Finally back in my hotel room; I’ve forgotten how exhausting it is to actually present these days. John Baldwin and the rest of the Steel City SQL user group did an awesome job pulling this together. These guys are a lot of fun to be around, and they really went out of their way to make sure that speakers felt welcome.
Some highlights:
- The facility was awesome. It was held at a new building on the Jefferson State Community College campus; every room was equipped with a projector and audio equipment, and seating was comfortable, etc.
- There were a few familiar faces, but I also had the chance to meet other Southeastern SQL geeks. I’m hoping that we can build on this relationship, and encourage new growth for all of our user groups.
- I particularly enjoyed hearing Andy Warren’s session on statistics; even though I don’t do a lot of work in performance tuning anymore, it was useful for me as a developer to understand what is a potential cause for bottlenecks on our servers.
- My own session (Confessions of a Data Integrator) went well; I need to trim it a bit and sharpen the focus, but I got a lot of positive feedback and positive comments from attendees. I definitely think I can sharpen it a bit, and I also think I can revamp it for SQL Saturday 17 (in Baton Rouge).
The only snafu I noticed was that the schedule had some interesting time slots; some sessions were 60 minutes in length and some sessions were 75 minutes. On at least two occasions, the 75 minute sessions were cut short (because the volunteer misread the length of time for that session). Overall, it was a great day, and I’m looking forward to future events.
