In this month’s Road to PASS series, I’m challenging you to submit an abstract for the PASS Summit: Week 1 challenged you to write a few pain points you’ve solved this year Week 2 was about writing the session’s recap slide Week 3 had you writing the abstract’s technical details Week 4 was time to gather feedback from others My Week 4 homework results I posted my abstracts on GroupBy.org, then linked to them on social media: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. I got most of the feedback from LinkedIn! I find that interesting because I don’t really think of LinkedIn as a discussion…

In this month’s Road to PASS series, I’m challenging you to submit an abstract for the PASS Summit. Week 1 challenged you to write a few pain points you’ve solved this year, week 2’s homework was to write the session’s recap slide, and week 3 had you writing the abstract’s technical details. Now, I need to get feedback on my abstracts – so I’ve posted them on GroupBy: Getting Better Query Plans by Improving SQL’s Estimates How Often Should You Run Backups and CHECKDB? What to Do When SQL Server is Unusually Slow Eagle-eyed readers will notice that I tweaked the…

In this month’s Road to PASS series, I’m challenging you to submit an abstract for the PASS Summit. Week 1 challenged you to write a few pain points you’ve solved this year, and week 2’s homework was to write the session’s recap slide. This week, let’s write the technical part of the abstract. It’s tempting to start with a catchy theme or title, but hold off on that – your abstract needs good bones first, and we can always dress the skeleton in different clothes later. Let’s think about the basics first. Given your recap slide from last week: What did…

This year, I’m working with you to get you to the PASS Summit stage. Last week, we talked about your first homework: a list of a few pains you’ve relieved over the last year. This week, you need to write the recap slide for each of those pains. Think about the end of the session: when the attendee walks out, what are the most crucial takeaways you want on their mind? What do you want them saying, “Thank God I went to that session, because now I know that ____. When I get back to the office, I can’t wait…

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry, but you picked the wrong room for sleep The PASS Summit is like the Super Bowl of the SQL Server community, only with less head injuries and more of a chance of you getting up onstage. Every year, people just like you submit sessions, and believe it or not, some of them get accepted. You get free entry to the conference, a seriously cool entry on your resume, and an itchy polyester shirt that fits horribly, but you’re gonna wear it anyway because you’ll be so doggone proud of your achievement. Let’s do this. I…