Tuesday, I drove to Columbus,GA to speak at the Columbus GA SQL Server User Group; I had first met Ken Simmons at the Birmingham SQL Saturday, and had promised him that I would drive down there to present. Ken’s done a great job of organizing a PASS chapter in a small-town setting; Columbus doesn’t have a lot of technical employers, so founding a specialized user group requires a lot of work and input from the few large employers in town. There were about 14 people in attendance, and 10 of them worked for the same company (although in different divisions).
Just as a side note; the group is meeting at the Columbus Public Library, which is a BEAUTIFUL facility. The staff was very nice and accommodating. The only limitation to meeting there is that they have to shut down by 8 PM.
My talk went OK; I’m always critical of my own work, and I realized that it’s a bit esoteric for some people. One thing that I have learned (but haven’t really applied) is that many people who attend user group sessions and SQLSaturday’s don’t always have the same experiences that I do. For example, I briefly discussed indexes in this presentation (Confessions of a Data Integrator; look for the upcoming blog posts), and I was a little surprised that there were so many questions about indexing strategies. I was glad I was able to discuss it, but if I’d known that was still a hot topic, I would have prepared more.
So here’s the lesson learned: if you’re a beginning speaker, or even an advanced speaker, don’t assume that fundemental topics are overdone. There’s still a great demand for people who can take an important concept (like index strategies, or disk I/O) and explain it in a simple fashion. Even people who have been DBA’s for years may still have a question about something that you assume is too basic to focus on.
Speaking of basics, just a quick reminder that the Gainesville GA SQLSaturday (#25) is coming up in October; we’re still looking for speakers and attendees. If you’re in the Atlanta area, Gainesville is only a half-hour away up I-85 and I-985.
