“Many in the community seem to think that the PASS election process is badly broken.  Do you think that PASS needs to implement fundamental and far-reaching changes to its election process, or does it only need some fine tuning?  Please explain your thoughts?”

Learning from the experience…

I don’t want to keep rehashing the past, because it’s been done (here, here, here, and here, to name a few; if you want a LOT more reading material, the elections site has a bunch of blog entries).   While there are lots of lessons to be learned, and ideas to be discussed, I think there are two key points that are not stressed enough:

1. Our discourse as a community has been healthy, and
2. Nobody involved in the process has walked away clean.

For the first point, I think we’ve been able to keep our disagreements civil; there have been some comments made from several key contributors to the discussion that have been more cutting than others, and I have said some things that I should have kept to myself, but all in all, I don’t think we’ve burned any bridges that can’t be rebuilt.   The only lingering meme that continues to bother me is the occasional “community-vs.-PASS” theme that is implied in some of the discussions; I’ll talk more about why that bothers me in a bit, but I fear we too easily fall into the trap of needing to define an invisible “Them” to be an antithesis to our “We”.   We is Them, and They are We.

The second point was driven home to me like a dagger to the heart in a response from Andy Warren to a dialogue in the comments section of Brent Ozar’s post on the issue:

Agreeing to disagree is seldom satisfying, but often necessary. I’m entirely biased about my views on this, but I think it’s easy to forget the pain that continues along with this discussion. Replace the name of SJ with yours, and imagine how it would feel to be left off the slate (fairly, unfairly or otherwise), and then have a conversation continue that seems to imply a great failure during the interview, but no details emerge. Do you defend yourself or lay low? What if you allow the inner details to be published, but they are not?

We don’t agree on the way things worked out. Ok. I think we should let things heal a little more, then have the values and process conversation that we should have had last year – one that I’ve admitted I should have helped to make happen. Yell at me. Yell at the process. But I think we’re at the point where we leave a good man to tend his wounds and we try to do better next year, or we have the entire conversation and let the chips fall where they way on each side. I vote for moving forward.

Not my place to tell you not to talk about it, and much of this has been good conversation. But please remember my friend is not an abstraction. Actually, I wish I could say that better. I know that you don’t he is an abstraction, but I’m not sure that this conversation, right now, helps any of us.

I’ve been so busy defending what I perceived to be attacks on the character of the Nom Com or the quality of my work that I’ve forgotten what it must be like to be in Steve’s place, and for that I’m truly sorry.   I don’t regret my choice to point out what I think are inaccurate statements about the process, but I should have tempered my comments with more grace than I did.  That being said, I think we all need to step back and realize that nobody was completely happy with this year’s election process; obviously, the controversy was not a desired outcome by anyone on the Nom Com, the Board, or the membership at large.  So how do we fix the process moving forward?

Is the process irreparably broken?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer:  I think if you look at any business that has an electable Board of Directors, the nominations process is similar; the Board appoints a committee to find qualified candidates, and then votes to approve or reject the slate.   The elections process should be simple, but fair; I don’t think that a Board of an organization need be run like the federal government (with election cycles dictating workflow). That being said, I think there are lots of opportunities to tweak the process, and learn from our mistakes.

Tweak 1: Standardize the qualifications for a Director

I think PASS made strides this year, but there should be very specific minimum requirements for a seat at the table.  Andy Leonard and K. Brian Kelley both made excellent points about the inadequacy of using a ranking system to evaluate certain concrete measures like Education and References.  If we must use a ranking system, then the criteria for the ranks need to be carefully defined, like so:

Applicant must have a Bachelor’s Degree (or equivalent University degree).
Add 1 point for a Master’s Degree in any subject.
Add 1 point for a Doctorate Degree in any subject.

Please note that the above example is merely intended to illustrate specific ranking criteria; the definition of Education itself warrants more discussion than I have time for in this post.

