This year it was really cool to see both the speakers and attendees wearing their shirts from last year (this year we did bags).   Here’s the numbers:

Apologies as I don’t have the exact registration/attendee numbers, but every year has between 350-400 attendees out of 450-500 registrations.  This year was 490 registrations and 374 attendees.

If you were watching the twitter stream or read some upcoming blogs, you’ll see how much people enjoyed it. For example Allan Hirt (@SQLHA) said this

I have to say – the organizers of ‪#sqlsat119‬ did a helluva job today. Great one all around! Hope to be back next year.

So the event was just a blast all around, but I’ll let others tell that story.  I want to focus on something else.

Trying new things

One of the things that we try to do is push the envelope a bit and try new things. Last year we focused on ensuring no speaker would have more than one session, which enabled us to schedule and support many first time speakers.

This year as we were talking with DeVry about the event, the Director of Community Outreach Matt Johnson really wanted to involve the students more.  We brainstormed and we took a page from the SQLPASS CAT Labs and decided that we’d like to put on some labs for DeVry students.  Yup that’s what we said – Free hands on labs for students of technical college run by industry experts.

They have a computer lab and we discussed having 3 introductory sessions:

1. Installing SQL Server
2. Overview of SQL Server and all its parts/components (IS, AS, RS, etc.)
3. Creating your first Database

Each one of those would run about an 45 minutes or so and be a hands on lab scenario and the attendees will be primarily DeVry Students.

As we continued to discuss this idea, we determined that we would not advertise this to attendees, in fact DeVry handled the registration of their students.  The computer lab they have held 48 students however within a month of announcement 55 students had signed up.  Awesome!

Now just to get teachers and the lab setup.  This is where Ted and Frank (@skreebydba) really stepped up.  Ted agreed to create the VM and run the first 2 sessions while Frank signed up for the third!  Content was different than “normal” sessions as we constantly had to ensure we weren’t going too deep too fast, these were strictly overview sessions geared toward students with little or no exposure to SQL Server. Ted and I met up on Monday so he could get me the VM and I went to drop it off at DeVry so they could copy it to all the lab computers in time.  As with everything, nothing goes perfectly – I got the email on Friday that the machines only had 2 GB of RAM on them so they’d only be able to have 1 GB assigned to the VM.  Obviously this would cause performance issues.  However, thankfully Ted had already configured the VM with a full installation of the SQL Server and was just planning on walking through the installation of a named instance.  This allowed Ted to actually cancel the installation and save the cycles which would be the slowest.

During the first two sessions, Michael McGettigan, a fellow employee at Magenic, and I both walked around answering questions while Ted led the class. Ted had the awesome idea of bringing in Jes (@grrl_geek) to speak about SSRS which she jumped at. Since I had a session, I wasn’t able to stay for the last one but Jes and Bill stayed to help out during Frank’s session.

Talking with the students, they were mostly from the College of Engineering & Information Sciences, some had experience with web development or networking.  Attendance was around 20 students, but all were there for the purpose of learning on a very nice Saturday afternoon by their own desire (i.e., they didn’t get credit for this).  The students were engaged and asking questions and this honestly was the highlight of the event for me, to actually work with the students and help them walk though the demo’s and answer questions was just plain awesome!

Of course I couldn’t help but start tweeting and telling people about this and once word got out that we were doing this, I was really encouraged by the number of presenters who indicated that they would have loved the opportunity to be involved.

So not that any of you asked me, but I recommend and challenge every SQLSaturday to find ways to give back and push the envelope. Don’t just have a great event, have a great purpose. So c’mon SQLSaturday organizers, step up and give back!

Anyway, he was able to get Hell’s Kitchen (site | @HellsKitchenMN) as the venue and convince SQL Karaoker extraordinaire, Jason Strate (blog | @StrateSQL) to be the guest host!  Way to go Mike!

So if you’re going to be in Minneapolis on June 22, go sign up to hang out with your SQLFriends and Jason, but remember space is limited so Book Now!

Also there are still spots available for the SQLFriends lunch with Jason’s co-author Ted Krueger (blog | @onpnt).  So if you’re in Chicago-land on May 18th and not headed to a SQLSaturday #119 pre-con come out and have lunch with your SQLFriends and Ted – Book Now!

