It's The People

Last week the 2024 PASS Data Community Summit conference was held in Seattle. 1,700 of my closest friends got together for a week of learning (well, technically it's a three day conference, but there are two days of pre-conference seminars) and sharing. I'm still exhausted a week later (although, old age and an aggressive travel schedule this year may be contributing to that). However, I had such a great time last week. The vibe, the feeling in the hall, was really up, positive, and just generally good this year. Further, it reminded me of things to keep centered.

First, friends and acquaintances. Those who know me well, personally, will attest that I'm not always the greatest about reaching out and keeping in touch. However, seeing a lot of people I hadn't seen for a while, some not for years, reminds me just how important it is to actually maintain your contacts. I'm insanely lucky to know some pretty amazing individuals. I need to do a better job of keeping in touch with them.

Next, the hallway track. If you've never been to a large conference, you may not have seen the hallway track on full display. It's not the same at smaller events like a Data Saturday or SQL Saturday. Larger events will see people congregate in the halls, sometimes in designated spots, like the Community Zone at Summit. There, you frequently can get as good answers as you will asking a speaker in a session. Sometimes better. I made a point this year of spending more time out there and had some really meaningful and helpful conversations because of it.

Your hotel room is primarily for sleeping, but make sure you sleep. I get it. We're nerds (or geeks, or whatever your preferred term is for IT people). As such, introverts are probably overly represented amongst us. Further, as nerds, we can be much more comfy communicating with machines than people. However, if you want to truly take advantage of an event like the Data Community Summit, you need to spend the week, out with people. Make those contacts. Be open, aggressively friendly, and ready to talk to others. Sure, by the end of the week you're exhausted, but you only get a shot like this once in a while. These are your peers. Get to know them.

I'm sure you see a pattern. As much as I love attending sessions, and I do, I think these in-person events are all about the people there. Like it or not, we're not far removed from our cavemen ancestors and still largely communicate as they do. Our, and their, best way of communicating is face-to-face. So, when you get that opportunity for the best communication, take advantage of it. It's how you build your network. A good network, makes you happier, smarter, and more employable. If you haven't had the opportunity to make it to the PASS Summit, or another big in-person event, I'd strongly recommend you try it out. Just, when you go, plan to focus at least some of the time on getting to know a few people.

Grant Fritchey

Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums

Critics worry Anthropic is endangering its "ethica...

"You’ve taken this idea way too far," a mentor t...

FrontierMath's difficult questions remain unpublis...

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are r...

Synthetic data generation, as its name suggests, i...

AI agents are at the forefront of a customer servi...

AI has led to breakthroughs in drug discovery and robotics and is in the process of entirely revolutionizing how we interact with machines and the web. The only problem...

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. How this grassroots effort could make AI...

How do you get an AI model to confess what's inside?

I like SQL Server temporal tables for implementing...

Dynamic Data Masking (DDM) in SQL Server is a feat...

One of the things that I’ve been asked in every ...

Row-Level Security (RLS) in SQL Server enables fin...

THE VIDEO THE SYNOPSIS In this video, I cover seve...

It tells us to take the time to master the foundat...

Well…..I just learned about these and thought th...

The post Building Effective Data Governance Framework: Top Areas to Focus On appeared first on Joyful Craftsmen.

Amazon Location unveils 17 new APIs with enhanced ...

AWS BuilderCards 2nd Edition: Gamify AWS learning ...

Annapurna Labs, acquired by Amazon in 2015, will r...

New Resource Control Policies let you centrally re...

  Time to start! Annabel Bradford (Head of Events...

Intro Ben Weissman, who is not going to retire aft...

It’s been an amazing week here, as well as a lon...

If you are an introvert like me, events like the P...

Last week, at the PASS Summit in Seattle, the DCAC...

An IT admin is looking for practical strategies to...

Starting at 4pm PST on Thursday, November 28th, SQLskills will be offering our lowest prices ever for our signature Blackbelt bundle with more than 158 hours of top-quality training.

After Halloween, my social media fills up with pic...

When learning something new, we always compare it ...

Balancing a career and raising a family is a juggl...

Database performance, especially in the cloud, is always a big concern. Traditionally, cloud storage has not performed as well as high-end on-premises storage. The introduction of faster cloud storage...

As consumers increasingly embrace a mobile-first lifestyle, businesses across various industries – from retail and banking, to insurance and telecommunications – are under pressure to create personalized and engaging...

How we handle data warehousing updates to dimensio...

Digital-first businesses are managing an overwhelm...

Just as the sun serves as the gravitational center...

This is the third and final blog post in my “Charting a Course Through the Data Mapping Maze.” If you’ve been following the previous posts, thanks for joining me on...