Experience with PASS is another great example of a objective measure that needs standard ranking; how long have you been a member?  What volunteer roles have you performed?  Is experience as a chapter leader more or less valuable than experience on the Program Committee?  Whatever standards are chosen, they should be well-defined and applied evenly from year to year; if an applicant doesn’t change their behavior from year to year (i.e., an applicant with little PASS experience in year 1 doesn’t get involved in year 2), they should have the same score.

Tweak 2: Transparent Application, Opaque Interviews, Translucent Board

Applications should be made available to the public, as well as the ranking using the standardized questionnaire described above; the general members of PASS should feel confident that the scoring system used to evaluate an application reflects the applicant’s ability to meet the minimum requirements.

However, I think that discussions within the Nominations Committee, including interviews with the applicants, should remain opaque: a black box.  I know others think that the Nom Com should be completely transparent, but I think that the job of the Nom Com is to probe areas beyond the minimum qualification, and in order to do so, the members of that group need the ability to ask questions that may not be appropriate for general consumption.  I think this protects both the applicants and the volunteer interviewers (what if I, as a volunteer, were to ask a really stupid question?  Should I be vilified on the Internet by the membership?).  But here’s the rub: the interviews need to be recorded.

The interviews should NEVER be released to the general membership, but once the slate has been presented to the Board of Directors for approval or rejection, the interview tapes need to be included as part of the recommendation in order to give the Board full insight into why the Nom Com chose to recommend or deny certain candidates.  The board should then accept or reject the slate, and if they choose to reject the slate, decide how they’re going to move forward; the discussions surrounding the slate should not be released, but the vote should.  That way, if the general membership felt that the process was unfair, they could contact the Board members and move forward with resolving the issue.

Tweak 3: Maximize member involvement

I think one of the hardest problems to tackle in this discussion is the issue of member involvement; as I mentioned earlier, the theme of “community vs. PASS” is a difficult pill for me to swallow because I see every member of PASS (including the Board) as member of the community.  I also realize (as a chapter leader) that there are many members of the community which are not PASS members, and members of both subsets that are not active in many of the social networks that were abuzz with concerns over the process.

Let me back up and clarify: I’m a chapter leader for AtlantaMDF, and at one point, we had nearly 1500 SQL Server Professionals on our private mailing list.  These were people who at one point had registered for a meeting of ours; I’d consider them member of the community.  Are they PASS members? Maybe.  Are they active on twitter, or active bloggers?  Dunno; my experience presenting on these topics leads me to believe that the vast majority of SQL Server Professionals are NOT involved in social networking.  Kendra Little had a similar take on the problem of uninvolved membership (I stole the graph from her):

Voting stats from the last few elections would probably back up this idea; although I don’t remember the actual numbers, I do remember thinking that the voter turnout was abysmal compared to the number of people that PASS claims as members (remember that membership is free).  Sort of like the same feeling I get when I think that AtlantaMDF invites 1500 people every month to come to a meeting, and 75 do; I’m grateful we got 75, but we’re missing a lot of interaction from 1425 other people.

So how do we involve the membership?  I think that Chapter Leaders (including Virtual Chapter Leaders) should be randomly selected and asked to serve on the Nom Com every election cycle, and the number of Chapter Leaders should always outweigh the number of Board seats by at least 1.   Why Chapter Leaders?  To me, they represent the local faces of PASS, and are the most likely ones to understand the pulse of the community.  Why not bloggers, tweeters, or columnists?  Although I think that social networkers provide a great service to the community, they don’t necessarily have an official relationship with PASS.   PASS serves the community, but I think the election process needs to be membership driven.

Involving the membership via Chapter Leaders on the Nom Com should (I hope) instill some trust in the process, even if the interview process yields an unpopular result.  It’s a lot harder to accuse the Nom Com of predetermining the outcome of an interview because of their ties to the Board if the Nom Com consists of a majority of non-Board members.

Summing up.

I have several other ideas (such as the possibility of a Chapter Congress), but many of them require drastic overhauls of how PASS does business; that’s simply not feasible.  I think many of the problems of the last two elections can be easily resolved with a few minor tweaks.  However, the first step is the conversation, and that conversation needs to begin well before the election season.  It’s easy to be upset about the outcome, but in order for real change to occur, we (the community) need to step up and participate in the conversations.  I am eagerly awaiting the chance; are you?

