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 ...

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. ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

This might be most most overcommitted four-week period of time ever in my life. I’m tired just thinking about it! Not only am I traveling internationally and speaking over the next few weeks, I’m also helping on two book projects, learning some new applications from Quest Software, and helping on a small Transact-SQL refactoring project. Swag ...

I'm being a little bit incendiary with that title. Many IT pros grow into very good managers. But it almost never comes naturally. It takes hard work and many hard won lessons before most of us ever achieve a degree of skill and comfort with managing other people. Thinking about moving into management? Help is here! I've been spending the ...

Introduction This post is the forty-second part of a ramble-rant about the software business. The current posts in this series can be found on the series landing page. This post is about the removing obstacles to performance (in people). People Are Good I believe people want to perform well – in life, on the job, in business and personal ...

Introduction I saw a recent post on Thomas LaRock’s blog (Blog | @SQLRockStar | SQLPeople) about The Mentoring Experiment. The Experiment The Mentoring Experiment is a(nother) brain-child of Steve Jones (Blog | @way0utwest) and Andy Warren (Blog | @sqlAndy | SQLPeople). As with their previous endeavors, this new venture is profound ...