In RavenDB, we really care about performance. That means that our typical code does not follow idiomatic C# code. Instead, we make use of everything that the framework and the language...

While platform engineering can enhance DevOps, poo...

Welcome to part 2 of our Demystifying Continuous I...

Git bisect is an underrated but very powerful tool...

The episode on data masking and subetting is out. ...

Extracting and importing development and test data is often challenging due to difficulties with database constraints, dependencies and special data types. This article aims to provide a cross-RDBMS way...

This tip explores leveraging existing SQL Server s...

Question For example, I had a database and I want ...

As businesses rely more on SaaS applications, inte...

To protect critical operations, organizations shou...

US restrictions on semiconductor tech are spurring...

Smart grids are revolutionizing energy management,...

Not a surprising generational update, but a lot of...

Incremental improvements across the hardware and s...

More pixels and versatility, but without the sacrifices of dual-screen PCs.

Microsoft revealed no plans for an immediate HoloLens 2 successor, raising questions about the company’s commitment to its VR/AR technologies.

If you use any Kindle other than the 2021 Paperwhite, this is a huge upgrade.

By providing contextualization within the larger IT estate, AIOps ensures seamless performance, enhanced security, and operational efficiency.

Yesterday, Microsoft released the highly anticipated Windows 11 ARM ISO image, marking a major milestone for ARM-powered devices. This new release opens the door for users to install Windows... The...

Share analysis results (read-only) with customers ...

Obviously, you don’t want to start every solutio...

Please find the landing page for this series here....

This is a quick blog post to show you how to use a...

This month, Josephine has asked how we achieve ...

How to resolve issue where SQLServer gets slow over time until reboot The post SQLServer Gradually Becomes Slow Until Reboot appeared first on SQLServer Performance Optimization and Automation.

How To Get Rid Of NOLOCK Hints Forever Thanks for watching! Going Further If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my...

Continuing my occasional series of ways you can im...

Veterans face unique challenges transitioning to c...

Reading Time: 3 minutes For this months T-SQL Tue...

Another month, another T-SQL Tuesday. Edition 180 ...

I'm listening to Effortless by Greg McKeon (link t...

This book was making its rounds on social media, a...

Today’s post is in reply to the invitation post,...

For the penultimate T-SQL Tuesday invite of 2024, ...

Whatever your office setup, the most important thing is to move.

Like ancient Gaul, SQL is divided into three sub- ...

I’ve been writing about the problem with lawful-...

50 billion call and text records were stolen from ...

Presently sponsored by: 1Password Extended Access ...

With Linux systems increasingly under threat, this...

Former airman's arrest raised questions about who ...

Everybody is reporting about a new security iPhone security feature with iOS 18: if the phone hasn’t been used for a few days, it automatically goes into its “Before...

Although attacks slightly decreased last quarter, ransomware remains a critical threat, with new strains like Cicada3301 targeting Linux and ESXi systems.

Stuart Schechter makes some good points on the history of bad password policies: Morris and Thompson’s work brought much-needed data to highlight a problem that lots of people suspected was...

Learn how to create a moving average in SQL Server...

Last year, FDA advisers unanimously voted that ora...

His cassette recording, made for $200 in 1989, was...

Saddle up, space cowboys. It may get bumpy for a w...

Integrating genetic data with historic and archaeo...

"I did not say I was uncomfortable talking about i...

DeFlock is a crowd-sourced project to map license ...

The Series D fundraising round was "oversubscribed...

According to Eseye's 2024 report, IoT adoption is ...

Some tech start-ups and investors anticipate a golden era when Donald Trump returns to office, thanks to government contracts and deregulation.

In today’s digital world, data is the most critical enterprise asset. Data is required to run software, drive business intelligence, and deliver new functionality. Consequently, companies have tried to...

Fearmongers would have you believe that AI will replace us, but I truly believe there has never been a better time in history to be a developer. With the...

Microsoft is accused of using punitive licensing terms for Azure.

Ross needed to write software to integrate with a ...

A younger rival may have learned how to sabotage t...

Alicia recently inherited a whole suite of home-gr...

Entire continents, even in the tropics, seem to ha...

Repair options include using dedicated STL repair software, manual CAD edits, or slicer repair tools, along with preventative practices like backing up files and checking geometry integrity to ensure...

...Screens of Death. Photos of failures in kiosk-mode always strike me as akin to the wizard being exposed behind his curtain. Yeah, that shiny thing is after all...

OpenGarage restored my home automations and gave me a whole bunch of new ideas.

Broadcom acquisition was a "wake-up call" for VMwa...