Last month we had the opportunity to discuss some of the most important tools for a data professional. I took that opportunity to discuss how it is important to blog. As it turns out, that article correlates fairly strongly to today’s article.

These are maybe some of the questions that Riley Major (b | t) would like for us to examine about our own deep dark secrets and psychological makeup:

• Why do we give back?
• How do we help give back?
• What do we plan to do to give back?

in this, the 102nd, installment of TSQL Tuesday.

If you are interested in reading the original invite, you can find that here.

“Now I will give you an opportunity to give back. Everyone reading this has benefited from their fellow data professionals. And that benefit puts you in a position to share alike. You’ve learned something, so you can teach. You’ve been supported, so you can help. You’ve been led, so you can lead. But you don’t have to do it alone. We’re all going to do it together.

So here is my call. Pick some way you can help our community. “

Brief Intermission

A shout out is absolutely necessary for Adam Machanic (twitter) for picking the right blog meme that has been able to survive so long in the SQLFamily. This party has helped many people figure out fresh topics as well as enabled them to continue to learn.

Reality Check

Very much related to my blog post about blogging, I have to echo the sentiment about how “Blogging helps you become a better technical person.” A lot of what I do for my blog is there to help the community, but it has a self-serving purpose. It helps me become a better technical person. It also helps me to improve my communications and writing skills.

There are some side effects of blogging as well. Each of us has a finite number of keystrokes in our lifetime. That said, it makes sense to write certain technical things down in a blog post rather than retyping the same information over and over for various different email or forum responses. Make sense? If nothing else, it just seems more efficient to write a long technical explanation once rather than 12 times.

So there we have a couple of self-serving reasons to blog. Those same self-serving reasons also frequently apply to being involved in the community. For example, the more you exert yourself to help answer forum questions, the more you learn. You become a more experienced technical person. In addition, you learn how to communicate better and write better (hopefully). You are practicing your craft in a public forum where people can easily shred you (and they often do), when you are wrong – even minutely wrong. This potential for being blasted in the forums typically makes one work harder at getting everything just about perfect.

If you opt to speak in front of technical people, guess what? You are doing the same things I just wrote about in regards to forum responses as well as with blogging. The big difference is that you are now doing it in person, live, on stage, and verbally! You have really put yourself out there in a big way to go speaking in front of people. You will likely double down even more with regards to ensuring your material is very near perfect and bullet proof. In addition, you will probably practice a few (hundred) times to make sure you don’t fumble with your words. What does this mean? You are becoming a more solid technical person and honing your communication skills. Again, very self serving!

Or is it? The one final aspect of being a community visible person is the drive behind what you do. I like to share what I learn. I also like to share my time. I believe in serving others with a charitable demeanor. Giving of yourself will always enhance your life more than you can imagine – when you do it with the attitude of putting others first. There is no selfish intent to those that really want to help the community.

It doesn’t matter if you are helping the sqlfamily, your local Scouting organization, boys and girls clubs, sports teams, or volunteering at the local schools etc; if you are doing it with the intent to serve and do good – you will enhance your life in some way. If you are doing it for some accolade or truly self-serving reason, you may get the accolade but you will find yourself stunted in the growth potential.

People that give of themselves freely is such an awesome characteristic. There are many in the SQL community that truly give of themselves freely – like SQLSoldier. When it is a part of your identity, it comes naturally and there isn’t a lot that needs to be done to plan for it. Sometimes, maybe it would be nice to be able to have more time to be able to do more – sure. And that is the beauty of this characteristic. If you are giving of yourself freely, you often find that you want to give more. That is great! Do what you can, when you can. Sometimes, it will be more. Sometimes, it will be less. It is all good as long as the heart is in the right place.

The Wrap

This has been my diatribe about service and giving back to the community. When done properly, there is a natural born effect of enhancing one’s personal life equal in some way to the amount of effort given towards the community.

Oh, and if you are interested in some of my community contributions (which according to Jens Vestargaard is an awesome contribution), read this series I have published.