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DISCLAIMER: I should point out that my feelings of boredom are NOT an indicator of any dissatisfaction with my current employment; rather, it’s a personal feeling that I’m not pushing myself as hard as I used to.   I’m not planning on making a move or any other sudden change of life; I just feel out-of-balance, and need something to center myself again.

I should stop this post here and point out something; I am a student of Western civilization, and I grew up in the Bible Belt.  The little understanding of Eastern philosophy that I have comes from many wasted hours of watching bad martial arts movies (including the Karate Kid I, II, and III); for the most part, Eastern meditation is still considered to be relatively taboo in the deep south.

Anyway, back to our previously scheduled post.  If you’re not familiar with the movie, The Forbidden Kingdom is a fun martial arts action movie with lots of comedic interludes; it’s loosely based on the story of the Monkey King, and the need to return his staff to him to defeat the Jade Emperor.   The staff bearer is an unlikely choice, and he encounters two martial arts teachers along the way, who train him in the art of kung fu.  This teaching is where the film becomes relevant to me at this point in my life.

The path to kung fu is different for everyone.

In the film, the staff bearer is thrust into a strange world of mystery and chaos; it’s a violent world, and he often doesn’t know whom to trust.  However, he meets two teachers who begin instructing him on his journey.  Their fighting styles are very different;  the drunken fighting style of Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) is often in conflict with grace and agility of the Silent Monk (Jet Li).  However, both are kung fu. 

In a similar fashion, those of us who work with SQL Server have all come from different backgrounds; some of us have backgrounds in analytics, some in application development, and some in system administration.  Yet, we are here today.  The important thing to remember is that this is but a space in time, a point in the journey; in order to survive in our occupations, we must continue along the path.

Kung fu requires a desire to learn.

While this seems self-evident, it is often the hardest lesson to learn.  Kung fu is not just about being willing to learn a few new tricks, it’s also about being willing to put aside preconceptions.  Too often we think we focus on what we believe is the right thing to do to maintain our current place in life, only to later find out that we wasted a valuable opportunity to learn something new.  From the film (thanks IMDB!):

Jason Tripitikas: You think you’ll teach me the No Shadow Kick? Oh, and the Buddha Palm Technique. There’s a guy in Virtual Fighter 2, who does the Buddha Palm Technique.
[Lu gives him a cup]
Jason Tripitikas: Thanks, Lu. And he does the Iron Elbow. And he does the One Finger Death Touch.
[the cup starts overflowing]
Jason Tripitikas: The cup’s full. Stop! It’s full!
Lu Yan: Exactly, how can you fill your cup if already full? How can you learn Kung Fu, you already know so much. No Shadow Kick, Buddha Palm! Empty your cup.
[Jason empties his cup]
Lu Yan: [looks at him in surprise] Hopeless. It is hopeless!

Obviously, the lesson is there; the student has preconceived notions about what he should be learning to be a master, rather than simply watching,observing, and learning from what the path presents.  In my own path to be a SQL Server developer, I’ve neglected my administration skills.  I’ve walked away from learning SSIS because my job required me to build a custom ETL process.  I’ve filled my cup with what I think are important things, and neglected to pay attention to the path.  If I were to apply for a development position today, it would be a challenge to convince a future employer of my worth.

Kung fu requires discipline.

Any one who’s ever seen a martial arts movie recognizes the essential truth of this.   To be good at what you do, you must be disciplined in your study.  However, what is important to kung fu is recognizing that discipline is required not only in the maintenance of skills, but also in the ability to sense where the path leads.  As a database professional, you must be willing to invest time in perfecting those things you know (T-SQL? database design?), but also spend extra time learning something new (pick up SSIS or SSAS; how about Reporting Services or Visual Basic?).  True kung fu knows the balance, however; it is often best to be a master of a single skill than a novice in all of them.

