SQLServerPedia Syndication

#passvotes Tweaks and Data Geeks: PASS Election 2011

Obviously, the angst over the 2010 PASS elections still lives on for some, and some of you are probably ready to move on to more immediate concerns, but as for me, I’m stuck here trying to figure out what I should learn from all of this. I do think we as a community need to move forward, and to that end, I’ve agreed to participate in Kevin Kline’s series on the PASS elections process, and answer the following question:

“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:

Our discourse as a community has been healthy, and
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?

Querying XML in SQL Server 2005+: namespaces

I recently helped a friend solve an XML problem, and thought I would post the solution here. Although there are lots of notes on how to use XQuery in SQL Server 2005+, this was a real world scenario that was trickier than I expected. The friend works for an insurance company broker, and in one of their applications, accident questionnaires (and their answers) are stored in XML. This allows them to treat all questionnaires as the same, regardless of their origin as long as the QuestionCodes are common across vendors.

Below is the sample data that he was asking me about; he needed to get one question and answer per row into a data set:

DECLARE @T TABLE ( RowID INT, Fragment XML ) INSERT INTO @T ( RowID, Fragment ) VALUES ( 1, '<Questionnaire xmlns="http://www.xxx.com/schemas/xxxXXXXXxxx.0"> <Question> <QuestionCode>74</QuestionCode> <Question>Why did you wreck your car?</Question> <Answer>I was drunk</Answer> <Explanation /> </Question> <Question> <QuestionCode>75</QuestionCode> <Question>Why is the rum all gone?</Question> <Answer>Because I drank it.</Answer> <Explanation /> </Question> </Questionnaire>' ) , ( 2, '<Questionnaire xmlns="http://www.xxx.com/schemas/xxxXXXXXxxx.0"> <Question> <QuestionCode>74</QuestionCode> <Question>Why did you wreck your car?</Question> <Answer>Stuart was drunk</Answer> <Explanation /> </Question> <Question> <QuestionCode>75</QuestionCode> <Question>Why is the rum all gone?</Question> <Answer>Because I made mojitos.</Answer> <Explanation /> </Question> </Questionnaire>' )

I thought it was a simple query; simply use the .nodes() method to rip each of the questions and corresponding answers into their own rows, but for some reason, when I ran the following, I got interesting results:

SELECT t.RowID , QuestionCode = t1.frag.value('(QuestionCode)[1]', 'int') , Question = t1.frag.value('(Question)[1]', 'varchar(max)') , Answer = t1.frag.value('(Answer)[1]', 'varchar(max)') , Explanation = t1.frag.value('(Explanation)[1]', 'varchar(max)') FROM @t t CROSS APPLY Fragment.nodes('//Questionnaire/Question') AS t1 ( frag )


RowID  QuestionCode    Question    Answer  Explanation

That’s right, nothing. Strange, considering I’ve done variations of this query for a couple of years now to parse out firewall data fragments. I looked closer, and tried to see what was different about the XML fragment from this example compared to mine, and it was clear: a namespace reference. Most of the data I deal with is not true XML, but rather fragments I convert to XML in order to facilitate easy transformations. To test, I stripped the namespace line (xmlns="http://www.xxx.com/schemas/xxxXXXXXxxx.0" ) out, and voila! Results!

RowID QuestionCode Question Answer Explanation

1 74 Why did you wreck your car? I was drunk

1 75 Why is the rum all gone? Because I drank it.

2 74 Why did you wreck your car? Stuart was drunk

2 75 Why is the rum all gone? Because I made mojitos.

Well, that was great, because it showed me where the problem was but how do I fix it? I stumbled upon a solution, but to be honest, I’m not sure it’s the best one. If I modify my query to refer to any namespace (the old wildcard: *) like so:

SELECT t.RowID , QuestionCode = t1.frag.value('(*:QuestionCode)[1]', 'int') , Question = t1.frag.value('(*:Question)[1]', 'varchar(max)') , Answer = t1.frag.value('(*:Answer)[1]', 'varchar(max)') , Explanation = t1.frag.value('(*:Explanation)[1]', 'varchar(max)') FROM @t t CROSS APPLY Fragment.nodes('//*:Questionnaire/*:Question') AS t1 ( frag )

I get the correct results.

