Love is many a splendored thing. It is also a much-abused word with many different (and twisted) meanings. The type of love I wish to speak about today is not friendship, nor the kind of thing that makes your heart go pitter patter in the springtime, but rather the type of love known as storge, or familial love in the data community. It is not the same as friendship either. I do have many people I consider friends in the community, but far more that are like family.

I have been a member of the data community (previously the SQL Server community!) for over 20 years. Over these years, it has been wonderful to see our family grow into something extraordinary, like a Norman Rockwell family painting that everyone always wants their extended families to be like, but rarely actually are. I spend less time each year with my extended family than with my SQL family. From conferences (PASS, SQL Saturday, etc.), forums, and especially X (or Twitter if you aren't into that whole brevity thing), I typically know more about SQL'ers lives than my actual aunts and uncles.

It is a phenomenon that, every so often I pause to ponder. This SQL family comprises people from tremendously different employers with very different viewpoints. Still, we share one subject rather deeply: data. Like a typical family, we rarely talk politics or religion at holiday gatherings (PASS Summit, or the lesser holidays, like SQL Saturdays), just the topic of our common bond over food and drink, occasionally stretching into topics like Lego and science fiction movies (though one must be careful, as some of these topics do border on a type of religion for many of us).

I can't quite figure it out because, for the most part, our gathering around such a business-oriented topic as data shows little financial gain at its center. Keeping our names in the public does help the digital resume, and I helped hire quite a few of my compatriots when my previous company needed training or a second (or third) opinion about technology. But not nearly enough to merit 100s of hours spent preparing training materials to go out and present for free (or nearly so, compared to consulting income.)

I am still impressed with how many people stick around the community to help others, even when they have made their name. Some fade away, thinking they will make a million dollars from the community. Still, our core community has been around for many years, adding more and more great people every year.