Jason Tripitikas: What do we do now?
Lu Yan: How good is your Gung-fu?
Jason Tripitikas: [puzzled look]
Lu Yan: He who speaks, does not Know; He who Knows, does not speak. Surely you’re masterful.

Kung fu masters are obligated to teach any student that seeks, no matter how unlikely the choice.

This is the part I have been struggling with lately; I have neglected teaching, and that is critical to learning.  If you want to learn something new, volunteer to teach about it.  I recently taught a seminar on XML in SQL Server because I wanted to learn more about it; granted, I didn’t push myself hard enough so I didn’t learn as much as I should have, but at least I took another step along the path.

But kung fu is not just about teaching to the willing student, it’s teaching to those who are different than us.

The Silent Monk: But, he’s not even Chinese.

Too often we database professionals assume that the only people that are interested in what we do are other database professionals.  We often fail to volunteer our services to developers, because we assume that they aren’t interested in database performance; instead we grumble about how poorly applications perform.  We don’t share our concerns about how I/O’s affect the database, and instead struggle on with the allotment that our system administrators hand out on the SAN.  We should be volunteering to speak at other user groups, to share our passion with even the unlikely students.  For example, my friend Aaron Nelson recently spoke at a Powershell event; Aaron himself would admit that he’s a SQL guy first, Powershell guru second.  Yet he took the opportunity to teach students with whom he shared little background on a subject with which he had some exposure.  That’s kung fu.

Final thoughts.

I think most martial art movies attempt to convey the message that kung fu is about self-discipline, rather than preparation for violence, but make no mistake: kung fu is an effective fighting skill.  A master of kung fu is a warrior, not a ballet dancer.  I’ve recently read a great book, Wild at Heart, which contains the following bit of wisdom:

Man is not born into a sitcom or a soap opera; he is born into a world at war.  This is not Home Improvement; it’s Saving Private Ryan.  There will be many, many battles to fight on many different battlefields.

We are at war with ourselves; the battle to perfect our craft is a battle against sloth, laziness, and a lack of focus.  I am choosing to continue on the path of kung fu in my quest to become a SQL Server master, and I hope you can make the same commitment.  For me, that’s a commitment to finish my SQL Server 2008 certifications before the end of year; that’s a benchmark, not a destination.  I need to learn much along the way.

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Apparantly, PASS started notifying potential speakers that their submissions for Summit 2010 were accepted today for ; unfortunately, I was not one of them (at least not yet).  2 of my 3 submissions were “Considered” before being rejected, and a third is listed as an “Alternate”.   Although I’m disappointed, I do think that it suggests that the quality of submissions must be EXCELLENT this year.  I mean, if I didn’t make it, then obviously they put in the heavy hitters   Congrats to those who did make it.

I’ll keep trying, of course; I was accepted to speak at the Baton Rouge SQLSaturday, but unfortunately a personal conflict is keeping me from being able to attend.  I have high hopes about Nashville, and I’m pondering Kansas City.    I’m also planning on presenting at the Columbus Georgia SQL Server User Group in September, so I’ll keep refining my chops a bit.  I’m also still hoping to attend Summit, if I can figure out a way to pay for it.

Anyway, back to the grind.  Life ain’t all bad; I’m teleworking this week from lovely Florida, where I’ve been able to work all day, see friends at night, and enjoy some time at the beach in the evening.  It’s all a matter of perspective.

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The good news is that one of the main goals of this committee is to provide transparency into the electoral process of PASS; much of the information regarding why candidates were chosen (or not) will be provided throughout the process (barring any personal information) in order to create a dialogue between the community and the board.  I think this is a good thing, even though it’s not always easy to implement.  There are three board positions open this year, and I hope we get a slew of excellent candidates from which to pick.

Anyway, stick around for more news about the election; every year gets a little more exciting, and I hope that this year proves to be no different.  PASS is a community-driven organization; it should represent the ideals of the SQL Server community.  In other words, if you are a database professional, PASS should represent your interests, and be a useful mechanism for furthering your professional development.   That only works when people get involved, mmmK?  Oh and remember, next Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.

