The PASS HQ team is thrilled to announce the addition of two new team members to its core staff.
 
Karla Landrum—already well-known as a PASS volunteer extraordinaire— will join as our newest member starting on July 1. Karla’s passion and enthusiasm for the SQL Server community and PASS is unmatched. An active PASS Regional Mentor for the US Heartland region, Karla has been the lead organizer for 4 PASS SQLSaturdays, and she has volunteered at more than 15 other PASS-related events. Based in Orlando, FL, her role with PASS will focus on the community, managing the PASS Chapter and Regional Mentor programs along with the full roster of SQLSaturday events. Karla brings a true community insider’s perspective to the role, and we look forward to having her onboard. Karla, in her own words, is all set to “work hard, have fun, smile, and achieve success!”
 
Jumping into the new role of PASS Senior Executive Administrative Assistant during the recent Orlando, FL, PASS Board meetings, Michelle Nalliah has already proven herself to be indispensable. Based in Vancouver, BC, and working out of the PASS offices, Michelle manages all administrative duties and governance-related tasks for the PASS Board of Directors and HQ. She also assists the finance and operations teams where required. Michelle has 7 years of administrative experience and comes to us most recently from the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. We are delighted to have her as part of the team and have no doubt her organizational skills will be a great asset to PASS and the community.
 
Karla and Michelle are joining a strong team of individuals who work tirelessly behind the scenes to help PASS and its members to connect, share, and learn. And starting next month, you can learn more about each PASS HQ member through a new “PASS Staff” highlight feature in the PASS Connector newsletter.
 
In the meantime, please extend a warm welcome to Karla and Michelle and feel free to drop me a line with any questions or comments.

(cross-posted from Mark Ginnebaugh's blog - Ginneblog)

We’ve finally been able to determine that the PASS Summit 2013 will be in Charlotte, NC. The decision process has been in the works for a long time, and I think it was a well thought out process.

Long-time PASS members know that we’ve held the last three Summits in Seattle, and that we’ll be in Seattle for 2011 and 2012 as well. However SQL Server folks on the East Coast are faced with a long trip every year.

The reasons PASS has traditionally held the Summit in Seattle are pretty simple. About 300 members of the SQL Server product team are able to attend.  Plus Seattle is affordable, as conference cities go, and the venue is the right size.  PASS HQ is nearby in Vancouver – and we have the formula down.  We can put on the world’s premier SQL Server and BI conference, with consistent quality year after year.  The vast majority of PASS revenue comes from the Summit. Therefore moving the location elsewhere has significant risks.

At our January board meeting, there was much discussion about whether we should simply hold the Summit permanently in Seattle.  However, many members of the board felt that the community calls for somewhere in the East should be respected.

PASS HQ got proposals from the cities in contention, and presented their findings to the board.  Based on ranking of everything from venue proximity to hotels, nightlife, and pricing, we narrowed the list to two finalist cities, Charlotte and Dallas.  From there, HQ negotiated contracts with both cities, “grinding the pricing all the way down,” as Judy Christianson put it.

Last week we reviewed the final proposals. Dallas ranked high in many categories, including Microsoft’s Dallas-based SQL Server Escalation Support Team. But at the same time, Dallas is also one of three finalist cities for the 2012 SQLRally.

Finally, high ratings in many categories and substantially lower prices, led us to award the 2013 Summit to Charlotte. We hope this decision will result in another fantastic Summit, including the high attendance we consistently get in Seattle.

After 5 years in Seattle, PASS Summit will travel to Charlotte, NC, in 2013, bringing the world’s largest SQL Server and BI conference closer to database pros in the Eastern US who may not have been able to make the cross-country trip in the past.

Responding to community feedback to have PASS Summit outside of Seattle on a recurring basis, the PASS Board of Directors considered Charlotte and Dallas for 2013. Known as the Queen City, Charlotte’s strong conference amenities, affordable rates, and growing reputation as a convenient, friendly travel destination won over the Board during a meeting last week in Orlando, FL.

“The hope is to move PASS Summit around on an irregular schedule to expose more people from around the country to this high caliber SQL Server conference,” noted PASS Executive Vice President Bill Graziano. “Seattle will remain as a regular venue in the future in order to secure a larger Microsoft presence.”

