The Professional Association for SQL Server describes itself this way:
“PASS is an independent, not-for-profit organization run by and for the community.”
Every now and then, PASS runs a popular online event called the 24 Hours of PASS. With a name like that, and a mission statement like PASS’s, you’d assume the speakers would be community members. That was true for years – but this time around, there’s something a little different.
The speakers are Microsoft employees (save one co-presenter).
The topics focus on marketing SQL Server 2014 and Azure SQL Database.
And the 24 Hours of PASS is sponsored by Microsoft.
PASS is supposed to be independent, run by the community, for the community – but this clearly isn’t an independent event. It’s a marketing event.
Part of me says that there’s a lot of community speakers who would also love to talk about their experiences with SQL Server 2014. Most of the presenters I know have put together at least one SQL Server 2014 presentation, and they’d love to be involved with something as popular as #24HOP.
But so what? The other part of me says it’s really awesome that our community is involved with a vendor that’s willing to put a couple of dozen sessions together, online, for free. That’s fantastic! First world problems.
The bottom line: if it’s a community event (and the name “24 Hours of PASS” is about as explicitly community-based as you can get), there should have been a call for community speakers and a mix of both Microsoft and community speakers, just like we do with the PASS Summit.
If it’s a vendor event – if Microsoft wants to hold a marketing/training class – they’re free to call it whatever they want, and just have whatever speakers they want. But that isn’t PASS, and it surely isn’t the 24 Hours of PASS.
What’s done is done, though. Go check out the list of sessions and register now, and one very important caveat – they’re using GoToWebinar this time around. Each session will be capped at 1,000 attendees, so if there’s a session you want to see, you absolutely, positively have to show up early in that webinar. It’s not enough to sign up early – you have to join early. Registration doesn’t mean anything until you join the webinar.
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Its all about business and marketing in the name of the community. Its well known and a no-brainer that PASS is a marketing vehicle for Microsoft, very much like the MVP program. There is nothing surprising!
Roger – wow, is that really how you think most people view PASS, a puppet arm of Microsoft? I’m kinda surprised – I thought more folks saw it as independent.
1. Why is there representation from Microsoft on the board of PASS? I see there are 2 directors who are Microsoft full time employees. If its independent, what is the need of that?
2. PASS gets most of its funds from Microsoft. If other sponsors do not show up, PASS need not worry, it will get all the money that it needs from Microsoft. Which other technical community gets this kind of funding from Microsoft?
3. PASS runs with a monopolistic attitude, just like Microsoft. If there is a SQL user group in US, it has to be a PASS chapter or else it cannot survive.
There are many such observations. Its just that people do not speak up for various reasons. You are honest and you speak up which is so good.
I feel pity for PASS volunteers who think they are serving the community, but actually are un-paid employees of PASS or Microsoft. All PASS volunteers put together, Microsoft saves millions of dollars on human resource, that would have otherwise been spent on hiring evangelists to do the same job. I salute Microsoft for their business model, but pity the victims 🙂
I would rather be surprised if you were not aware of this 🙂
#2 – CA just pulled out. It was a founding member.
#3 – Not true. I know several SQL Server UG that are not tightly affiliated with PASS. If I felt like moving to a new website, technically speaking, Midlands PASS could sever ties at any time.
I agree completely. Even if they wanted to do a separate 24-hour event through PASS I would be completely for it. However, they’re losing a lot of what PASS is about doing this.
Events like this are huge to many of us, and not just for the learning experience from seeing a presentation. Personally, I’m getting to the point that I’m submitting abstracts to national events and will be doing virtual events at some point soon. Having an organization that is run by and for the community helped me get my start speaking at the PASS SQL Saturday events and my local PASS User Group. I have my fingers crossed, with guarded enthusiasm, about being selected for the PASS Summit in November.
I’m growing faster than I thought possible in many ways, and a lot of that growth is taking place in opportunities PASS gives all of us. Now it appears there’s one piece that you have to work for a single employer to grow, and I’m not interested in sending them my résumé.
To be clear, I agree with Brent’s post. I do not agree that PASS is so closely associated with Microsoft. If it was then this would be expected, not a blow.
Roger,
PASS actually gets a relatively small amount of its operating budget from MS. Last time I saw numbers it was on the order of 1-2%. MS has 2 seats on the Board (as did CA until recently) because they were founding vendor partners.
