insight
http://sourcesofinsight.com/2011/06/21/take-a-tour-of-sources-of-insight
Still not enough? Here are his three blogs:
www.sourcesofinsight.com
www.gettingresults.com
http://blogs.msdn.com/jmeier

Let me know what other resources you enjoy for professional and career development!

And if you're really interested in developing your IT leadership and management skills, I encourage you to attend my Leadership Skills for IT Professionals seminar. I'm presenting this full-day seminar in Dallas at the SQLRally on May 8, and in Louisville at SQL Saturday 122 on June 19. Hope to see you there!

Thanks,

-Kev

-Follow me on Twitter at @KEKline