Search results matching tags 'presentations' and 'SQL Saturday'

Presenting at SQL Saturday NYC!

andyleonard — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:20:00 GMT

Update: I will not be able to attend SQL Saturday 158 due to illness. - Andy

I am honored to present two sessions at SQL Saturday #158 in New York City this Saturday (4 Aug 2012)!

I am delivering two sessions: Designing an SSIS Framework and Loading the Cloud.

It is also very cool to see the Linchpin People logo on the Sponsors page!

If you are not signed up, you can register here. I hope to see you there.

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Co-Presenting A Day of SSIS with Matt Masson at SQL Saturday #111 in Atlanta 13 Apr 2012!

andyleonard — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:00:00 GMT

I am excited to co-present A Day of SSIS at the Atlanta SQL Saturday #111 13 Apr 2012! The SQL Saturday event will be Saturday 14 Apr 2012, but the precons (there are three!) will be Friday 13 Apr 2012.

Matt Masson (Blog | @mattmasson) is co-presenting. If you have never had the opportunity to listen to Matt talk about SSIS, you should. Matt is one of the good people at Microsoft who develops and maintains SSIS.

I hope to see you there. Register here!

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Presenting A Day of SSIS–SQL Saturday 111 (Atlanta) Precon–13 Apr 2012

andyleonard — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:00:00 GMT

I am honored to be presenting A Day of SSIS Friday, 13 Apr 2012 – a precon for SQL Saturday 111 in Atlanta. There is early-bird pricing in effect until the Ides of March. You can register and view details of the course topics here.

Jessica Moss and Adam Machanic are also delivering precons that day: Jessica’s is Learn SSRS in a Day and Adam’s, No More Guessing! An Enlightened Approach to Performance Troubleshooting. Adam and Jessica are awesome presenters!

If you’re going to be in the Atlanta area in mid-April, check out SQL Saturday 111!

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Presenting at SQL Saturday #84 Kalamazoo - This Saturday!

andyleonard — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:00:00 GMT

Just a quick reminder I am presenting Saturday (17 Sep 2011) at SQL Satuday #84 in Kalamazoo! Check out this schedule - there are a bunch or smart people presenting... plus me! I hope to see you there!

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Presenting at SQL Saturday #84–Kalamazoo 17 Sep 2011!

andyleonard — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:00:00 GMT

Introduction

I am honored to present Designing an SSIS Framework and “I See a Control Flow. Now What?” at SQL Saturday #84 in Kalamazoo Michigan 17 Sep 2011!

I See a Control Flow. Now What?

This highly-interactive, demo-intense presentation is for beginners and developers just getting started with SSIS. Attend and learn how to build SSIS packages from the ground up.

Designing an SSIS Framework

In this “demo-tastic” presentation, SSIS trainer, author, and consultant Andy Leonard explains the what, why, and how of an SSIS framework that delivers metadata-driven package execution, connections management, and centralizes logging. Key takeaways: 1) Developers can migrate packages from Development, through their lifecycle, to Production without editing SSIS Connection Managers properties. 2) A metadata-driven approach to SSIS package execution. 3) Demonstration of a centralized logging reporting application.

Conclusion

If you will be attending SQL Saturday #84 and read this blog, please introduce yourself! I’m the fat guy with a fu…

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Presenting at SQL Saturday–Wheeling!

andyleonard — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Introduction

I am honored to present two SSIS sessions at SQL Saturday #80 in Wheeling West Virginia 23 Jul 2011! I’m delivering “I See a Control Flow Tab. Now What?” and Designing an SSIS Framework.

“I See a Control Flow Tab. Now What?”

This highly-interactive, demo-intense presentation is for beginners and developers just getting started with SSIS. Attend and learn how to build SSIS packages from the ground up.

Designing an SSIS Framework

Conclusion

If you read this blog and will be in attendance, please introduce yourself! I’m the fat guy with a fu.

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Presenting at SQL Saturday #77 Pensacola (SSIS Pre-con) and CodeStock 2011!

andyleonard — Tue, 31 May 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Introduction

As you read this I am enjoying a few days away with Christy (Blog | @ChristyLeonard) – our anniversary is 1 Jun! When I return I’m on the road for a few days (more in a bit) and then I’m delivering another From Zero To SSIS! course in Farmville 6-10 Jun 2011 (there are seats available as I type, if you're interested!).