On point #3, I guess I don’t know? I think we’d like to have everyone rowing one way, but if some city wants to do a different direction, from my perspective thats ok too – but I’d want to try to fix whatever made that the path they wanted to take if I could.
I thought Brent had a balanced take. I’m both PASS supporter and a PASS critic – this particular event crossed over a line for me, but few others do.
Also, maybe I’m biased, but having PASS has meant that our community has grown and done things that few others have – and I think opportunities to do more.
Andy
Well PASS has to be closely tied to Microsoft. After all, their product is the focus of the organization.
I absolutely agree that it should not have been branded as 24HoP because that’s not what it is. But otherwise, I think the event is a good thing to have. Just call it something else.
Microsoft isn’t just any other vendor. They are the makers of the product we all work on.
[…] #SQLPASS and the 24 hours of Microsoft – Brent Ozar (Blog|Twitter) […]
If PASS was truly a Microsoft puppet organization we would not be allowed to use the word Google in presentations. Just about every non-Microsoft speaker I have ever seen at a PASS event has had a “trust but verify” and “question authority” approach to life. Plenty of PASS members are critical of Microsoft to a healthy extent.
One of my problems with this is that this is the second go around on SQL 2014 through PASS by Microsoft. Therefore, it comes across very much as marketing.
However, I can clearly see the other side of the argument: SQL Server 2014 will eventually be our future if we stay as SQL Server pros. Therefore, give the community as much opportunity as possible to get free training on it.
KBK – So why not get that free training from community members? PASS’s mission specifically calls out peer-based learning, and it helps both the presenters AND the attendees.
I would have loved to see it come from the community. I would have preferred to see it come from the community.
However, if you’re short on time, then you likely don’t have time to find out who can present on 2014 and reach out or put out a call and then consider. Or, if Microsoft waltzed in and said, “Hey, we want to give these presentations on 2014,” then it might have been an “offer too good to refuse.”
So then I can call PASS and say, “We’ve got valuable 2014 training right now, and we don’t have the time to wait for submissions. Let’s do a 24 Hours of PASS that’s presented exclusively by Brent Ozar Unlimited.”
In my house, whenever someone asks if they can do something, we response with a question that sounds like Sifu from Kung Fu Panda, “I don’t know… can you?” Yes, you can. There’s nothing stopping you from making that call.
Now PASS may refuse. After all, you don’t have the presence of Microsoft. Then again, they might not, because all your folks are highly scored speakers. If I was to pick odds, of course I’d pick them saying, “No,” even as I can easily see them saying, “Yes,” to Microsoft.
PASS knows it has a 24HOP every six months. Plenty of time to ask about 2014 sessions from the community. Is a SQL 2014 theme valid? I think new versions are interesting and relevant and just because it benefits MS doesn’t make it bad.
I see community involvement in these events as being key, but somehow not written down, much like we didn’t use to have the rule that said to run for the Board you had to be part of the community. Assumed. I think a valid assumption though.
Brent, I suspect for the right cash there is a deal to be made!
Does the member benefit? I think they do, regardless of why or how this one is the way it is. Does it indicate PASS veering off track? At the least it’s tone deaf.
Andy – that’s exactly what I’m after. If the 24 Hours of PASS is available for sale, I’d love to know the price. If Microsoft can buy their way in, I bet a lot of us vendors could do the same thing.
I didn’t realize the 24 HoP was on a definite schedule. Since it is, yeah, it smells even more of a marketing move.
Brent, I don’t blame you asking. I hope they say no, not to screw you over, but to set some boundaries. Plenty of other ways to work with vendors in the space that benefits all, but I’d like to the core franchises remain community driven – community speakers that is.
Justin Dearing and I had a similar conversation on twitter (first in the open but it ended up in DMs) a couple of months ago when I referred to microsoft as being the mothership of PASS. This ended up in a blog post of Justin’s at http://www.justaprogrammer.net/2014/04/09/the-case-for-open-sourcing-the-sql-saturday-website/
Anyway, none of this surprises me. Granted, I’ve only been to one PASS Summit, and never plan to ever go to another. I had a real “ick” feeling when I when to it because it felt more like a vendor event than a community one. And I really can’t stand the vendor, so that was pretty much the end of my PASS involvement.
Thanks for this post, Brent. I agree with you that this doesn’t sound like a community event.
Noel – whoa, I’m sorry you felt that way, and I’m kinda surprised! Is there anything you think we could do to make it less icky?