RowID QuestionCode Question Answer Explanation

1 74 Why did you wreck your car? I was drunk

1 75 Why is the rum all gone? Because I drank it.

2 74 Why did you wreck your car? Stuart was drunk

2 75 Why is the rum all gone? Because I made mojitos.

Here’s the question for any XML guru that stumbles along the way; is there a better way to do this?

2010-09-01 by Stuart Ainsworth SQL SQLServerPedia Syndication XML 2

#passvotes Welcome to the Nom Com: Here’s Your Helmet.

It’s been over a week since my last post on this subject, and to be honest, I was hoping that I wasn’t going to have to write any more. I felt like I had stated my position that the Nominations Committee for the PASS elections of 2010 had been faced with an unpopular decision, and we chose to take the high road of following the process we established before picking the slate. Since then, I’ve had the peculiar experience of both being hailed as a hero (for making a public statement) and yet having my work deemed inferior (the decision we reached as a committee). I’m hoping that I can clarify some things, and publically answer some questions that have been asked of me online and face-to-face.

Catching up…

If you haven’t been following along, or (like me) have missed a couple of really good postings on the issue, you may want to check out the list of postings at the Discussion page on http://elections.sqlpass.org. I think it speaks volumes about our community that we worry about things like fairness and openness, and that the organization which is at the center of the controversy is hosting comments (both positive and negative).

The caveats: It’s all about me, really.

I should note that I’m making this post as an individual, not as a sanctioned representative of the Nominating Committee or PASS. It’s all me, and these are my beliefs and my opinions. I like to think that I hold myself to the highest standard possible, so there are some things that I’m going to frame in terms of my beliefs, even those beliefs may be more restrictive than what is legally or professionally required.

First, I believe that the Nominations Committee should be a “black box”; you define the standard by which decisions should be reached, the applicants to whom those decisions apply, and the decision makers before putting that in the box. Whatever happens in the box, stays in the box. I had earlier alluded to protecting the privacy of the applicants, but to be honest, the Committee should also protect the privacy of the members (in my opinion). This was a volunteer gig, and even though many of the volunteers were sitting Board members, a few of us were not. I know I said some things in those meetings about applicants that I don’t necessarily want broadcast, and according to the election procedure, my comments should be kept in committee; I believe that volunteers should have the right to express ideas in discussion that are unpopular, and those comments should not be used in a court of public opinion. If I thought that Jack Corbett was an evil genius intent on destroying the world, I should have the right to use that to spark a discussion in committee without ruining my relationship with him (by the way, I don’t believe that; Jack is one of the sweetest guys I know).

Second, I believe that no matter how unpopular the decision, groups that are composed of volunteers shouldn’t throw the committee under the bus when the work is done. I SUPPORT THE RESULTS OF THE NOM COM. Period. This is not “circling the wagons” or “hiding behind the process”; this is a fundamental precept of my understanding of civilized discourse. Seven people had an opportunity to discuss all of the applicants, and seven people reached a majority decision to promote five applicants to the slate. I respect the work of my colleagues on the Nom Com, and I hope they feel the same way about me.

Third, we’ve all got to work together tomorrow. The SQL Server community is large, but it’s still a small village in some ways, and I want to be careful in what I say because I want to engage in productive dialogue, and not destructive. It was funny to see some of the tweets about the perceived “us-vs-them” (and I know those tweets were in jest), but the truth is, I respect a lot of people that I don’t always agree with. Andy Leonard and I had some great discussions over the weekend at SQL Saturday 51, as did Andy Warren and I. Lynda Rab hugged me. Steve Jones and I have exchanged DM’s, and I’m hoping to sit down over a beer with him at some point. I’ve also had several emails and phone calls from others with whom I disagree; I’m friends with people, and I hope that at the end of the day, we can walk away respecting each other even though we may have different ideas about how to solve the problem. There’s no “them” in this discussion; we’re all us.

