How to have more SQLSaturdays? 

Over the past year we've been working on the ambitious goal of building a national franchise for SQL community events, one that is based on local involvement, a repeatable process, and a reusable web site. We've had good success here in Florida (three events completed, a fourth scheduled for June here in Orlando) but so far no one has tried it outside of Florida. As we've spoken with various communities, it's more about worries than real objections, and I think they boil down to these:

• Concern about being able to get enough speakers
• Worries about the money needed to run the event
• Definitely worries about the time needed to coordinate the event
• And worries about getting volunteers to help

Before you read further, I hope you'll follow this link to a copy of our upcoming ad in The SQL Server Standard.

If you didn't have time to read it, the short story is that we (Brian, Steve, and myself) are committing our own time and money to the first four events that run outside of Florida. We know that doesn't remove the worries entirely, but combined with our extensive planning guide and our own experience we believe we can help other communities run successful free events.

That's one step, the next is to put together a meeting of people that are really interesting in hosting a SQLSaturday. We're still looking at options, but one plan is to bring them to Orlando (has the advantage of not requiring us to lease space, and we can leverage a lot of local volunteers to join the disucssion), and the other is to meet just prior to the PASS Summit on Monday or Tuesday (has the advantage of having a lot of the right people in the right place at the right time). We've also submitted a session for the Summit about SQLSaturday, but the final schedule has not been announced yet.

What we really need are a few more success stories, and for that we need YOU! If you're interested in attending a SQLSaturday in your area, use our suggest a location link to let us see where there are clusters that we might target. If you're a user group leader or just think you have what it takes to drive one of these events, drop me a note via the blog and we'll send you some docs and arrange a call to talk through some of our experiences.

I don't know if you were going to ask or not, but we get these two questions here and there:

• What's in it for Andy, Brian, & Steve? It's a two part answer. From a business perspective, these events will be great places for us to advertise our services as SQL trainers (along with other service and product vendors). Just as important for us, it's a chance to give back a bit to the community. Nothing more complicated than that!
• Why isn't this a PASS branded project? In our view PASS has not stepped up to drive community events, and our community has suffered for it compared to the .Net community with their Code Camps. We welcome PASS as a sponsor (and they did sponsor both #2 & #3) and while it's still very early in the game, we would like nothing better than to hand over the keys to PASS at some point, maybe when we've gotten to the point of seeing 40-50 of these events happen each year. Can we make it work? There's only so much we can do, but we're going to do what we can, and we think our success so far shows that we have the beginnings of a workable formula.

I hope you'll think about it, ask questions, and maybe gather a few volunteers and try it yourself. It is a lot of work, but I think you'll find it rewarding. Thanks for reading to the end!

Recently I posted about making sponsorship work to lay out some ideas for events that are seeking sponsors. My friend Shawn Weisfeld manages the Orlando .Net group and he posted his thoughts on sponsorship yesterday. The Code Camp Manifesto is where it all started and it definitely focuses not just on free, but no cash outlay. I think that's realistic if you have 5-20 people meeting, but after that I'm not sure it's practical. Orlando Code Camp has more than 400 attendees, the South Florida Code Camp more than 600. The problem isn't that those two events have strayed from the manifesto but rather than are a different animal - call it a mini conference.

On a good year perhaps 2000 people attend the PASS Summit, and maybe 11k attend Teched. I've attended at least one national conference each year since 1999, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that many people never get to go to a conference. Conferences are different from classroom training, they exist to help you explore new ideas quickly, to let you network with peers (especially valuable for us DBA's who often have no peers at work), and to just recharge. We need more of these conferences at lower prices!

I think calling it a Code Camp just lets users know that it's less formal, less likely to be perfect. Our own SQLSaturday was an attempt to be just a little more formal, to come as close to being a real conference as we could on a limited budget (about $4000) and I think we did pretty well. It's definitely important to set expectations, nothing can sour a day faster than to expect one thing and get another.

Which brings us finally to the should it be free portion of this post. I like free. It let's people come that just couldn't afford to any other way and I think they have more of a grass roots feel to them. But take SQLSaturday for example. If we had charged $20/person would they have been less happy with the event? They received coffee & doughnuts for breakfast - call that a $1.50 in value, and a nice boxed lunch from Jason's Deli - $7 value, and as much soda/water as they could drink - variable, but let's round to $1.50 to make their real received value $10. The other $10 would have paid for speaker shirts, signs, trash bags,and all the other little things needed to make things run. Would charging $20 raise expectations too high? Would it shrink attendance because many people don't want to pay anything out of their pocket?

