Welcome to PASS Summit 2011 Day 1!! Be sure to get your very own copy of the hot-off-the-presses MVP Deep Dives 2 today at the PASS bookstore and hit the author signing 1-1:30pm in the Expo Hall (or, if you’re playing along at home, from Manning.com) Sales benefit Operation Smile.
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Today’s keynote with Ted Kummert starts at 8:15am EDT. Click here to watch today’s keynote live. For information on today’s keynote, see the SQLPASS.org page on Keynotes.
In Brent Ozar’s (blog, Twitter) blog Guessing the SQL Server Denali Release Date, he half-predicted, half-fretted:
This might be a tough year to be a keynote speaker: Denali’s been in the hands of the public for a while, so it’s tough to do a big feature unveil when it’s not news…. My fear is that Microsoft will say, “Since we’ve got nothing to announce around SQL Server, let’s go all in with Azure,” and bombard us with SQL Azure keynotes [, which] won’t lead to huge rounds of applause at the PASS Summit.
Okay, let’s see if he was right…
7:56am Twenty minutes to go!
8:06 Seats are filling up prety quickly to the dulcet tones of “Wheel in the Sky”, and pictures of 2011 Summit attendees up on the big screens. You can really feel the tension build, as folks remember past year’s opening keynote entertainment. *shudder*
8:11 David DeWit just dropped by the blogger’s table to say hi to us all. Awesomesauce! His slide deck, he says, will be up on his site tomorrow afternoon.
8:15 Beginning with videos of PASS veterans and first timers talking about community.
8:23 PASS President Rushabh Mehta (www.twitter.com/Rushabhmehta) Welcome. “THIS right here, is community”. He’s introducing the PASS Executive Committee, BOD, and founding partners. Allen Kinsel (www.twitter.com/sqlinsaneo) appears to have cheered for himself. New to the board this year are global advisors – Rob Farley (rob_farley) (Australia), raoul illyes (Nordic), and james rowland-jones (UK). There will be a board meet and greet on Friday
8:28 Goals: There’s a goal of 1 million training hours provided to the community, and right now we stand at 430k of volunteer-led training. Goal to grow from our current 80k to 250k members, and from 1 global region to 5. “We already have a very successful region in Germany…” PASS encompasses lots of events: 24HOP, SQL Saturday, PASS SQL Rally, PASS Chapte, Summit, and Virtual Chapter. Also SQLServerFAQ and SQLBits internationally.
8:31 Largest event in the world dedicated to SQL Server and BI, put together entirely by our peers (community members). It’s a cool thought! He’s got a slide up about streaming and sharing on Twitter with #sqlpass…it’s got a five by ten grid of Twitter icons, and the entire blogger’s table stopped typing for a moment, looking for our own icons.
8:35 Listing words used for PASS Summit, he lists “Summer camp” and “SQL Awesomesauce”, unintentionally giving me an easter-egg style plug from the main stage. Bake sure you stop in to the SQLCAT and CS rooms to talk to Microsoft brainiacs, and ditto for Expert Pods (which features Microsoft engineers and MVPs…like me and Sean!)
8:37 There’s a big emphasis this year on networking and community – PASS is focusing especially on a good solid welcome and integration for first timers. Good call! Also good call on specifically naming some of the special events this week, like the Women in Technology luncheon. Shoutouts to the premiere sponsors Microsoft and Dell.
8:39 THE MVP DEEP DIVES 2 BOOK RELEASE HERE!!!
Please fill out session evaluations, either on paper on online (www.sqlpass.org/SessionEval)
8:41 Okay, it’s KEYNOTING TIME!! Sr. Vice President of Microsoft Ted Kumert is onstage now.
