For the last 7 years, I have been speaking at the PASS Summit. This event is usually in Seattle, but one year it was in Denver (did not speak at this one) and one year Charlotte, NC. It is hard to explain everything that goes on during that week because there is too much to mention. It really depends on the intention of the attendee on what he/she wants to do during the week. You cannot do everything.

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For a speaker like me, I have to spend the majority of the time making sure I provide value for the session(s) I will be giving. In the mean time, I try to catch at least one of session each day, spend time in the community zone and network with other attendees. On Tuesday, I might be in the User Group, SQLSaturday or Virtual Chapter get together. At night, just pick something.

So, lets go through some of these items.

Attending other sessions

My first goal with attending others sessions is to learn something new or expand on a subject and bring this back to the office. I try to implement this within the first month. The second goal is to implement a different skill or best practice within the next 3 months. If I get that done (which happens occasionaly) then I can go to the 3rd lesson learned.

Community Zone

If you are not familar with this area of the Summit, just look for the bean bags. Here is usually where I find other people I have meet at a SQLSaturday, a local User Group or while hosting a Virtual Chapter or 24 Hours of PASS session. These opportunites to talk with other experts in the Microsoft Data Platform community give me contacts when I have questions.

Networking

This is real simple. I eat breakfast and lunch everyday at the convention center and just pick a random table and start conversations. There is not much effort to this because I have to eat. This is usually an hour twice a day to meet others. There is even a Birds of a Feather lunch for sitting at a table for a specific topic.

So, why am i talking about this stuff. Not to get you to attend, but for you to submit to speak at the PASS Summit. Please watch PASS.org and the newsletter for an annoucement about session submissions. If you want to send your abstract to me for review, I will be more than happy to help. Why? becuase a couple of speakers helped me in the beginning.