Although I don’t know the specifics of this particular event in how it came about, I would think that this is an extra 24hop event – at least that is my guess. We already had one 24hop for BAC. I bet we will have another one for Summit. I actually have not reviewed all of the sessions being offered, but I know the one that I am co-presenting is based on the TechEd session. We had “Bonus” sessions in the past at 24hop events that were specific to MSFT. Does it benefit the community? Yes. Does it benefit MSFT? Yes. Does it benefit speakers? Yes – it creates even more demand for more info on 2014. Does it benefit PASS? Yes – these events will help PASS grow. Are there downsides to each of these? Yes, but I look at the positive unless the downside is too overwhelming. My bet is that the timing of the BAC and TechEd and the Launch made it difficult for this event to be held earlier. I think a healthy differentiator between MSFT and other data platforms is the vibrant community. This is a way of including a large memeber of that community (PASS) in to the “Launch”. I agree that it probably would be better for the 24HoP to be primarily community based, but it is what it is as of now. And I see many of the MSFT presenters as community members as well.
Roger – as for the volunteers. In my experience volunteers offer their time to help others as a way of saying “Thank You” to the community. Most of us who volunteer have gained so much from others who freely share their knowledge that it is not an act of work but an act of gratitude. If it helps PASS grow and MSFT grow, then you just have increased the demand of your skills. Volunteers also make deeper contacts with their peers in the community which can be extremely valuable.
Noel – Like it or not, Vendors are a part of the community. MSFT is the biggest. BrentO is one too. Vendors make a lot of this community possible by sponsoring events so that they are FREE.
Rick – would you say these same things if a SQLSaturday was 100% Microsoft speakers? Or how about the PASS Summit?
Going by your points, all of them could be applied. Why are we treating 24 Hours of PASS differently?
Rick – microsoft is a closed-source, proprietary software company. I don’t owe them an ounce of gratitude for sponsoring events where I learn about their revenue generating products. That’s just another cost of doing business for them. Capitalizing the word “free” doesn’t change that.
BrentO – Good Point. However, is either of those “viable”? Would you attend? Perhaps this is a good test to see if that makes sense? 🙂
Rick – the best way I can answer that is to say that I’m not attending most of the sessions at the 24 Hours of Microsoft, either. The material just didn’t look that compelling to me.
BrentO – But you are attending mine? Right? 🙂
I love you, man, but… I sat through a session on this exact same topic at SQLSaturday Lisbon by an SSD vendor, and I’m guessing it’s the same case study. The numbers and the test methodology were absolutely horrendous – several people raised their hands and openly questioned the speaker, asking, “Why would you ever do X in real life?” or “Doesn’t Y contrast with what you just said?” The poor guy really bombed. You may want to check with the conference for the attendee feedback on that one – the deck was a mess. (I’m guessing you guys have a dramatically better deck, but I really hope you’re working off a different case study, because that one was epic bad.)
Brent, not to throw fuel on a…train wreck, but could it be that you’re not attending most of these because there are a lot of topics you know well enough to do the presentation yourself? I doubt any of the founders of your company, members of SQLskills.com, or other prominent figures would be attending most of these for that reason.
So far I haven’t seen a single thing that would explain any of this. I don’t understand why Microsoft didn’t just do their own event and pay PASS to advertise that fact. They have the technical understanding to pull that off.
Steve – nah, I actually don’t know most of those topics well. They just didn’t call to me. The types of sessions that usually call to me are real-world, here’s the pain, here’s how we solved it, here’s the trouble we ran into while solving it.
I’ve got plenty of these with regards to children’s and youth ministry. Just let me know when you want to drink from the fire hose. I guarantee that the stories are more fun than a SQL Server 2014 presentation 😉
I’m totally with you Brent. I’m not interesting in watching/listening to a session that is basically a rehash of what I can find on MSDN. Like many of your and your colleagues talks, I want to learn what you’ve learned doing it for real.
As usual, I feel like the Mayor of Simpleton in these comment threads, but I have to give John Sansom some credit for including this post in SFTW and resurrecting the discussion.
The SQL Server Community really is something special compared to just about all other products from other vendors and even among the Microsoft products. Other vendors limit the community to licensed users, or require them to create accounts. They could never pull off something like a SQL Saturday in so many cities across the globe, or create such a vibrant community on social media.
Microsoft is never going to be open source or free, but it’s not Oracle either.
