SQL Community

In stark contrast to the #sqlidiot #sqlsue negativity flying about by some bad apples in the community, I wanted to share an email that I received yesterday from one of the people I met at the 2011 SQL PASS. At one of the lunches, I sat a random table of people and introduced myself. It turns out, I met two people from the same small town in Wyoming that my father-in-law lives in. How small? 5500 people and the biggest town for probably an hour. Total kismet that I sat there.

I probably sounded like an evangelist with all the talking I was doing but I kept emphasizing how great the community is and things they won't want to miss out on the Summit. I pimped Brent Ozar's Twitter book and said you need to get on there and get involved with the community. I spoke about finding a SQL Server User Group or starting their own and of course, told them about SQL Saturdays and how they could get more great content for free at them. Colorado Springs #104 is a longer drive but definitely a manageable option from where their town is.

We met at lunch on Tuesday at the PASS summit. I’m the DBA at the school district in X, WY. Your advice on how to get the most out of the conference was really valuable, thank you!

I got on Twitter like you suggested I should. I tweeted to find some other K-12 education SQL server people at the summit and it worked; on Friday, I was having breakfast with two other K-12 DBAs.

So I’m very happy to have made your acquaintance! You really opened my eyes to the great resource that the PASS community can be.

That completely made my day, heck it made my 2 days ;)

Your takeaway from all of this? Be excellent to each other