Chris Yates (@YatesSQL / blog) is hosting the T-SQL Tuesday blogging party this month, and he wants to know “What does the SQL Community mean to you?”.
SQL Community
To me, the SQL Community is folks helping other folks. Being supportive. Giving advice. Mentoring. Teaching others to fish from the SQL Pond. From what I’ve seen about other communities, this makes ours unique. It’s not just twitter (although twitter is a large part of it)… it’s also LinkedIn, G+, and many different forums. Over and over, you find people helping others – sharing the knowledge that they have.
#SQLFamily
But it’s more than this. It’s friendships and relationships. You make friends as you interact with others. You develop relationships. You become… a family. It’s become big enough that a hash tag has been created on twitter for people to know what is going on: #SQLFamily. As it was expressed during one of the Summit keynotes last week… if you are new, welcome to the family. If you’re not, welcome to the family reunion. And that is indeed what we are… one big family.
What goes around, comes around
Being involved in the community has benefits. The SQL community has challenged me to grow. And the community has challenged me to give back. I started off by writing articles for SQLServerCentral. Readers there pushed me to make one of these articles into a presentation, which has led to my speaking at user groups, SQL Saturdays, and at the PASS Summit last week. As I have become more active, I have found myself writing and speaking – things that I never pictured myself doing. And being involved in the community has led to my last two jobs.
SQLFamily at my PASS Summit session
SQLFamily at my PASS Summit session