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I’ll be packing a couple of presentations (just in case they have an opening): the Social DBA and my latest discussion on XML in SQL Server 2008.  I was planning on submitting both of them to PASS Summit this year, but I feel a little guilty about the Social DBA one given that I’ve completely slacked off over the last few months.  I keep thinking I’m going to get back on the wagon, but life has been flying by much too fast these days.

Speaking of friends, Dallas is kind of like an old home to me; I grew up in Louisiana, and many of my high school and college buddies wound up in the big D after graduation.  I’m looking forward to crashing on a few couches, having a few beers, and hearing what happened over the last 20 years or so.

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Today, I realized that I was sitting in a dark house, and I had a ladder and a light bulb.  I decided that I was going to do something productive today, and I changed the damn light bulb.  I also realized that I could write a blog post, and that I needed to commit to doing something productive every day, or I was going to slide slowly into the abyss.

So, here we are, you and me, and this blog post that isn’t going anywhere.  Think of it as a public commitment; I vow to blog at least once every week.  I need to reconnect with people, and this blog had been a great vehicle for that in the past, and it will be one for me again.  So, if you’ve hung around waiting on something to happen… it’s happening.

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My wife and I have decided to separate after 14 years of marriage; although it’s a painful process, I’m hoping that we’ll both survive this, and come out of it as better people.  I wish I could say that it was completely mutual, but to be honest, I’m no longer able to understand her motives.  All I know is that I needed something to change in order for me to be healthy and happy, and this seems to me to be the only option left (and please, if you have an opinion about that, keep it to yourself.  I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need advice at this point).

Anyway, I’ve been busy setting up a new home and working out visitation with my kids (who I think are doing remarkably well under the circumstances).  It’s been tough making the adjustment, but I think I’m finally at a place where I can start writing again.  If you’re still out there, dear readers, I hope that I can soon start contributing to the community at full blast over the next few days.  It’ll give me something to do

Thanks for your patience, your thoughts, and your prayers.  Life happens when we least expect it.

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Awesome.

I have met SO many people face to face that I normally follow on twitter and other social tools, and it’s been amazing to sit and chat with other SQL geeks.  I ended up buying the DVD set today because I had too many sessions to attend, and too many people to chat with.  It’s truly inspiring to hang out with a bunch of intelligent people who are really passionate about what they do.

Highlights:

• Pinal Dave stole my pen.  Well, he actually borrowed it to fill out his sqlbingo card, and then forgot it.  It’s OK, because I know if I make him feel guilty, he’ll fly back to the States from India to bring it to me.  And I could make him speak at our newsgroup.
• SQLBingo has not taken off as well as I had hoped, but it’s going OK.  They’re drawing the first two winners tomorrow morning, and I hope to pitch it harder tomorrow.  I forget that just because I’m a social person, not everyone else is.
• I learned some new stuff at Michelle Ufford’s presentation on VLDB’s.  Need to check things when I get back in the office to see if they’ll help some performance issues.
• Met Patrick Leblanc, Tim Mitchell, Lori Edwards, Jeff Rush, etc., etc.,etc…
• Met Remus Rusanu today after Brent Ozar’s session, and was told by him that he liked some of my responses on StackOverflow.  That really made my day, because he gives some great advice on that website.
• Kevin Kline gave me AND the user group autographed copies of his latest book.
• MidnightDBA gave me free stuff.
  

LetDowns:

• I didn’t win any blogging awards.  More incentive to keep working at it.
• I realized I should have submitted something to present.  Paul Waters and I made a pact to come up with 3 submission ideas for next year.

OK, I’m officially out of steam.  More to do tomorrow.

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If you haven’t read the following posts, you may want to start with them first:

SQL PASS Twitter Bingo: The rules so far…

A basic summary of the rules for squares (with some general advice for players).  I’d like to add some things to the “how to play” list, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

#SQLBingo: Meet nice people and learn their safewords.

Brent (as usual) writes a very succinct post on how to play if you’re not a square.  What’s important about Brent’s list is that he lays out some guidelines for things to do BEFORE you go to Summit.