Let's look at the choices:

• 100% free, no sponsors. Probably best for small groups but good for you if you can make it work!
• 100% free, sponsors. Good for larger groups assuming you can get businesses to give you money (see my earlier post above as well) - it's a trust issue, do they find you credible? Track record helps.
• $20, no sponsors. Good for any size event, no selling to sponsors, one less customer type to please. Arguably attendees will miss out by not meeting sponsors (remember few of them go to the big events).
• $20, sponsors. Good for any size event, assumes you see values in having sponsors on site (could invite them for free even!)

I think all of those are valid choices and people looking at one of these events should really consider which model fits them and their community best.

The final point worth discussing; what happens to money left over? I think the best use is to leave it in the hands of the local user group to help subsidize bringing speakers in, but a pleasant alternative would be to donate any 'profit' to a local charity.

This topic came up during the speaker reception at the South Florida Code Camp and while I've posted here and there, it's probably worth writing down some thoughts about what events like Code Camp and SQLSaturday can do to make being a sponsor more attractive.

• Treat me like a customer that is just as important as your attendees, your speakers, or your site host!
• Give me plenty of advance notice. I need to budget for it and fit it into my schedule. Ideally talk to me 4-6 months prior to the event, at a minimum 3 months prior.
• Give me some basic options, and be prepared to bargain some. Impress me by putting together a nice sponsor package that shows you have a plan and that you take sponsors seriously. I know you need hard dollars, not software valued at x dollars, but sometimes there is room to compromise - be open to the conversation. If it's a new event or the first time my company will be a sponsor, be prepared to spend some time with me at lunch or dinner. That's right, you've got to convince me that it's a good venue for me, that the cost vs return is likely to work out, and most importantly, convince me that you can make the event happen.
• Accept checks and credit cards. It's your event, I don't have time to buy soda, cookies, etc in lieu of you collecting cash.
• Guarantee that if the event cancels, I get a full refund
• Give me a deadline and address for sending you collateral to be placed in event bags. It's critical that the items be placed in the bags, just laying out on the table greatly reduces the number of people that will take the time to look at it. By placing in the bag that will look through it while waiting on a session to start.
• On the day of the event have someone at registration to specifically help sponsors. Tables should be set up and labeled in advance, and just having someone help carry all the stuff to the table is a great help. Have a hand truck or other cart available for sponsors to use.
• Set up sponsor tables in a way that insures traffic flow. One method is to locate them immediately following registration, the other is to locate them immediately after the food. Either way, set things up so that people naturally flow directly by the sponsor tables. Also, it's fair that the biggest (paying the most) sponsors get the best locations.
• Give attendees a name tag! Sponsors need to talk to attendees and making the name exchange easier makes it easier to start the conversation. It's also a good idea from just a pure networking perspective.
• Make it easy for attendees to share their contact information with us. One way is to pre-print a set of 10 or so 'business cards' for each attendee and include in the bag, another is to barcode the info on their badge using PDF417 or similar format. The latter does require sponsors to acquire a more expensive barcode reader but it is worth while. The sad alternative is forcing attendees to write down their contact info over and over again, and it's common to lose 20% of those due to illegibility, plus it just annoys the attendee.
• Make my logo very visible on your web site, proportional to my investment of course
• Provide attendees with some type of printed event guide/schedule that also features sponsor logos
• Ask if I'll be raffling or giving away an item that will probably be of interest to most attendees, then highlight that in pre-event email, then again at the key note - remember, these freebies help drive people to your event.
• Provide access to internet and electricity, or let me know it will not be available.
• Consider doing an event polo or tshirt for attendees and put sponsor logos on it as well. Polo's are the preferred choice, but realistically tshirts are the most cost effective for large crowds.
• Sponsors attend events to either build their contact lists or to directly demo their products/services, so look for ways to help them achieve their goal. For example, offering a sponsor track or special lunch time sponsor sessions.
• Try to provide someone to help with break down and clean up near the end of the day

I know that sounds like a lot. What do you get in return?

• Cash. Most free events have very real hidden costs, ranging from lunch and tshirts to signage and coffee cups. If you can do without cash, you don't need sponsors, right? (Note: Most attendees actually enjoy access to sponsors and find it adds value to the event)
• I'll be spreading the word about your event to everyone I know, to increase the attendance and my ROI, and to highlight involvement in the community - a good thing for any business to do
• If you do a good job managing the event and your relationship with me, I'll be there as a reference and will most likely be an easy sell the next year

Put as much effort into your sponsors as you do the attendees, speakers, volunteers, and site host and things will go well.