PASS Summit 2007 in Denver was the last Summit held outside Seattle. PASS Summit has seen impressive growth in attendance from 2008 to 2010. And with the success of last week’s first-ever PASS SQLRally regional event in Orlando, PASS is excited at the opportunities to bring its world-class technical training and networking to DBAs, developers, BI architects, and IT pros who haven’t been able to travel to Seattle. The East Coast location should also be more convenient for many international attendees.

Stay tuned for PASS Summit 2013 dates and more details as they become available, and in the meantime, we’ll see you in Seattle this year!

Thanks to all the attendees, speakers, sponsors, and volunteers who made our first-ever PASS SQLRally regional event last week in Orlando a huge success! More than 440 database pros trekked to the Marriott World Center for 48 technical presentations, and 242 people attended the all-day pre-conference seminars.

It was a busy, exciting week. On-site feedback has been positive and enthusiastic. You can relive the experience via blog recaps, twitter (#sqlrally), and great photos on Flickr (search for the SQLRally tag).

SQLRally Orlando was a collaboration between our two Orlando PASS chapters (oPASS, led by Jack Corbett, and MagicPASS, led by Kendal Van Dyke); the PASS HQ team, led by Craig Ellis with a lot of help from Anika Poliseno and Sanjeet Gandham; and a cast of dedicated volunteers from PASS chapters throughout Florida. Truly a team effort!

As I look back at the event, it’s clear that a lot of SQLRally’s success is due to the wealth of practical experience many of us volunteers gained by being involved in SQLSaturday. The leadership and lessons learned through running the free, 1-day SQLSaturdays are just some of the many intangible benefits that the PASS community derives from SQLSaturday. I encourage you – whether as an attendee, volunteer, or a speaker or aspiring speaker – to become involved in a SQLSaturday near you.

Looking ahead, I’m excited to see the momentum from SQLRally Orlando continuing with PASS SQLRally Nordic in Sweden Nov. 8-9. And on June 15, we’ll start the community vote to select the site for PASS SQLRally 2012 in the US. We expect to announce the winner the first week of August.

(Cross-posted from Andy Warren's SQLAndy blog)

Can it really be less than 30 days to the first SQLRally? As I look back, it seems like a very long journey, and now that we’re close, the remaining time seems to be going by very quickly. I met with Jack Corbett on Friday to review the volunteer list and discuss plans for the sessions we have planned on Thursday after the regular day ends, the ones Jack has branded as Overdrive. Then I spent the rest of Friday afternoon reviewing options for some after-hours events. We’ll publish full details later this week, but it looks like it will be something along the lines of this:

• Tuesday evening – very informal and inexpensive meet-up for those that want to get together.
• Wed evening – drinks and appetizer option for those that want to attend (buy your own), followed by miniature golf. Both designed to get you out of the hotel into the Florida weather and connecting with other SQL professionals.
• Thurs evening – a meet-up at nearby Old Town, which is hard to describe, part county fair, part amusement park, part knick-knack shops. They have, among other things, a first class go cart track and a mechanical bull. I’m envisioning some great video from that!

These are all voluntary and designed to be similar but scaled down to the kinds of activities we have at the PASS Summit. If you’re attending and want to do other things – absolutely! After hours is your time. But if you want to meet some new people and have some low key fun, we’re trying to provide an easy way to do that.

Want to host your own get together? You can always put together a group for dinner, or you can set up something and announce it on the site (after the regularly scheduled stuff of course). If you’re staying for the weekend, you might consider heading to the Kennedy Space Center, taking an airboat ride (real Florida), or for some simple geek fun, head north about 30 minutes to Skycraft to see an amazing collection of surplus, well, everything!

I’ll be on site at the hotel around 1:30 pm on the 10th helping to organize and stuff bags and whatever else, and I’ll be at all the after hours events. I hope to see you at one (or all) of them.

Don’t forget that after April 30th the price increases for the last time to the list price of $399. Save the $50 by registering this week!

(This is Round 19 of PASS's weekly round-up of SQLSaturday recaps. PASS community bloggers love their SQLSaturdays, and they love to tell everyone about their experiences, so who are we not to share that love?)

This past weekend, PASS SQLSaturday crossed the Atlantic for its first taste of Europe. It's been a bit silent in the wake of SQLSaturday #78, Portugal - we imagine they're still recovering from the sheer awesomeness of the event. But fret not, because we still have lots of blog posts from the SQL community!