On to the issues…

Andy Leonard recently posted a great wrap-up about the process as he understands it; he does make some conjectures about the process which I think are incorrect, but for the most part, I think his analysis is insightful and a great read for people who can only observe from the outside.

Andy makes a great argument about process failures versus execution failures, and I can see his point.

I left Farmville Virginia at 4:00 AM EDT Friday morning heading to SQL Saturday #51 in Nashville Tennessee. I thought about where I was going the night before, printed some basic instructions, pre-programmed a few addresses into my Garmin, and then drove roughly 550 miles in about 9 hours… this was my process. If I’d ended up in New York City instead of Nashville I could offer the excuse that I followed a process, but you would see right through that excuse, wouldn’t you? You’d say things like "That’s weak Andy". If you had a vested interest in meeting me in Nashville and I ~~called~~ emailed you from New York City to tell you I wasn’t in Nashville and that I was, in fact, even further from Nashville than I was at the beginning of following my process, you would be understandably put out.

It’s a great analogy, but it’s hinged on one troublesome precept: the Nom Com and the Board of Directors failed. I don’t think we failed (and I know that statement’s about to open up a heap of trouble). Did we (the Nom Com) arrive at an unpopular decision? Yep. Did the Board of Directors support that unpopular decision and ratify the slate? Yep. Is that a failure? No. If you’re assuming that Steve Jones deserves to be a candidate, then I can see how you want to blame somebody or something for reaching a different outcome than you desire. But that’s not a failure; it was an unplanned outcome <G>.

Here’s my take on it: We (the Nom Com) had an agreement with PASS to find qualified candidates for the 2010 Board of Directors; to fulfill that agreement, we developed a process that we published and had explicitly approved by the BOD, and implicitly approved by the PASS membership (I don’t remember getting any feedback at all from the membership after making this post). We used a template to evaluate written applications, and then interviews (more about the template below). After all was said and down, it came down to an Yes/No/Abstain vote from each of the Nom Com members (as explained by Tom LaRock); Steve and Jack didn’t get enough votes to go on. Did the Nom Com deliver a slate of qualified candidates? Damn skippy; I believe that each and every one of the five individuals of the slate deserves an opportunity to be a Director. Did we leave off candidates that were qualified according to public opinion? Obviously so. Is that a failure? I wouldn’t call it one; to rephrase Andy’s analogy, I think we made it to Nashville, but we left behind part of the slide deck. Can we still go on?

What about the Numbers?

Both Andy Leonard and K. Brian Kelley provide some insight into the numbers from the templates used to rank the candidates. Again, very well written and thoughtful posts that certainly raise some questions about why Steve (and to some degree, Jack, who is getting a very short shrift in this controversy) didn’t make the slate. It’s understandable, because those templates are comfortable to look at for data-oriented geeks. We like numbers, and we like it when numbers make sense. It would be great if we had some sort of objective measurement by which to determine the qualifications of an applicant; unfortunately, the template ain’t it.

Brian’s analysis shows the holes in the theory that we had an objective measure by questioning how we (the Nom Com) arrived at those ratings; granted, his rankings are based on his personal knowledge of Steve Jones, and he’s a sample of 1, but it shows the subjectivity inherent in a ranking system. Granted, the averages were supposed to ease some of the subjectivity (by reducing the emphasis on outliers), but 7 is still a small sample, so extreme differences among Nom Com members could have definitely impacted the outcome. Furthermore, the Nom Com was privy to information that was not public (the complete application and interview); our rankings were based on our perception of how well the candidate met the criteria using all information available to us, and most of that information came from the application and the interview. Did I know about Steve’s black belt? No. Did I know his son was on the Eagle Scouts? Wasn’t on the application form.

