Another month another bunch of great presentations. I almost don’t want to do this any more. It’s hard. I sit through a presentation and I think, “Well, here’s the winner this month.” Then I go to another presentation and I think, “Well, fudge, now one of these people loses.” Then I go to a third and I’m simply blown away. And now I have to pick. Well, it’s hard. So let me do this, I’m going to declare two winners this month, but only review one of them. Hey, my blog, my rules.

First, I want to award speaker of the month for July 2014 to Wayne Sheffield(b|t) and his presentation Table Variables and Temp Tables that I saw at SQL Saturday 294.

What’s my measure? That I learned stuff and was entertained. Well, I pretty much guarantee, unless you too are an MCM, and none of you can ever become one, ever again, you’ll probably learn something from Wayne too. This was a great presentation. I liked the way he started off with a “What do you think” set of slides to kind of get the audience primed for the material that was coming. It was a good approach, much better in a lot of ways than simply giving an agenda. And the information, scads of it, just flowed out of the presentation. I picked up a number of things that I didn’t know about some of the innards of cardinality estimates on table variables (during recompiles). The demos were absolute perfection. They did an excellent job of making the points in an extremely clear manner. And Wayne told a joke that I immediately stole (sorry Wayne, it was that good), the very next week while presenting (I did give you attribution, afterwards). In short, informative, structured, educational, entertaining, a great presentation.

There were a few issues that Wayne and I talked about. He has too much information to give out in one hour. Because of this, Wayne tends to not stop or pause to ensure the audience got his point and just moves on. It’s frankly a mixed bag on this. I think he ought to pause to ensure people are understanding his concepts (because they’re great), but he has a lot to present, so he can’t waste a lot of time (because his stuff is great). Tough conundrum, but I’d suggest going with trimming some material and ensuring full understanding, but that’s one that people can honestly disagree on. While when he tells a joke, it’s funny, the overall presentation style was just a little dry and slightly monotone. I think that’s just a question of a little practice more than anything. Maybe chatting up the crowd before you start to loosen yourself up will help.

That’s it. It was a great presentation with tons and tons of wonderful information. I’m quite happy I attended it. You should track it down too.

Second, and not second place, just my other awardee of the month, Louis Davidson(b|t)  simply blew my socks off with his presentation on Database Design Fundamentals at SQL Saturday 286. Louis is an MVP, author and frequent presenter, and oh my god, now I know why. It’s like a switch flips and Louis, who is a pretty quiet and unassuming guy, turns into SUPER-PRESENTER! And a tsunami wall of information comes hurtling at you along with quips and experience and stories. It was one of the single great presentations I’ve seen in, well, forever. So if I didn’t bring up that fact here on the blog, I’d be doing him an utter disservice. But… my blog, my rules, he’s so good, I didn’t want to just hand him the title and be done. It wouldn’t be fair to all the other amazing presentations I saw that they were upstaged by a consummate professional like Louis.

Please people, help me out, do really horrible presentations, at least some of the time, so I don’t have to actually think about this stuff. I’m lazy and you’re making me work.

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