Well, duh, this is what happens when both the President and Executive Vice President of PASS are vendors.
They’re going to cater to vendors, and next thing you know, it’ll be all vendor sessions. You elected these people to the Board, this is what you get.
I’m always hesitant to level insults, especially in cases like this. It isn’t productive.
In any case, I know Tom and I’ve worked with Denise as a volunteer. I wouldn’t characterize either as a sell-out. From my experience, both are trying to do their best for the community. I don’t have much experience with Adam so I don’t know what his mindset is. I know I’m not going to attribute malice without proof.
KBK – yeah, agreed. I don’t think anybody on the Board has a motive to turn PASS into a vendor-fest, and even if they did, the remainder of the BoD would straighten them out fairly quickly.
Just – The PASS Board of Directors has been a mix of vendor staff, consultants, and data professionals with full time jobs for quite a while, so I don’t think that’s related.
The BoD requires a large personal time commitment, and that excludes a lot of full-time-jobbers. Vendors and consulting companies value having someone on the BoD, so they’re usually more lenient with letting their staff do BoD work on company time. Because of that, I think we’ll always have a large vendor & consultant representation on the BoD, and that’s probably a good thing. Many vendor employees & consultants have a good pulse on the wider community because they interact with more people – a benefit full time data professionals don’t often get.
I understand what Brent is pointing out here, and I totally agree with him. In the past year I have seen a lot of the deep technical content (which previously was also presented by Microsoft PMs) become to a level in which anyone in PASS community is left hungry for more technical content. Technical content is what many of us love to see represented in a fairly balanced amount between rock solid Microsoft PMs and top community speakers. On some of the events, in my role at Microsoft I had the opportunity to work close with the community, and a group of Microsoft PMs. Frequently I’ve seen people that know their content inside out, and might not be the best presenters (which could be worked on), but I’ve also seen community speakers that might not have the technical accuracy or in depth understanding on some of the features or why? Power BI for example is an area where I’ve personally experienced some really POOR presentations being delivered by the community since not everyone clearly understands the scope, features or the technical skills to bring some of those features like the PMs that worked on the product.(and I am not talking about community speakers like Chris Webb’s and many others) There should be a space for a certain level of product positioning (why not do that at the kickoff of 24HOP), but after that I would love to see the marketing fluff being cut out and have deeper knowledge, with well selected speakers and well prepared sessions. On that end I think both Microsoft, being the KEY sponsor to PASS and PASS itself could do a better job. You don’t put together an event by just selecting some sessions. Building out a solid content plan takes time, accuracy and deep understanding of the product, but even more understanding of the audience. As Microsoft PMs have their hands full releasing new features and products, and marketing has their hands full marketing these features, I feel the overall quality of content coming out of Microsoft has degraded in quality. I’ve tried many times to stress the importance of deep technical content, versus level 100-200 marketing pitch, which is not easy to do when you have people that don’t have the level 300-400 understanding planning for sessions or don’t have a clear understanding of their audiences and the key communities they talk to. A level 300 session at a Microsoft event like TechEd, should be considered to be a level 200 session at a PASS event, SQL Saturday or 24HOP. To Brent’s point, I would actually like to see events and content where there is room for talking beyond SQL Server (I’ve never seen any Oracle Virtual Chapter session make it into a PASS session or 24HOP). Nobody seems to talk about the integration cross platform, using a combination of technologies to drive business outcome or scenarios. If I would be at a train the trainer event for SQL Server, I would expect my presenters to understand their content so I can actually learn from them rather than getting pointed out that I am likely not the targeted audience for the training and they can follow up with the PM team to see if they can get me more insights (which doesn’t mean you actually get an answer). Agreed 100% with Brent on this one (and when I don’t agree with him, I gladly tell him too). There should be a community call for content for 24HOP, and it shouldn’t be something that is primary driven by a cooperation between PASS and SQL Marketing. If people are left hungry, they will find their food elsewhere… I would love to see the top tier community speakers going above and beyond to bring a fun, technical event, which shouldn’t take away from some of the stellar work that I’ve seen done by MSFT PMs such as a Mathew Roche, Matt Masson, Faisal Mohammood, Kevin Farlee, Adam Wilson, and many others I had the pleasure working with in my past job. My request: better content planning, content selection, technical accuracy, and well prepared, reviewed sessions on an event as important as 24HOP, and a stronger community representation over MSFT.
Dandy – thanks sir!
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