Ultimately, the numbers were used as a guide to facilitate discussion; there was no cut-off point, and 7 interviewees were well within the maximum number of candidates for the Board (as defined by the bylaws; see the election process for more details). It came down to a majority vote, and the majority of the committee felt that Steve and Jack were not ready at this time to be on the slate (for Jack, it was 0 yea’s, 6 no’s, and an abstention; for Steve, it was 1 yea, 5 no’s, and an abstention).

The question of fitness.

Here’s a quote from Andy Leonard:

I know Steve. I believe he would be disruptive. I think he would challenge the status quo and defend the SQL Server Community with every ounce of his being. I believe he would start his two years of service on the Board more stubborn and obstinate than he would end it. Like every Board of Director member that’s taken time to share their experience, Steve would evolve. For some, that’s a problem. They cannot tolerate the disruptive-ness. I believe Steve was deemed "unFit" for the Board for this reason.

I may be misreading this, but Andy seems to be accusing some members of the Nom Com and the Board of Directors of bias against disruption or discussion, and to that end I ask: Have you met Rick Bolesta? Andy Warren? Lynda Rab? None of these folks would I consider to be peacekeepers; they’re all opinionated, strong-willed, intelligent, and fair people (and I can name others on the BoD). To assume that we (the Nom Com) deliberately excluded an applicant because they met the same characteristics of many of the sitting BoD is illogical.

To be fair, I can see how Andy got there; Steve is not known for pulling punches when it comes to PASS, and I can see how it looks like “Steve was a bully, so I’m not going to let him play on my team”. But, to linger on that assumes that the we (the Nom Com) are incapable of being professional when it comes handling criticism. To pull another quote from Andy regarding the Nom Com:

You could argue that they did their job with the same zeal as the people who shrink-wrap CDs and DVDs. But understand they were told to protect us from another marketing executive. This isn’t a complaint about the NomCom – it’s constructive criticism. I believe members of the NomCom know the difference.

I, too, believe the Nom Com knows when criticism is constructive, and I think we factored that in to the definition of Fit. But one’s ability to deliver constructive criticism is NOT the only component of that measure; we examined all nominee’s skills, experiences, and strength to derive that measure. Granted, it was a subjective measure masked as objectivity, but it should not have been used as a bias against Steve (or any other candidate) because he’s a rabble-rouser.

Other bits and bytes…

After all of that is said is done, there’s still some lingering questions to be answered. I’d been meaning to write a post about this, but obviously the controversy is outweighing the need to understand what happened in committee. Let me briefly summarize some of the main points:

Would I have changed anything about the process?

Yes. I think that the Nom Com qualification process needs to be standardized and used every year; that would alleviate some of the concerns as to why the quality of candidates differentiated so wildly from last year to now. I think the template is a great idea, but the Board needs to define (in conjunction with the membership at large; stole that idea from Andy Warren) what constitutes a qualified candidate. Those qualifications need to be simple and easy to understand, and allow for a broad range of candidates to qualify.

I also think the board needs to have more community members sitting on it, like others have suggested (I couldn’t find the reference, so if you were first to post this, sorry). I do believe that a Nom Com is necessary for PASS, and I’m open to discussions about the role of that committee.

Am I mad about the controversy?

There have been times over the last week that I have wanted to haul a few posters aside and have a discussion out in the parking lot (despite the fact that the last fight I was in was in 7th grade, and I lost because my lip got stapled to my braces). I’ve gotten very good at relieving stress via Wii Boxing. I think the criticism that hurt most was from people whom I respect and they posted something without thinking about the people involved in the process; most I have forgiven (and talked it out). Others will take a while before they gain my trust back.

I also HATE that 5 talented individuals that did make the slate (and 1 who did not) are being marginalized because of the outcry over Steve. We’ve got to move on, and soon, or we’re going to miss out an opportunity to understand the next set of Directors.

