This past weekend I attended another SQL Saturday. This one was held in Louisville, KY.  Malathi Mahadevan and her volunteers put on a fantastic, well organized event.  There were four tracks with a total of 24 technical presentations.

This particular SQL Saturday is an example of just how impressive a small local event can be. Of the 15 individual speakers attending, seven of them were SQL Server MVPs.  So, does Louisville happen to be an MVP hotspot? Nope. Most, if not all of them, traveled to Louisville on their own time and their own dime.  As you can imagine, the presentations were of the highest quality, which is pretty amazing for a free event.

Just as at the other SQL Saturdays I have attended, I organized a WIT panel. The panelists were Julie Bloomquist, Kim Tessereau and Sarah Barela. Our discussion focused on education and on encouraging the next generation of IT professionals. Once again, the discussion was lively and positive.  One very interesting note about this session was that there were more men in the audience than women.  I am sure that is a first. 

Mike Cole’s precocious daughter, Devone, was the youngest participant in the room. One interesting comment from Devone was that we are becoming too dependent on technology. She has a point. Even with the tools that we have, such as calculators, we still need to know how to solve problems on our own. We also need backup plans for outages.  

So, once again, it was wonderful seeing a few of my PASS friends and meeting new ones. I hope to attend a few more SQL Saturday events this year, so see you there!