Community Events

This may sound odd as a topic for Applications Development for Project Managers, but having just volunteered for (and attended) a community event, I feel compelled to remark on it. The event was the 1st SQL Saturday held in South Florida. It was organized by Scott Klein & Herve Rogero & was held at DeVry University (thanks Ed Hill) . I heard of the event through my membership in the Florida .net Users Group. As little as a month ago, there were only 70 registered participants & the hopes were for at least a hundred attendees. Within the next few weeks registration soared to 450+; and pending a final count of attendees, best guess is ~350 attended. This is for a 1st time event here in South Florida! There is obviously a huge pent up demand for focused training on new technology & concepts. (It might be useful to e-mail the participants to find out how they heard of the event in order to get a handle on future event information dissemination channels). My guess is through community newsletters, LinkedIn & word of mouth.

This event had six tracks, one BI, four DBA & one Developer. Everybody (including DBAs, & Developers), needs to be familiar with BI & it was SRO all day. All tracks & session were well attended & even with 4 DBA tracks, many of those were also SRO. (Click on the Schedule or Session images to see a larger version)

The goal was to feature as many different speakers and topics as possible, but space limitations prevented us from accepting every session. I was interested in the Developer Track, but as the number of attendees continued to rise, I found myself spending all that time doing various things in my volunteer role, as opposed to my attendee role. I went up & down the stairs so many times, I’m virtually crippled today (two days after the event). I had forgotten that I had a phone list & a cell phone. It’s OK, I needed the exercise.

We had a problem with the SSIS sessions. The originally scheduled speaker was unable to attend & we didn’t find out until the session was starting. One of the attendees, Jared Kirkpatrick, stepped in & gave a presentation on SQL Server Security. The SSIS sessions were re-scheduled & given by Devin & Brian Knight (yes, that Brian Knight). One thing to remember about communities, is that they are just that, communities, a group of people with something in common, some shared vision or need. I have found that communities are composed of people who are willing to share their time & expertise & that they are a source of help & information in solving many problems & answering many questions.

I am a member of various communities with local chapters, such as the aforementioned Florida.net users group (part of Ineta), & the South Florida Chapter of PMI. I also follow other local communities to get a heads up on events. Some of these are the Gold Coast Users Group (GCUG), & various LinkedIn groups, local, national & international. There are two local SQL groups under the umbrella of Florida .net, the Miramar SQL group & the Palm Beach SQL group. I’m also a member of PASS , MPUG, PMI, PMI-ISSIG, & will soon become a member of the new Agile Community of Practices. I follow several Software Development & Project Management blogs & publications, & probably view on average a webinar a week on new technology & best practices.

The point of all this is that if you do not stay current with new developments in your profession, you will be left behind. The rate of change is accelerating & we all need at the very least a familiarity of what’s out there & how it can benefit us in achieving our objectives, whether they are a new application, better speed, more reliability, or whatever. The contributors to this event, & other local events deserve our thanks & applause. They have provided free training by true & proven experts, it’s up to us to take advantage of it.