Would I serve on the Nom Com again?

Hell, yes. I plan to serve until I get the chance to deny Paul Randall a seat on the board (j/k). To be honest, I’m very proud of my service, and I hope to do again. I realize it’s not the easiest job in the world, but nothing important is.

2010-08-24 by Stuart Ainsworth Election2010 SQLServerPedia Syndication 28

#passvotes When doing the right thing ain’t popular…

If you Tweet or follow Steve Jones’ blog, you’ve already gotten the news that Steve will not be on the slate for the Board of Directors this year. It was a tough decision for the Nominations Committee to make, but I wanted to address some of the controversy before it boils over. I do, however, have a few caveats:

As a member of the Nomination Committee, I can not (and will not) go into details about why we reached the decision we did; I want to be transparent, but I also want to protect the sanctity of the application process. I think the interview process should be private between the applicant and the Committee in order to allow applicants to express themselves freely without excessive public scrutiny, and;
I don’t want to start, or be dragged into, a PASS-versus-Steve discussion. I sat on the committee, and I was involved in the discussions behind the slate, and it’s painful for me to read comments like “The NomCom should be ashamed of themselves”, or we were “supposed to act professional”. It’s very tempting for me to dive into the fray with both fists swinging, but to do so would either negate my first principle (I might say something I shouldn’t), or prove the previous commenter correct (I would be ashamed of myself for stooping to that level).

So, how do I talk about this without talking about it? I guess I’ll start with what my intent for this post it; I can’t discuss how or why we reached a decision about Steve (that’s not fair to him), but I do want to defend the professionalism and integrity of the Nominations Committee.

Just to restate the process for those of you playing at home:

The Nominations Committee (NomCom) of PASS is charged with overseeing the applications process for building a slate of nominees for the Board of Directors. The NomCom is supposed to recommend the best candidates from those willing to run.
The NomCom evaluated applicants initially on their applications, and identified 7 out of 9 applicants that we wanted to interview.
The NomCom interviewed those applicants, and had several discussions of those interviews.
The NomCom proposed a slate of candidates for the Board to approve, and the sitting Board of Directors had the option to approve or modify the proposed slate. They chose to approve it as it stood.

Steve obviously made the first cut on his application because we interviewed him. Since he didn’t make the slate, you can probably surmise that something happened during the interview phase for a significant portion of the NomCom to not recommend him. What’s being overlooked in the current controversy is that several other interviewees DID make the slate.

That’s important; we applied the same rigor and professionalism in interviewing all of the candidates that we did to Steve, In fact, I can honestly say that we discussed Steve Jones MORE than any other candidate because we were all a little surprised at our own decision. We knew it was going to be unpopular with the community, and we knew that there were going to be questions about how we could exclude such a great guy like Steve (and to be clear, I do think Steve is a great guy; he’s a great asset to the community and to PASS).

What could we have done? Should we have proposed a candidate simply because he’s a popular choice? Should we have given him a do-over in the interview? Neither of those choices seemed professional or appropriate, and so I stand behind the decision to be consistent with all candidates, and I hope that most of you would have to come to the same decision if you were in my seat. If not, I’d hope that you understand that it was my desire to be professional and to have integrity that led me to this decision.

2010-08-18 by Stuart Ainsworth Election2010 SQLServerPedia Syndication 41

#passvotes Interviews, interviews, interviews…

Not much new to report on the PASS 2010 Nominations process this week (http://elections.sqlpass.org). We’ve interviewed 5 of the 7 remaining applicants, and overall, it looks like we’re going to have a great slate for selecting candidates this year. Unfortunately, I had to miss a couple of the interviews due to a faulty merge-and-purge process at work, but the ones I did sit in on were very impressive.

I promise that I’ll write a more in-depth post after the interviews are done, but I don’t want to skew the remaining interviews. Hang in there.