Speaking of SSIS training: I’m considering scheduling a public delivery of From Zero To SSIS! in the DC Metro area this Fall. If you’re interested please drop me a note.

Double-Booked!

I submitted an abstract for community voting at CodeStock 2011 when I saw the call for presentations. I think the Call was released back in February or March. The date was in June sometime and I didn’t know if my session would be selected, so I didn’t note the date on my calendar. Later, Karla Landrum (Blog | @KarlaKay22 | SQLPeople) called and asked if I’d be interested in delivering a day-long pre-conference seminar on SSIS before SQL Saturday #77 in Pensacola. “Of course!” I said. (It was Karla. What else would I say?)

About the time the precon tickets started selling, I got an email from CodeStock informing me my session Designing an SSIS Framework had been selected by the community. I panicked a little when I opened my calendar to add the session. The precon and SQL Saturday were 3-4 Jun – the same days as CodeStock! Durnit!

Communication to the Rescue!

I spoke to CodeStock and Karla; requesting CodeStock schedule me in the last session on Saturday 4 Jun, and seeking Karla’s permission to deliver a precon only and bail on the SQL Saturday event proper. Both consented, and I started booking flights. It’s going to be a fun weekend! I fly from Raleigh to Pensacola Thursday, deliver the precon and then fly to Knoxville Friday, and then attend and present at CodeStock before flying back to Raleigh Saturday evening. I’m probably sleeping in Sunday.

Conclusion

I’m bummed about missing the Saturday part of SQL Saturday, but also really excited about presenting at CodeStock again – I had a blast there last year.

If you read this blog and will be attending either event, please introduce yourself… if you can catch me!

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SSIS Training (from me!)

andyleonard — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Introduction

I’m going to be talking about SSIS a lot in June!

From Zero To SSIS!

Need to learn SQL Server Integration Services? Got a week? I’m delivering From Zero To SSIS! in Farmville Virginia 6-10 Jun 2011. Class size is limited to 8 students. Five full days of SSIS goodness. And, Christy’s catering lunch! Email me if you’re interested!

SQL Saturday #77 – Pensacola

I’m presenting a full-day SQL Saturday pre-con 3 Jun 2011 at SQL Saturday #77 in Pensacola Florida! The early bird pricing – $99 – expires in less than two weeks. Go register today.

CodeStock 2011

I am again honored to be selected by the community to present Designing an SSIS Framework at CodeStock 2011 3-4 Jun 2011! My session is in the last slot of the conference 4 Jun because I do not own or have access to a transporter and I need to get from Pensacola to Knoxville in less than 24 hours!

Conclusion

If you can make it to one of these exciting events and read this blog, introduce yourself! I’m the fat guy with a fu talking about ETL…

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SQL Saturday #71, Boston: "T-SQL : Bad Habits to Kick"

AaronBertrand — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 23:10:00 GMT

In Boston today I presented my "Bad Habits to Kick" deck to 66 people. You can download the deck and samples from the SQL Saturday web site or directly from http://bit.ly/AB-71-Slides.

Like the Chicago event, folks were encouraged to submit feedback immediately after the session, by picking a random eval and giving the winner a token (in this case a RedGate sticker). They could take the sticker to the main lobby and collect a book of their choice - an option I suggested after learning they would pre-assign a book to each speaker. I thought it would be better to let the user pick from a collection of books instead of accepting the only book in the room, and while it caused a little bit of extra work, I think it was worthwhile.

Anyway, I'm mentioning all of this because I collected a huge stack of 66 evals. I hope attendees realize how invaluable this type of feedback can be for a speaker. At a lot of events in the past, we either haven't received feedback at all, or it's been collated for us and we just see the scores. Sometimes we have received the actual feedback sheets, but it can often be weeks after the event. I like this format a lot, because the session is so fresh in my memory, and that makes it easier to correlate the feedback to the time slot.

