Speaking at SQLRally

I was fortunate enough to have one of my favorite sessions chosen for PASS SQLRally 2012 in Dallas.

I'll be there presenting "PowerShell: Are you checking out my profile?"

I've given this presenation a couple of times in the past and it's always been a lot of fun as it generally creates a lot of interaction with the audience. Hopefull you can join the audience this time and join me at the SQLRally on May 10th and 11th in Dallas (and don't forget there are several great pre-conference all day sessions for you to attend).

I'm scheduled to be in the final slot of the day on Thursday 10th, so come see me before going to get your Gelato.

Presenting at SQLSaturday #89–Atlanta

I’m very excited to be going to Atlanta on September 17th and presenting at the SQL Saturday event being held there. I was lucky enough to get two submissions accepted.

Centralized auditing of permissions with SQL Server

As a DBA it can be a challenge to know who has permissions to what SQL instances and what objects. The more instances you have the more complex that task. In this presentation I'll share a method using PowerShell and TSQL that can be used to capture permissions from all of your SQL instances and load them into a centralized location. We'll even take it a step further by auditing those permissions so that we can quickly and easily identify any that might have changed.

PowerShell: Are you checking out my profile?

PowerShell is a very powerful management tool and you can spend hours writing magical scripts to provide automation for frequently run tasks. Often forgotten is the PowerShell profile, a place you can add your own functions which can provide you lightning fast access to information. In this session we'll talk about the power a profile puts at your fingertips. I will also demo (and share) several PowerShell functions that I use frequently for common tasks like checking database backups and disk space. I'll show you my PowerShell profile if you show me yours.

There are a grand total of 17 MVP’s presenting that day. I’m frankly stunned I have to opportunity to be in rarified company and be able to speak myself (in fact my first session I’m up at the same time as 7 MVP’s so I’m expecting a quiet room). It should be a blast though, be sure to say hi if you’re there. I might even sneak in a preview of my PASS Summit Lightning talk.

Such fun.

Speaking At PASS Summit 2011

I'll be speaking at the PASS Summit 2011 coming up in just over a month.

"Wait...what?" I hear you say, "you said in your blog post http://sirsql.net/blog/2011/6/20/not-presenting-at-pass-summit-2011.html that you were not going to be presenting".

Well a couple of weeks ago PASS opened up the opportunity for folks to submit lightning sessions (5 minute talks on a subject). I submitted 4 of those and one of them was selected:

PowerShell: It's your new BFF

PowerShell wants to be your bestie. Please accept PowerShell's friend request and put it in your circle. Find out why you should.

Mine is just one of 24 lightning sessions that have been selected, check out the others at http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2011/SummitContent/LightningTalks2011.aspx

Hope you'll find the time to swing by at least one of the lightning sessions. They are a lot of fun.

Not Presenting At PASS Summit 2011

Sadly neither of the two sessions that I submitted for the PASS Summit 2011 were chosen and so I won’t be presenting. I’m not going to claim that I am not disappointed because I am. I felt that I had a really good chance of being chosen, but when there are 649 abstract submitted and only 111 slots available someone is going to miss out. This year I was one of the majority that didn’t make it.

I’m not disheartened, I’ll continue speaking at other events this year and next and already plan on submitting sessions for next years Summit.

I will, however, be at the Summit this year. I paid for my submission early in the year and got a significant discount on the price…which reminds me, go register now and save $600 on the full admission price.

There are going to be some fantastic speakers and sessions, including half-day sessions for that deeper dive (don’t take my seat in Bob Wards session if you know what’s good for you). Don’t forget there are 2-days of precons this year. I know my buddy Aaron Nelson (blog|twitter) would love to spend a day talking your ear off about PowerShell.

Hope to see you there, and to enjoy watching you entertain everyone at SQL Karaoke!

Speakers Third Rule

You’ve mastered the first rule and have submitted a session to present at a SQLSaturday, local user group or at your office, excellent. Your presentation is written, all the details are there…slides, demos and you’ve got your patter. You’ve followed the second rule and the presentation is all you. What’s next?

Practice makes perfect

Time to run through your presentation multiple times so that you know it well and can give it without any problems.

You might have a demo heavy session and need to practice those demos over and over, getting them just perfect. It could be a presentation that’s all theory with multiple slides; run through them, know what’s on each, understand each statement that you have put out there. Do you smell BACON?

It really doesn’t matter the kind of demo just practice it over and over again. Drive your dog crazy by holding it a captive audience as you present while holding a strip of bacon just out of reach.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a dog as a cat, spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend or fluffy bunny rabbit will work just as well.

The more you run through your presentation the more comfortable you will feel with it. This comfort is going to be vitally important for when you first get up in front of that “live studio audience”.

When those nerves kick in (and they will) you’ll have the mind muscle memory to carry you through. After all you practiced it until it was second nature to present, there’s not going to be anything to worry about come presentation time…right?