I was just writing a thank you message to our speakers for SQLSaturday #49 and wanted to write down a couple thoughts about that. The SQLSaturday tools remind us to send a thank you note and even suggests text, but whether you modify the boilerplate or write something from scratch, it’s worth doing. Does a thank you make that big a difference? I think it does, and it’s something I try to say a lot, in particular to volunteers.

The act of writing the thank you in particular is valuable because it makes me think about the contributions and their value. In the case of a SQLSaturday it’s easy as a speaker to think that I “only” reached 10 or 25 or 50 people, but that’s short sighted. We would look at the big number of 270 attended, which is mildly impressive, but I think it’s really about 6 hours – the amount of training each of those attendees received. What would it have been worth to you in the early months of SQL Server to get 6 hours of training from people passionate and knowledgeable?

Here’s the email that went to our speakers today:

Good morning all,

We finished up SQLSaturday #49 with 400 registered and 270 attendees on site. Thanks to your participation we delivered approximately 1600 hours of training. Stop for a minute and think about the impact that has on the local community, and the careers of those that attended. Imagine the impact of going to an event like this back when you were getting started. It can make a big difference, and it does.

On behalf of all the attendees Jack & I want to thank you for donating your time to the event. We hope you enjoy the coffee cup and place it someplace where it can be seen (and used!), a reminder of a sunny day in October well spent.

Regards,

Andy & Jack

Say thank you. You’ll be glad you did.