SQL Saturday 232 Orlando Call for Speakers!

Hello Dear Reader!  We are at that time of the year again.  SQL Saturdays are popping up all over the country, spring is beginning to give way to summer, and the planning for SQL Saturday Orlando 2013, aka #SQLSAT232, is gearing up.  

This year our team of unbelievable SQL Server professionals  Shawn McGehee (@SQLShawn | Blog), Karla Kay (@karlakay22 | Blog),  SQL MVP Kendal Van Dyke (@SQLDBA | Blog), SQL MVP Andy Warren (@SQLAndy | Blog), and Ben Cork are working to bring you an incredible event.

Leading up the speaker track are myself and SQL MVP Rodney Landrum(@SQLBeat|Blog).  That brings us to you Dear Reader.  I need your help, I need YOU to submit to be a speaker for SQL Saturday 232.

“So Balls”, you say, “What is SQL Saturday and why should I submit to be a speaker?”

That my Dear Reader is the $50,000 question.  The short answer, let’s go make a little history together.

COME MAKE SOME HISTORY

What is SQL Saturday?  From its humble beginnings, SQL Saturday was started as a way to give back to the SQL Community.  The statement “give back”, is over used and often clichéd.  It is used to give meaning to deeds, when people have trouble justifying “why” they did something with greater substance than going with the truth and saying they did it because “it was popular to do”.   True justification rolls off the tongue like drops of rain water fall off leaves.   In this case, however, I find to “give back” fitting. 

The professionals that assembled saw value in sharing knowledge.  Turning hard learned lessons, production level victories, and new and unexplored concepts into group discussions and learning.  In the end it created an amazing support group.  We are one group of professionals, which have a particular job. Sometimes we are on a team, other times alone, the people we interact with outside of our field do not often understand our challenges.

The one thing I hear over and over again from first time SQL Saturday goers is, “I feel like I arrived at a home that I never knew I was missing”.  I share that feeling, it was how I felt on my first day.  My first was SQL Saturday 49 Orlando 2010.  You can see, I arrived late to the party. 

The very first SQL Saturday happened in Orlando on November 10^th 2007.  It was the brain child of Andy Warren.  There was only one SQL Saturday in 2007.  The concept was simple, get MVP’s, Authors, first time presenters from the SQL Community, and put on a FREE day of training.

Six Tracks, Seven different time slots, and a total of 37 different sessions throughout the day and we had our first one in the bag.  The very next Year saw SQL Saturday 2 in Tampa, followed by SQL Saturday 3 in Jacksonville, SQL Saturday 4 back home in Orlando, and SQL Saturday 5 (the first one out of Florida) in Olympia Washington.  Five SQL Saturdays in 2 years.  Last year in 2012 there were 50 in many different States across the US and 32 in other countries and US Territories, for a total of 82 different events.

Now it’s time for SQL Saturday to come back home.  Now it’s time for SQL Saturday Orlando.  Once a year we do this.  We come back home to where it all started.  It is fitting that Orlando is associated with attractions from far across the globe.  There is a magic here that draws us in (no not just the Mouse).  This is where it all began and this is your chance to be a part.  I wouldn’t want you to miss it!

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?

If you want to give a talk but don’t know where to begin, read this blog I put together ( I WANT YOU to Present at SQL Saturday 85).  I discuss Abstracts, how to write one, and how to put together an author biography.

Once you’ve done that all you need to do is click here to submit, the call closes 7/23/2013 so get yours in now!

“So Balls”, you say, “I already see some SQL BAD @$$es like Tim Ford, Devin Knight, and Andy Warren have already submitted?  What chance do I have?”

Not just good, but a GREAT chance Dear Reader!  SQL Saturday not only has the goal of educating people for free, but we grow local speakers. I was in charge of speakers for SQL Saturday 85 and my mission was to give everyone a slot especially first time speakers.    Rodney and I have talked about this, it took longer to drink the beer than it took to set our guidelines.

I want you to succeed Dear Reader, and so does the rest of the SQL Saturday Team.  If you have the fire in your belly to go out and give a talk to a group of IT professionals, newbie or Pro, you cannot find a better venue than SQL Saturday Orlando.

I hope to see you there!  As always Thanks for Reading!

Thanks,

Brad

SQL Saturday 215 Deck and Demos Live

Hello Dear Reader!  I'm up in Jacksonville for SQL Saturday 215. Today I'm presenting SQL Internals, Backups, and Recovery Models!  OH MY!  

I'm also going to be the MC for the SQL Iron Chef BI presentation today.  Before the festivities being I wanted to upload my deck and Demo, a few tweeks from the last presentation I did up in Boston. One of the big differences, more data for the partitioning & Peicemeal Restore demo.  I got an SSD this week, and it's time to have some fun with it!

Early morning outside the main hall SQL Saturday 215 Jacksonville

I'll be in the DBA Auditorium from 1:15 - 2:15 today.  If you'd like a copy of the deck Click Here, if you'd like a copy of the demos Click Here.

Hope to see you there!

The 200 Billion Dollar Tweet

Hello Dear Reader!  Ever try to convince someone that they should be paying attention to Twitter?  A co-worker, Vice President of something or other, CMO, CEO, or CIO?  

I’ve had conversations over the years with many people as to why Twitter is important to their business.  If they don’t have a dedicated “Social Media” guru or their Corporate and Legal Policies do not yet “allow” an official Twitter presence, they can still effectively market, and monitor marketing, using Hash Tags.  It’s a way of dipping your toes in the water without really diving in.