(Clearly, Porto Salvo is a solemn place fit for serious SQL training.)

For those of you on Twitter, follow @sqlpass and make sure to check out the #sqlsat and #sqlsaturday hashtags to stay up to date. Besides attendance at free learning events, there are many speaking and sponsorship opportunities available.

LAST WEEK IN SQLSATURDAY...

+ Hope Foley presented at SQLSaturday #68, Olympia

+ Mark Ginnebaugh attended SQLSaturday #73, Orange County

+ David Levy presented at SQLSaturday #67, Chicago

+ Tiago Salgado attended SQLSaturday #78, Portugal

+ David Stein helped organize SQLSaturday #63, Dallas

COMING UP IN SQLSATURDAY...

The next SQLSaturday takes place on April 30th in Jacksonville, FL. Stay tuned for more events this spring and summer - June's already looking pretty hot and new SQLSaturdays are added all the time.

IN OTHER NEWS...

SQLSaturday founders Steve Jones (blog post) and Andy Warren (blog post) have cooked up a new project to foster training within the SQL community. It's called The Mentoring Experiment and PASS Director Thomas LaRock is one of those excited about the idea. 

Want to attend or speak at a SQLSaturday? Check out the SQLSaturday website or "Upcoming In-Person Events" on the PASS Home page for upcoming dates near you.

Want to put on your own SQLSaturday? Click here to get started.

Dear PASS Members,

As I recently indicated in a post on this blog, PASS has made some amendments to its Bylaws. In that post, I provided a red-lined comparison between the old and new Bylaws. PASS Executive Vice President Bill Graziano also discussed the amendments to provide a more in-depth look at the planned changes.

Having given 30 days' notice as is required by the state of Illinois (where PASS is incorporated), the Board voted today to accept the amended Bylaws. The motion passed unanimously, with 14 "yes" votes, 0 "no" votes, and 0 abstentions.

The new Bylaws have been uploaded to the Governance page on the PASS website. Below the new Bylaws there is a link to download a copy of the old Bylaws, just in case you find a need for it. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me or Bill Graziano. Alternatively, you can post a comment below.

Regards,

Hannes Bezuidenhout
PASS HQ - Governance

 

[cross-posted from Andy Warren's blog at sqlandy.com]

SQLSaturday Site Changes

Earlier this week we deployed the first set of small changes to the SQLSaturday site. We fixed a long standing bug in the iCal, added a list on the front page of reserved dates (often events know the date they want but don’t have the facility nailed down), added sponsor logos to the front page of each event site (example below), updated the networking page to includes photos from gravatar (see example below), and made some minor changes to the admin tools.

We’re moving forward in micro sprints of around 7 days, the second sprint will end on next Tuesday and we’ve already planned number three. The prioritization of these changes is interesting. We’re deliberately going after tasks that are low risk/low cost initially to get our HQ developer comfortable and to make some immediate gains, as we get those out of the way we’ll move into harder stuff. Right now I’ve budgeted for 6 sprints, with an option to do an additional 6 if it makes sense.

We’re also working on engaging a designer to do an update on the look and feel. We had a lot of compliments on www.sqlrally.com, so we want to make a similar investment for SQLSaturday.

Go set up an image at gravatar.com!

SQLRally 2011

Things are proceeding well and I’d almost say smoothly. If you’ve run a SQLSaturday you now what this phase is like – details! Getting volunteer assignments defined and filled, ordering speaker shirts (can’t order too early because speakers change), ribbons for badges, lanyards with sponsor name,etc,etc, etc. We blew through the rooms we had reserved at the site hotel, so we’ve set up contact information for a nearby hotel that has shuttle service. We’re still doing weekly calls and trying to stick to our timeline for logistics and marketing (and actually doing pretty well at that). Registrations are growing nicely and it looks like we may sell out the pre-con seminars.

Jack Corbett is working on some additions to the schedule, a set of informal panel type sessions that will run after the last presentation on Thursday. I won’t steal his thunder by listing what he’s working on, but I think it’s really good stuff, a nice change of pace from the stuff you see during the day.

A good portion of the PASS Board will be on site for the event, we’re meeting parts of Wednesday and Thursday, but we’ll be out and about to see how things are going and spend time talking with attendees.

