Our 3rd SQLSaturday went amazingly well due to the efforts of Brian Knight and his volunteers. Attendance for the day was a massive 275 people! The day started well with wait time for check in no more than 5 minutes and everyone was patient thanks to our "greeter" Scott. Having someone working the line and letting everyone know what is going on is a great way to start the day, shows that you care and provides a mean to notify attendees of last minute changes. It got a bit hectic between 8-9 am with everyone checking in, getting coffee and doughnuts, and then moving on to visit with the sponsors and start putting tickets into the raffle boxes. Shawn Weisfeld managed the coffee station, making something like 12 gallons of coffee throughout the day! Sessions started on time with no issues.
Lunch was from Jason's Deli and serving lunch went quickly, the only glitch was that we ran short of vegetarian meals. Because there was very little inside seating in the common area we had close to 200 people sitting under the trees picnic style enjoying the weather and a nice break. Through out the day speakers were giving away "book tickets" so that the winners could visit the prize desk and redeem it for the book of their choice. We had terrific support from Apress, Wrox, Microsoft Press. At the end of the day everyone gathered in the large auditorium for the "big" raffles from the sponsors, things like an Xbox from Red Gate, Bluetooth Car Speaker Phone from End to End Training (us!), some copies of Vista & Visual Studio from Microsoft, a Zune (and the sponsor escapes me), and a few more. Raffle went quickly and smoothly, and then we adjourned to 7 Bridges Grille for the after party - I'd guess 50-60 attended, more than normal but proportionably about what we usually expect - lots of people tired after a day of training and just want to go home!
Met a lot of new people this weekend and I'm sure I'll miss a few; Kent Waldrop, Jaime Campbell (talked to both of them about mentoring), Rodney Landrum (author of SQL 2005 Reporting Services from Apress), Brandie Tarvin (fellow author here on SSC), Plamen Ratchevm, Geoff Hiten, and Tim Mitchell. Brian Knights brother Devin gave his first presentation, I got to spend some time talking with old friend Brian Kelley (who drove down from South Carolina for the event), and my friend Chris Rock did a new presentation this time that went pretty well, showing that his efforts to become a first class speaker are paying dividends.
I also had the chance to evangelize a bit about SQLSaturday, speaking at length with Geoff Hiten (Atlanta), Tim Mitchell (Dallas), and Brian Kelly (Columbia, SC), and a lot of others in less detail. More on that later in the week, but it's clear there is interest, just a lot of education to be done.
My own sessions went well, my standard one on Transactional Replication is always well received, and I did an impromptu session on Professional Development and Mentoring that was part lecture/part Q&A. There's definitely a need for mentors and career guidance, now to find a way to help provide it!
Later in the week I'll some notes about things we can do to improve next time.
Wishing for a SQLSaturday in your area? Let us know you're interested! http://www.sqlsaturday.com/interested.aspx
I'm headed back to Orlando after a quick trip to Charlotte. Flew in yesterday and spent some time with my friend Peter Shire and team (including Brooke!) of SQLSentry talking about all manner of stuff that comes up when you get some techies in a quiet room; business, user groups, their experiences at SQLSaturday in Orlando and the possibility of one in Charlotte, PASS, etc, etc. Peter is the current President of the Charlotte SQL group and has had some good experience rebuilding interest in the group after a bit of a slide (very common thing to happen). We headed over to the event about 5 pm, got a little bit of a late start, and then I did my usual presentation on Transactional Replication. Always a fun presentation. It's perhaps not as sexy as some topics, but it's fun to open the door to a new technology by showing attendees how straight forward it is to use. Had some good questions during the event and quite a few stayed after to talk more, including some guys from Mariner (though I did miss my friend Wayne Synder!).
Peter runs a good meeting, liked the way he handled the sponsor (in particular) and the raffle, and the speaker intro. Only suggestion I made was to give everyone name tags to make it a little easier to get to know each other. He's also been aggressive about soliciting non-local speakers, something I have not done and will try to work on - it doesn't hurt to ask.
