If you're reading this post and attending the PASS Summit 2011 in Seattle, you absoutely should vote for two things with regards to the Summit: Dr. DeWitt's keynote subject, and the Community Sessions.
Dr. DeWitt's Keynote
I've been to the Summit for the past two years (I think... it's hazy) and one of the absolute highlights has been Dr. DeWitt's presentations. 2009 was on columnar database technology, 2010 was about query optimization. Believe me - he does not dumb things down, and he's not from marketing. There's a reason everyone raves about his presentations - he talks to geeks the way we want to be talked to.
Just like last year, PASS is asking you to help select Dr. DeWitt's topic. The theme this year seems to be parallelism technology - big data or big iron. Would you like the doctor to explain Hadoop and distributed data processing, or describe the coming impact of the increasing number of CPU cores and I/O changes? If you're a DBA, I can see you being interested in the Moore's Law presentation. But since I'm closer to the DBD demographic, I've voted for the Hadoop talk.
Best quote from Dr. DeWitt last year (I'm paraphrasing): "Guys that drop out of query optimizing because it's too hard... go build rockets for NASA."
Community Sessions
Apparently, the PASS Summit Program Committee is taking a day off, because PASS is asking for our help to round out the Summit schedule. (I kid - the PC did a great job this year and deserve a day off... even though I know they're not taking one.) From various sources, the Program Committee has selected 20 candidate sessions that are competing for five slots. Here are my choices, based solely on what I need to learn and want to see:
Robert Cain on Project Juneau - The team I'm with needs to understand databases better. It's really hard to help them get there when the code they write is so very disconnected from the database. As I understand it, Juneau is a step towards integrating code and the database better - which would give me better tools to encourage using better code and a real database.
Wendy Pastrick on Visualizing Indexes - My understanding of index internals is woefully deficient. I certainly think I know the basics, but I could really use more.
Chris Webb on SSAS Security - This one is probably over my head at the moment - but I know it's inevitable that I'll be called upon to deliver it. My org is presently just too paranoid (IMO) about spilling too many secrets to parallel lines of business.
John Welch on Advanced DW Scenarios - Some of what I want to be able to deliver in my DW seems to require what John's talking about here... but I don't know enough to say for sure, that's why I have to go.
Jen Stirrup on Data Visualizations - This topic is both fascinating to me and severely frustrating. I yearn for the ability to get rid of the complex reams of tabular reporting that require significant mental effort to decipher. I've done my best with Excel 2007, but I need to expand my toolset to accomplish transforming my business' expectations.
Vote Now
If you're attending the Summit, please vote for the keynote and session schedule you'd like to see. You've only got until the 20th of July. Please don't make it a popularity contest about the speaker - because that means I'll lose :) Yes, I happen to be listed twice! I have a session on complex SSIS executions and another on processing slowly changing dimensions in the running. If straightforward SQL Agent Jobs can't solve your SSIS execution scenario, I've got some techniques to help. If John Welch's presentation on advanced DW scenarios is a little too advanced, maybe mine fits in your ballpark a little better.
Whatever your interests, please do pick some. It's a shame that so many great sessions are in competition with each other - but I'll be happy to be a loser if it means you get sessions that will do you some good!
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