Wanna play?  It takes some prep work…

It should be noted that this is a low-budget game at best; I think one of squares called it “guerrilla networking”, which I think is an awesome term for it.  What it means is that we’re trying to keep the rules and the play very simple, but unfortunately, that also means that the players have to provide some of their own resources for playing.

If you are playing, follow the steps at Brent’s blog:

1. Print your cards ahead of time from http://sqlserverpedia.com/bingo. (Be sure to refresh in between)
2. Find the tweeps.
3. Turn in a card per day when you’ve filled out a row on Tuesday, 2 rows on Wednesday, and blackout on Thursday.

You may also want to set up a Twitter account between now and then.  If you’d like, you can check out sqlbingo’s profile; this is a dummy account set up by Aaron Nelson and myself to follow all of the squares.  The whole point of this account is to simply give you a quick list of all of the Twitter accounts that are on the cards.  You may also want to set up a search for the term #sqlbingo; remember, the squares will be broadcasting their location periodically throughout the day, and using this term will help find them.

Already a square? It takes some prep work…

Same rules for players applies to the squares; however, we’ve decided that squares are not eligible for prizes.  Sorry.  However, if you’d like to make it easy for your adoring fans to find you, you may want to print out a simple badge with your avatar and username on it.  Just a 2×4 scrap of paper, and tape it to your standard Summit badge.  If you forget, c’est la vie!  It’ll just be tougher for people to find you.

Looking forward to meeting all of you face to face!

Stu

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The goals!

The goal of the game is to increase networking opportunities between the SQL Twitter community and face-to-face PASS Attendees.  Our hope is to a) strengthen existing relationships between SQL tweople, and b) encourage new people to start using Twitter and contribute to the social interactions beyond Summit. 

What is NOT the goal!

To win fabulous prizes.  Quest and SQLServerPedia are putting together some encouragement for new people to play, but the focus isn’t on “winning”; it’s on community interaction.

“Squares” and players…

Squares will be the volunteers who agreed to have their Twitter avatars placed on the cards.   Squares may certainly play the game by printing out cards and pursuing other squares, but at this time, squares are discouraged from entering the prize drawing (Sorry about that; the prizes are fabulous, but not that fabulous).  Again, we want to encourage new people to join the community; if you’re a square, you’re already there (ooh, that was a horrible rhyme.)

How will players mark off squares on their cards?

Each square has a code word; when asked for that code word, they should provide it to the player, who can write it on their card.  I realized that code words will probably be shared among players, but again, the goal is to encourage community interaction even at the risk of minor “cheating”.   We may come up with a more secure scheme next time, but this time, it just seems easier for Quest/SQLServerPedia employees to validate code words.

Arlene Gray (@whimsql) suggested that she write her code word on the back of her business card; I think that’s a great idea.

How will players know where to find me?

Twitter is an option   If you can, tweet your location throughout the day using the hashtag #sqlbingo.

Brent also suggested that if you’re a speaker, you may want to ask squares in the room to stand up before you begin your session, so players can identify them.  We’re also planning on asking squares to print out a small badge to tape to their regular conference badge showing their avatar and username.

Where do players get their cards?

We’re going to ask players to print out their own cards and bring them with them; we’ll also have some cards available at the Quest/SQLServerPedia booth.  Blythe Morrow also suggested that we use the PASS help desk booth as well.

How do players play?

We’re planning on adding this to the card:

Here’s how the contest works: print out 3 Bingo cards.  Try to meet as many people as possible that are on your card each day.  Each person has their own code word, and you have to write down their code word in their space on the Bingo card.  When you get a straight line (5 people in any direction) on Tuesday, you can drop off your card in the SQLServerPedia booth in the exhibit hall.  Each day, we’ll draw 2 winners and email them with their prize package – things like signed books, gift cards, and more.  On Wednesday, it gets tougher – you have to have two straight lines filled out.  On Thursday, you have to have a blackout – all spaces covered!  Only one entry per person per day.

Who’s a square?

Below is the list of squares:

That’s all for now; I’m sure more will come up as I think about it

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