Summit

Woohoo, we’ve made it to the second day of PASS Summit!  After an awesome first day running from the keynote, to my first session with Denise McInerney, late for my executive meeting with less than a dozen other attendees with Rohan Kumar and sessions/networking/parties, here we are for the second day of PASS Summit keynote!

Info and Awards

We started the day with Wendy Pastrick to tell us about the financial status of PASS and she decided to make sure we were awake and serenade us with a lovely song first!

Tim Ford was next to talk about what the community and PASS means to all of us.  He announced the PASSion award, which was given to my wonderful friend and co-presenter in webinars and fellow Linux Learning Pathway sessions, Hamish Watson!  Congratulations, Hamish!!

After a flurry of release announcements at MSIgnite this week, it was time to talk about the technology at a deeper level at PASS Summit.  I love this event, which has my undying loyalty due to the sheer amount of technical focus on everything in the Microsoft data platform and of course, was not disappointed with the first day keynote on Wednesday!

We started out with a great treat of information before the keynote, just so we were prepared for what was to come in the next couple days…plus bacon!

I thought I would share the recommendations for the next day that I’m excited about this year at PASS Summit 2019!  There are some really great sessions and as most attendees, I’ve focused the list on topics that I’m interested in or can help me in my role.

Although Tuesday afternoon and evening may kill me with how many events are all planned, there’s still a lot going on for the rest of the week!

I’m getting ready for SQL Saturday Oregon this weekend, (taking the train up from Eugene to Portland…) but its about time I talked about the exhilarating and exhausting event we call PASS Summit.

This year I was lucky enough to be chosen as a speaker and a blogger.  Bloggers at the conference get the opportunity to sit in special zones during keynotes and we write about the event.  We also get special access to Microsoft PMs, (although I may be the only one who works for Microsoft attending vs. running them… :)) I look forward to all of the blogger perks and recommend it to anyone who has a passion for writing about our community and tech.

I’m still not sure where October went….well, actually I do-  it was a flurry of travel, writing, (but not blogging!) and working with customers on a ton of new projects for the next quarter.  With the end of October, comes the preparation for PASS Summit.  Last year, I had to pass on the SQL Train, but this year?

SQL Train is the annual pilgrimage from SQL Saturday Oregon, in Portland, to PASS Summit in Seattle via Amtrak train.  Chris Hyde is the poor, tortured soul responsible for organizing this, but I hear that if you say you’ll volunteer, it’s like Hotel California-  you can check in, but you can never check out!

I have a t-shirt that says, “Underestimate me, that’ll be fun” on the front of it.  This statement pretty much sums up my life and I continue to both impress and annoy people, which means I’m living up to it.

The session evaluations came out for PASS Summit and I was surprised by some of the reviews I received.  The opportunity to under estimate you is kind of expected.  I’m pretty comfortable with my skills as a presenter, but it is still new to me to not be as well known in the speaking community as I was in the Oracle side.  There is an additional thrill, as there is less expectation on who I am and I’m graded just like everyone else going into a presentation.

This is my third time attending PASS Summit and second time as a speaker.  I applaud the PASS organizers, the community, the volunteers, the sponsors and the attendees for another incredible event.  In less than four days, I came home and tried to isolate one defining moment from the event and it was impossible to do so.

Thursday started out calm, self-assured that I knew where I needed to be all day and was prepared.  I tweeted happily that I had found a lovely spot to work during the keynote, (day job!)

Yeah, this:

I’ve plenty of rest after arriving in Seattle yesterday to get my registration for Pass Summit, attended the Women in Technology Happy Hour and then received my Idera ACE!