I made my presenting debut yesterday at the SQL Bits 4 conference in Manchester (Europe’s largest ever SQL Server community event and its FREE) where I presented my "SSIS Nuggets Live” session. I had a few technical issues to begin with that meant I started a little late but thankfully they were only teething troubles and I managed to get through the bulk of the material. It was a demo-heavy session as all I basically did was pillage my backlog of SSIS Nuggets blog posts and show some of those. Thank you to everyone that took the time to come along and listen to me wax lyrical for an hour, its very much appreciated believe me.
The session seemed fairly well received and I got some encouraging comments at the end (thanks Sam, Timmy, Alan, Vivek, Marcus and others) so I’m considering submitting the session for PASS 2009. Watch this space. In the meantime you’ll be able to watch a recording of the session when it gets posted and I’ll post a link here when that happens.
Upon reflection there’s a few learning points I need to take forward to next time (if there is a next time):
- Reboot your laptop 20 mins prior to the session starting
- When people ask a question, repeat it both for everyone that didn’t hear and for anyone watching the recording later
- The quality of the session is determined by the work you put in before you even arrive at the event
- Session speakers HUGELY appreciate feedback so I’ve resolved to always complete session evals in the future
If you want a flavour of goings-on at the event check out the #sqlbits hash tag on Twitter.
Lastly, on behalf of everyone at the conference I’d like to offer a heartfelt thanks to the core organising team of Simon Sabin, Allan Mitchell, Darren Green, Chris Webb, James Rowland-Jones and Martin Bell (apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone) who have put together a marvellous event that is destined to get better and better. Roll on SQL Bits 5.
-Jamie