SQLRally 2012

We’re looking at three candidate cities for the 2012 SQLRally; Denver, Nashville, and Dallas. We laid out an estimated timeline and process back in January, it’s been a struggle to stick to it. Lots of places where we just didn’t know enough about how to accomplish what we wanted, a few places where we didn’t communicate our ideas well to the chapter leaders. Frustrating, for me and for the city teams. Some of it we should have – in hindsight – seen, some of it just the pain of trying something for the first time.

But my frustration aside, we’ve got three cities that have completed applications and are working with HQ to get to the point where we can move to the community selection/vote stage. The biggest holdup so far is identifying appropriate meeting space. Because SQLRally was designed from the start to be a low cost/low risk event, we did not budget for reserving rooms at the event site. That worked in Orlando (and we have it worked out in Dallas), but in particular for Nashville we’re struggling to find space without taking on the room commitment.

Room commitments are one of the hidden risks of running larger events. For example, at the PASS Summit we typically reserve (‘block’) more than 4000 rooms, with a potential exposure to PASS of more than $800,000. We’re not required to reserve the rooms, but from long experience we know that attendees get very, very frustrated if they can’t find a room in close proximity to the event site. For SQLRally we’re looking at a much smaller cost, but our estimate is still in the $35k range.

That’s $35k of risk. In the best case it’s just a guarantee, no cost to PASS, in the worst case we’d pay for $35k of rooms that weren’t booked by attendees (think a natural disaster scenario). We didn’t budget for it in the 2011 budget, and so far it’s not in the draft of the 2012 budget. Because of that I sent a motion to the Board asking for authorization to commit to up to $40k during the negotiation process. That motion was voted down. It’s a tough call, we are typically financially conservative, and there isn’t much profit built into our current pricing model to cover the risk. That means for 2012 we’re going to proceed with basically the same budget/plan as for 2011, but we’re going to talk a lot more about 2012 and beyond. If we want to seat 500+ attendees, our options get pretty narrow if we only want to rent meeting space, to the point that I’m not sure it’s a realistic goal. Lots more work to do in this area.

I had hoped to announce the 2012 location during the 2011 SQLRally, but at this point that is optimistic. We’re still working on locations for Denver and Nashville, and if we can find them we’ll need some time to review the proposals to make sure all the pieces work. Only then can we approve the final cities to go out for vote. There is the possibility – already communicated to the leaders – that we may not be able to find space that meets our requirements in each city, and that may remove them from the list for 2012.

It’s a work in progress for sure. It will be good to finish up the 2011 event so we can step back and decide if and where we want to tweak the formula, because we certainly will learn some lessons we want to apply to version 2.

(This is Round 18 of PASS's weekly round-up of SQLSaturday recaps. PASS community bloggers love their SQLSaturdays, and they love to tell everyone about their experiences, so who are we not to share that love?)

This past weekend featured a SQLSaturday double dose straight from the West Coast.

Some lucky attendees got their free SQL training in serene Olympia, WA at SQLSaturday #68, Olympia. Other lucky attendees got their free SQL training near the sunny surf of Huntington Beach, CA at SQLSaturday #73, Orange County. Those of you with grouping skills - wait, that's probably everyone - will agree that there is a common factor here: lucky attendees!

Of course, luck really had nothing to do with it. The success of both events can be chalked up to the dedication of the volunteers hosting them and the eagerness of the close-knit SQL community to get together whenever there's half a chance.

(Actually, Huntington Beach turned out to be a little cloudy and chilly, but that doesn't mean this SQLSaturday wasn't SQLsizzling!)

For those of you on Twitter, follow @sqlpass and make sure to check out the #sqlsat and #sqlsaturday hashtags to stay up to date. Besides attendance at free learning events, there are many speaking and sponsorship opportunities available.

LAST WEEK IN SQLSATURDAY...

+ Ryan Adams helped organize SQLSaturday #63, Dallas

+ Robert L. Davis presented at SQLSaturday #68, Olympia

+ Arie Jones presented at SQLSaturday #68, Olympia

+ Steve Jones presented at SQLSaturday #63, Dallas

+ Clint Kuntz presented at SQLSaturday #73, Orange County

+ Karla Landrum was part of the leadership team for SQLSaturday #72, Honolulu

+ Chuck Lathrope presented at SQLSaturday #68, Olympia

+ Meredith Ryan-Smith presented at SQLSaturday #73, Orange County

+ Colin Smith presented at SQLSaturday #73, Orange County

+ David Stein presented at SQLSaturday #67, Chicago

+ Paul Turley presented at SQLSaturday #68, Olympia

+ Andy Warren attended SQLSaturday #63, Dallas

+ Reagan Williams presented at SQLSaturday #73, Orange County

COMING UP IN SQLSATURDAY...