And again, like the Chicago event, the eval form was kept short and simple. There were four questions:

1. How would you rate the overall quality of this presentation? (1 is very poor, 5 is excellent)

5 - 42 (63.6%)
4 - 20 (30.3%)
3 - 4 (6.1%)
Average: 4.58

2. What is the best idea from the session that you plan to use?

There was a wide variety here. Some folks really liked my suggestions about using a numbers table, others liked my warnings about date range queries, and a few really liked the snippets feature in Denali. Multiple people liked my quick tip on dragging the Columns node in Object Explorer onto a query window to instantly expand the list of columns. My session covered 12 bad habits and it seems that every habit was mentioned at least once in response to this question.

3. What could this speaker have done to improve the overall quality score?

There were some interesting ones here, a couple beyond my control (mainly about the microphone - I tried very hard at the beginning to get my mic working correctly, but even I could tell that it was going in and out whenever I moved). One didn't find my color choice for SSMS very palatable - I think I will need to sit in a room with a projector and play with my choices. They look great on the screen (IMHO) but if the projector is dim or the lighting is not right, I think it will be difficult to find a good balance. Two people said I need to make it more dynamic, which I'll have to think about... I was going back and forth between slides and demos quite a bit, but I suspect they were talking about my being relatively monotone, or perhaps not soliciting enough conversation from the audience. And I was caught a couple of times answering a question without repeating it for the rest of the audience first - definitely need to get better about that.
One person suggested the session should be longer, which is probably true - there were plenty of bad habits I didn't even touch on, but could have with more time. Another suggested that I should cover 25 bad habits, not 12. And of course I received several suggestions for bad habits that I didn't cover - sp_ prefix, EXISTS / NOT EXISTS issues, and one even asked, "what about the rest of your bad habits from your blog?" Finally, someone complained that I didn't have print-outs. I don't think it's very typical for an event like this, since I have no idea how many people are going to show up at my session, and typically I'm still making last-minute adjustments right before I get up there anyway. :-)

4. Overall Comments:

Several compliments here, including knowledgeable, clear, very educational, useful, superb examples, interesting mix, good pace, great demos. Some negative comments as well: too obvious, need more examples (though this goes back to the time thing), and show more execution plan results. The last one is a great point... I actually did have a couple more of these to show, and they're in the download above, but I skipped them in the interest of time.

All in all I am quite happy with the feedback, and more importantly, quite happy that I can validate immediately how *I* felt the session went. As a whole, I think this SQL Saturday was quite successful, and anyone who was there should give a shout out to @AdamMachanic, @gfritchey, @mike_walsh and @SQLRockstar for putting together a great event!

SQL Saturday #67, Chicago: "What's New in SQL Server Denali"

AaronBertrand — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 15:01:00 GMT

Today I was in Chicago for SQL Saturday #67 to present my "What's New in SQL Server Denali" deck. You can download the deck and samples below.

I mentioned during the talk that THROW is another command added to the list that require the previous statement to be terminated with a semi-colon. Here is the blog post I referenced that talked more about why you should start using semi-colons today.

I liked the feedback mechanism at this event. Everyone was handed an evaluation, and the drawings took place after each session at the chapter table downstairs. Much more compelling to get your evals in right away, and even better, I get them back right after that. Which means I can tally my scores and see what went well, and more importantly, what didn't go well (and wasn't obvious). The evals were much simpler than some other events. Two basic questions and room for comments (not everyone left comments, and not everyone answered both questions):

Expectation (circle one): Did Not Meet / Met / Exceeded

Met: 23 / 34
Exceeded: 11 / 34

Overall quality (5 = great):

3: 4 / 32
4: 11 / 32
5: 17 / 32
Average: 4.41

Not top scores, no, but I still feel pretty good about this. What I liked most? Seven comments included one of my brand words, "knowledgeable." Well, a couple used the variation "knowledge" - but that counts, right?

The comment that surprised me most was a complaint that I didn't cover any BI. Even though I stated multiple times at the beginning that I wouldn't be covering BI - and even dedicated my very first "real" slide to this fact. Still, I've taken the feedback. For future events I'm going to change the title of the session to "SQL Server Denali : What's New in Engine, Setup and Tools."

I also gave a quick demo of SQL Sentry Plan Explorer in our vendor session at lunch (we were a "You Rock!" sponsor of SQL Saturday #67, after all). I didn't use a deck and it was all demos. Plan Explorer is free; if you haven't already tried it, please go to the download page and read my previous blog posts about the tool.