T-SQL Tuesday #102 – Giving Back

This month Rily Major (b | t) ask us to talk about how we are giving back to the community if we are or how we would if we aren’t, to lay out a plan.  I’m already heavily involved in the community and haphazardly landed that way with no plan, but I enjoy each one of my activities.  I’ll probably miss something I’m involved in, but moral being, if you have something contribute, don’t be shy do it, we have the #sqlfamily hashtag for a reason.  We all love to give back and help each other.

After being a DBA for ten years and gleaming from what others gave to the community, I dipped my toe in and submitted a talk to my local SQL Saturday three years ago.  I neglected to factor in that my boss and coworker were involved in running the event and that I was local and would be selected almost automatically.  So during a staff meeting, my boss informed me I would be selected and panic ensued.  OH SH**, I had a couple of months to put together my first ever presentation, and I was covering all the disaster recovery technologies (my favorite topics high availability, disaster recovery, and performance).  So I spent those months prepping for my session.  Presented it to a coworker via Hangouts thought it was all good.  Got to SQL Saturday and the projector did not like my laptop had to copy the presentation off to a USB stick and use the local machine to the university.  I finished the presentation in 30 minutes (oops it was supposed to be 60), got dinged by 1 of my 5 attendees for not having demos not sure how they missed the part where I wasn’t using my own machine, but however, I had already submitted to a SQL Saturday that was the following weekend.  So I added 20+ slides of content finished in 45 minutes, oops again, I can now give that same presentation in an hour without editing anything.  But I got lots of good feedback and submitted to one more event that year.  People started emailing me asking questions, and I did six more events the following year.  By the end of that year, I was bitten by the speaking bug.  It helped so many people, even people not in my session would email and ask questions, and I could guide them to a solution.   I since have spoken on at many other SQL Saturdays, virtual groups, and local user groups and Summit.  I joined SpeakingMentors.com as well to help others become speakers, go check out the site if you want a mentor to help you start that path in your career.

I also turned up my blogging.  I had started blogging years early but nothing consistent or what I thought was interesting. Now I set up a schedule to put out something every two weeks or so if I can think of a topic.

I’ve published my code on Github, help Ola Hallengren test his Smart Backups, and got a couple of modules ready for dbatools.  I just find things I can help with and jump in where I can help.  I respond to a lot emails about my presentations and random request for code to do something, in particular, if I can do it under 15 to 30 I’ll typically do it and blog about it.

My newest passion for the community though has been getting everyone ramped up on SQL on Linux.  I attended the first SQL CAT lab for SQL on Linux and have been working with PASS to put Linux content into the virtual groups.  I organized the PASS Linux Marathon last December and think Linux is going to grow and be big, and we that are used to Windows will have a transition to a new operating system to make.  I also started WeSpeakLinux.com to get more generic Linux content available to Windows administrators and developers.

For others looking to contribute the approach, I would take now besides jumping in head first into speaking, is to volunteer for anything I’m interested in.  With the Linux content, I reached out to PASS to see if I could help with that.  With a blog just blog about what you learn or processes you write or use.  With speaking check out the mentoring site.  Also, almost everywhere there needs to be a local user group, if you don’t have one close by, create one, I run Advanced DBA group in Raleigh, to cater to our more nerdy DBAs.