Next up is SQLSaturday's first stop in Portugal, which is happening on April 15 - apparently they do Saturdays on a Friday over there! The other SQLSaturday in April is taking place on the 30th in Jacksonville, FL. Stay tuned for more events this spring and summer, though - June's already looking pretty hot and new SQLSaturdays are added all the time.

IN OTHER NEWS...

If you're a speaker, you know that it's sometimes tough to have to hear criticism after pouring your heart and soul into a presentation. Brent Ozar's also been there - he provides some tips on how to deal with criticism.

Finally, PASS Director and SQLSaturday co-founder Andy Warren recently blogged about changes being made to the SQLSaturday web infrastructure. The plan is to make things easier and more streamlined. Check out his post here.

Want to attend or speak at a SQLSaturday? Check out the SQLSaturday website or "Upcoming In-Person Events" on the PASS Home page for upcoming dates near you.

Want to put on your own SQLSaturday? Click here to get started.

[cross-posted from Allen Kinsel's blog at allenkinsel.com]

This week we’ll be launching the call for abstracts for the 2011 PASS Summit.

I thought it would be good to go over the basics for this year especially since some things are changing from years past.  Many of the changes are minor, some are behind the scenes so to speak, and a small amount are larger and more public facing.

A New Site

PASS HQ and the Program Committee team has been diligently working to bring the summit speaker/education management programming inhouse.  With this effort comes a new site for abstract submissions.  We hope this new site will make the abstract submission process easier and more relevant to collecting the info PASS needs in order to facilitate session selections.

A New Process

One of the largest changes on the backend process this year is going to be seperating the speaker review from the abstract review piece of the selection process.  Essentially, this year we have two seperate teams to do each task.  This came about from the comments of previous review team members as well as the need to offload some of the work the call generates for the larger teams.  Im hopeful that this change will help bring a little more stability to the scores each team gives an abstract as well as cut some of the subjectiveness (likely only a tiny bit)

A New Session Type

I wrote previously about having 1/2 sessions at the Summit and they are still planned.  Now you know where to bring your best and brightest content!  In case your thinking what it would be like to have your 1/2 day session recorded, Ive got great news.   Ive got a tentative compromise devised.  This year we will be distributing two seperate DVD sets, 1 for attendees of the Summit which will have every session.  Another for non attendees that will have all of the regular sessions excluding the deep dive 1/2 day sessions. 

Spotlight Sessions & Invitations

Thanks to some great feedback last year The formula that we used for spotlight selections was adjusted and looks like this: We will invite all speakers who recieved an overall evaluation of 4.5 or greater and had at least 15 attendees and 15 completed evaluations.  We will be excluding Lightning talks, Chalk Talks, and Microsoft speakers.  This year that leaves us with a whopping total of 27 people getting spotlight invites.  These speakers are truly spectacular, and they deserve the extra recognition/time for their sessions.  All abstracts submitted as spotlight will be considered not only for a spotlight slot but, will also be considered for a regular session if they dont get picked for a spotlight session.

Preconference Changes

I would be remiss to not mention this here but, some different things (changes!!) are planned for this year, as soon as I get a chance to finalize them a bit more I will write about it, hopefully in the next few days to a week. 

Abstract Limits

We have decided to change the limits on abstract submissions a bit for this year.  We will be encouraging you to submit up to 4 total : Regular, 1/2 day and Spotlight (if invited) Sessions.  In addition if you meet he qualifications you can submit up to 2 Preconference sessions.  On top of this each person can submit 1 panel (discussion type) session for consideration.  In order to do this each speaker in your panel will need to have speaker details entered so we can rate the session properly.  This in itself is a pretty good sized change so get creative and see what the selection teams think!

But when

I can hear you asking from here… “All of thats great but, when will the call for abstracts for the 2011 PASS Summit open?”  I have great news. 

The call will open this Wednesday! 4/13/2011 

look for more info coming officially from PASS