Alas most of the conversations revolve around what “real” results they can gain from Twitter.  Most lack the vision or understanding to see how it could benefit them.  Tying a dollar amount to Twitter can be difficult.  Most companies don’t track or publish earnings related around a Twitter campaign.  They do with traditional advertising, but with social media it’s hard to tie a dollar amount to it.

I was a little busy yesterday with work.  Like most days I poked my head out on Twitter and checked several new sites.  I even received some push updates to my phone via USA Today, Fox News, and the New York Times.  So Imagine my surprise when this morning while standing in line at the Starbucks in the Charlotte airport that I see this.  Twitter Terror Hoax Rocks Wall Street, AARRRUUUU?

Learning about social media occurrences the next day via the new paper.  How old fashioned.  Loosing 200 Billion dollars over 80 typed characters, not so old fashioned.

Twitter first came out I laughed at it.  Why would anyone want to have a website version of Instant Messenger, remember AOL, limited to 140 characters?  Turn around several years and I have firmly flip flopped, Oxymoron, and have drunk the Twitter Kool-Aid.

What changed my mind?  Becoming a presenter in the SQL Server Community.  I went to my first SQL Saturday and caught the bug, read TSQL Tuesday #41 Becoming a SQL Server “Presenter” GETINVOLVED!  One of the things I did was examine the really good speakers and see what they were doing.  They blogged, they were on Linked-In, they were on Twitter.  So I did all of that. 

Only after the fact did I find #SQLHelp, the hashtag that allows people to ask whatever SQL question they have and get free advice from some of the Top SQL Talent in the world.  There were situations where I had production outages and we, my fellow DBA’s and managers, used Twitter to post questions and get deep technical answers quickly.

“So Balls”, you say, “YAY you’re on Twitter.  Now what about this 200 Billion dollar Tweet?!”

At 1:07 pm, East Coast Time, the Associated Press Twitter account, currently suspended, was hacked.  The 80 characters contained within the Tweet typed by the hackers seemed particularly potent given the turmoil of the last week.  “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barak Obama is injured”.  I’m not alone in my conversion, apparently the people trading on the New York Stock Market follow the Twitter as well.

By 1:09 pm the Dow had fallen over 137 points.  While it rebounded quickly, 1:12 pm when Sam Hananel (@SamHananelAP) Tweeted, “Please ignore AP Tweet on explosions we’ve been hacked”.  The market corrected.  But did it?

My Dad does a lot of day trading.  He’s studied up on it, and I’ve learned a tiny (very tiny) little bit about it vicariously through him.  You can take options out on Stocks termed calls, where you bet they will over or under perform.

Based on their performance you get your money back and a little extra.  The most notorious case of this came during 9-11 where some nefarious people had bet on the airlines to lose money.  In regular terms though this is used daily, sometimes you win, sometimes the company you bet on wins.  It's part of our system.

*It’s a lot more complicated than that, but we’ll stick with the very basics.*  Think betting, but using the stock market.  There are also automatic options that you can set through e-investing web sites.

So it could have affected Calls.  People could have lost money.

Another way that people could have lost money on this?  Using automated software to monitor stocks.  

Quick example, I like Disney.  So I go buy some Disney stock.  Disney is a non-essential good (basically).  They make entertainment, theme parks, dresses that my daughter likes to wear, movies my kids like to watch (DAD include on this).  I don’t NEED Disney stuff.  We get it with disposable income.  We NEED food.  The mortgage HAS to be paid.  Electricity, need that too!  So when there are hard times disposable good take a hit.  Look at the stock market when 9-11 happened, the Mortgage Crisis, and other such events.

So I buy 100 Disney stock at $35 a share for $3,500.  If something happens and Disney stock drops $10 per share, I could set up a pre-arranged sell order.  At $25 sell it all.  Let’s say the stock market tanks Disney stock because a Hacker gets into their official account and announces “Disney to go bankrupt, 10,000 employees to be laid off immediately”.

My Stock dips down to $23, while I’m at work.  My e-banking software kicks in and sells all my Disney shares.  My money is down to $2500 and I’ve just lost $1000.  When it is correctly reported that Disney is not going bankrupt and is having a record Quarter beating all earnings estimates, and the stock now corrects to $40 a share, I’m no longer a stock holder.  Not only did I take a loss, but I was out on the Win too.

I just lost $1000.  I just missed out on gaining $500.  There is no customer service department.  No receipt to be returned.  I’m out.  The market was correctly reported.  Based on my input a sell order happened.  Potentially A LOT of sell orders from all sorts of people happened. 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN

Security and Reality.  First Security.  It means some real people lost real money yesterday.  We’ll have to see what the fallout of this is.  It also means that if you do have a Corporate Twitter account you probably need to look at changing the password every 90 days, and using something like KeePass to manage your password.

Warnings aside it also means we can now put a dollar amount on Twitter.  USA Today estimated that $200 billion dollars in broader market capital was lost when the Tweet occurred.  The market rebounded and that capitol was regained, with some people suffering losses.

Before I could even finish writting this blog, there was a new story.  SEC, FBI probe fake Tweet that rocked stocks.  And another Twitter working on two-step authentication. 

Now Reality.  The financial world is following Twitter and most other forms of social media.  The importance of effectively using this channel to communicate with customers and the world at large is only going to gain importance as time goes on.  The most expensive Tweet in the world so far is now worth $200 Billion dollars.  How much will the next one be worth?

As always Thanks for stopping by.

Thanks,

Brad