Saturday, April 21, – SQL Saturday #118  Madison, WI – http://www.sqlsaturday.com/118/eventhome.aspx I’ll be presenting on Database Development using SQL Server Data Tools

Wednesday, May 2 – CodeMastery Boston, MA – http://codemastery.com/boston/ I’ll be presenting on Data Warehouse Design & Dimensional Modeling

Friday, May 18 – SQLFriends Lunch Lombard, IL – Come out to lunch with guest host Ted Krueger (@onpnt | blog) Go register now

Saturday, May 19 – SQL Saturday #119 Chicago, IL – http://www.sqlsaturday.com/119/eventhome.aspx I’ll be presenting Writing Professional Database Code

Hope to see you there!

At 11:30 the staff asked if I was ready to send people back as there was a group forming at the entrance.  So the attendees drifted in over the next few minutes and salad and drinks were being served.  I welcomed everyone around 11:45 again reiterating the point of the event being a networking event and that Brent would be rotating between the tables but feel free to talk and just get to know each other.

I purposely chose a family style restaurant to just reinforce the networking.   However, if I’m completely honest, my fear was that everyone would just clap up and look to Brent and/or myself to lead discussion, however I was blown away by the response.  Immediately people started chatting and enjoying themselves.  In fact a couple minutes later I attempted to get everyone’s attention again as I had forgotten to mention something in my welcome, however I wasn’t really able to succeed.  We had three tables that each sat 12 people and Brent and I both moved around the tables to ensure everyone got involved in the discussing and had a good time.

As far as I’m concerned, the event was a huge success.  To be able to get people in the community together to chat was just awesome.  There was no prescription of what people had to discuss, I heard discussions about blogs, Chicago current events, parking tickets, the food and of course SQL Server among other things (hey what is discussed at a SQLFriends event, stays at a SQLFriends event ).  To be able to put smart people together and just listen to the conversations was exactly what I was aiming for.

Food continued coming out and people continued laughing and enjoying themselves all the way up until the end.

I am interested in hearing the attendees perspective – Bob (blog | @SQLBob) already posted his here.  There were also couple suggestions for the next one that I’d be interested in hearing opinions on.

Name Tags – I purposely didn’t use them as I feel they are a crutch to learning someone’s name, however it was requested and I have no problem doing it

Space on both ends of the table – the way the tables were situated was against the wall, not allowing anyone to easily enter the conversation, I don’t know that this can change due to the venue set up but it’s a good observation/suggestion.  Although I can’t say that I really saw many of the attendees themselves moving around until the end when about half had left.

Lastly I’ve had a number of people ask about the second event, I’m proud to announce that registration is now open.  The event is taking place the Friday May, 18th, the day before SQLSaturday Chicago (another event I’m helping organize), you are registered aren’t you?  As far as the guest host?  They are a blogger, author, SQL MVP and PASS Regional Mentor, you’ll have to head over to http://sqlfriends.org/2012/03/sqlfriends-lunch-take-2  to find out who though.

In my career I’ve had the opportunity to be a member of Business Networking, Intl (BNI); attend, present and help organize SQLSaturday’s and User Group meetings, as well as attend SharePoint Saturdays and national conferences. All of these have their place and are great. However as I attended SQLPASS this past year I was hearing and seeing a similar theme.  People were stating that they were planning purchasing the DVD set and instead focus on networking and the discussions while they were there.  Every night there were multiple events the purpose of which was to build relationships.  In fact the conference itself had as special event and badge for first time attendees to ensure they were welcomed.

In parallel I spend some time listening to ESPN Radio and occasionally they have an event at Morton’s steakhouse in select U.S. cities entitled Lunch with a Legend. The idea is they bring in a Sports legend, have a nice lunch and allow people to get their questions answered.

Well putting two and two together, and coming up with four – I realized that many of the #SQLFamily relationships are by-products of getting together for training.  Instead, why not have an event where the whole point was to network and build those relationships?  Enter SQLFriends Lunch – a two hour #SQLFamily style lunch with Brent Ozar and 30 of your SQLFriends!  The event is scheduled for Friday, March 23 11:30 am – 1:30 pm at Buca Di Beppo.  The cost you ask?  Purely the cost of lunch – $30.00.

So if you didn’t already, now would you head over and register for the SQLFriends Lunch.  Don’t miss out on a great time!

In addition to this, I’m officially giving the call for “experts” that would like to come and be part of future SQLFriends Lunches.

Thanks to Ted Krueger (blog | twitter) for the constant encouragement, Andy Leonard (blog | twitter) and SQLPeople (blog | twitter) for the assistance and Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) for agreeing to be our first expert!