much delayed #sqlsat70 write-up

This write-up will be brief and to the point: SQL Saturday 70 rocked.  K. Brian Kelley (Blog|Twitter) and his team put together a great event (again), and it was a lot of fun catching up with so many SQL people.  Unfortunately, I had a rather severe sinus infection which kept me from really enjoying the event (in fact, I left after my sessions), but I did have a good time.

My sessions went very well; I had small crowds, but they were very involved.  I seem to keep picking esoteric topics (Data Architecture and XQuery), but the beauty of that is that I learn something new every time I start researching the subject.  One thing that stood out for me is that even though I pitched the event as an Intermediate event, I still had a lot of foundational material to cover.  I need to keep that in mind for future versions of my technical presentations.

General notes about the event: I have no complaints.  The space was wonderful, the speaker room was more than adequate, and the food was great.  The only thing that I think was missed was the same sin I’ve been guilty of at our AtlantaMDF events; the hosting organization wasn’t promoted enough.  We get so caught up in making sure the event flows smoothly that I think we forget to tout the monthly events enough.

Anyway, it was a great show.  If you attended my presentations, thank you; I hope you learned something.  The slides are available at the links below:

Data Architect: http://www.sqlsaturday.com/viewsession.aspx?sat=70&sessionid=3754

XQuery: http://www.sqlsaturday.com/viewsession.aspx?sat=70&sessionid=3755