2010-08-09 by Stuart Ainsworth Election2010 SQLServerPedia Syndication 0

Upcoming presentations

Just a quick note about some upcoming presentations:

I’ll be presenting “The Social DBA: Resources for Career Building” at SQL Saturday 51 in Nashville, TN on August 21. Also, on September 21, I’ll be presenting on Red Gate’s SQL Source Control at the Columbus, GA SQL Server Users Group.

2010-07-30 by Stuart Ainsworth Conferences SQLServerPedia Syndication User Groups 0

#passvotes The process rolls on…

I’m in a bit of a sticky wicket here; as a blogger, I feel obligated to share what’s going on with the Nomination Committee for the 2010 PASS elections, but as a member of that committee, I feel obligated to not say too much too soon. However, I have seen some of the buzz on twitter regarding applicants that have been selected to continue moving forward and those that were encouraged to try again next year.

All I can really say at this time that we have looked at all of the applications that we’ve received and have decided to move forward with interviewing 7 of the 9 applicants. An official announcement is forthcoming about how we came to our decision to move forward with those 7, but I did want to share a piece of information that is guiding the process of selecting candidates for the board.

PASS is a volunteer organization that serves the SQL Server community, and although the goal of PASS is to be a resource for everyone who works with SQL Server, there are lots of members of the community that have a limited history of involvement with PASS. In other words, there are several community leaders (speakers, authors, bloggers) that don’t have hands-on volunteer experience with PASS (i.e., working as a chapter leader or a committee member); while these community leaders are great assets to the community (and PASS), I was concerned that they didn’t have enough exposure to the organization to lead it. This was a hard choice to make, because you could look at an application and see that the applicant had a real heart for leadership and support within the SQL Server community, but compared to other applicants, they just didn’t have the same experience with PASS.

Of course, that’s easy to rectify, and there’s always another opportunity to run for election next year. I’m excited about the applicants that are lined up to be interviewed over the next two weeks (and I’ll probably refrain from commenting until after those interviews are done). I’m also learning a lot about how PASS committees work, and I hope to continue helping out in the future.

Be sure to check out http://elections.sqlpass.org for the official news. Good luck to the rest of the applicants; regardless of what happens during the interviews, I am positive we will have a great slate of candidates to choose from during this year’s election.

2010-07-28 by Stuart Ainsworth Election2010 SQLServerPedia Syndication 0

T-SQL tip: Use a role for EXECUTE permissions

If you are in a high-security environment, this may not be the best tip for you, but if you’re in a situation like mine where you have a SQL user that is connecting to a database in order to EXECUTE stored procs, and you know that user needs to be able to EXECUTE every proc in that database, you can save a little time by creating a role for that:

CREATE ROLE usp_execute GO

GRANT EXECUTE ON SCHEMA::dbo TO usp_execute GO

This means that the user will be able to execute EVERY stored proc belonging to the schema dbo from this point forward; again, be cautious when using this. Security models should not be taken lightly.

2010-07-23 by Stuart Ainsworth SQL SQLServerPedia Syndication 4

Kung fu and the art of SQL Server

A few nights ago, I watched The Forbidden Kingdom with my kids; I’ve seen it before, but this time there was a message in it that I needed to hear. Obviously, I’ve been in a slump lately, and even though I’m continuing to be involved in what I do as a SQL Server professional, I haven’t been excited about it in a long time. I’ve been at my current position for almost 8 years, and frankly, I’ve gotten bored. Mix that with a lot of post-divorce depression, anxiety about the future, and all of a sudden my yin and my yang are not in harmony.

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.

2010-07-15 by Stuart Ainsworth Education SQLServerPedia Syndication The Social Web 1

RowID	QuestionCode	Question	Answer	Explanation
1	74	Why did you wreck your car?	I was drunk
1	75	Why is the rum all gone?	Because I drank it.
2	74	Why did you wreck your car?	Stuart was drunk
2	75	Why is the rum all gone?	Because I made mojitos.