March 24, 2010 at 1:57 pm
I participated in the survey and think the PASS board read our ideas, then based on PASS management needs ignored our requests to move Summit around. Rushabh's reasons for not moving Summit had to do with cost, time, etc for the PASS organization, we the membership were ignored. If the decision to move/not move Summit was already determined then why have the survey in the first place?
I have no problem with Seattle, was there last Summit and will be there for Summit 2010, but I wouldn't mind seeing a different city sometime.
March 24, 2010 at 2:16 pm
But, where I work, flying to Seattle is a tough sell (for whatever reason). Some of us work for employers that put constraints on travel destinations. <<Seattle is a tough sell for east coasters for more than one reason..most people have to stay on top of their work when they go to conferences and a 3 hour jet lag makes that pretty hard to do, most people would love to take their families if they could and it is just too far and expensive to do that and most people find it very hard to take advantage of evening networking parties and events - again between taking in conference content, staying on top of work issues and a 3 hour jet lag am just about beat and ready to go to bed by 7 pm when all the fun really starts. I still do it since have been doing it for six years now and so many friends to meet and catch up there, but have long lost the battle selling this to others.
I don't know this for a fact but am willing to bet that most people who took the survey are existing long time conference attendees or atleast PASS members in long standing who want to go for meeting friends or contacts or who find the MS add in of value. Simply because neither factor seems to appeal a whole lot to people who have never been there, in my experience atleast.
March 24, 2010 at 3:04 pm
About 60% of respondents had attended at least one Summit in the past. About 1/3 attended in 2009. There was not a question about how many you had attended.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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March 24, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Hello SQL friends,
I just got back from my first PASS BoD meeting. It was a lot of fun and we accomplished a lot. For the record. I voted to keep Summit in Seattle for the next few years. I heard the community loud and clear when they said ‘we want to move around’. Voting to keep it in Seattle was a hard choice for me since I was concerned people in the community might think ‘PASS isn’t listening’. I don’t think that was the case.
I voted to keep it in Seattle for 2 main reasons which are in fact linked.
First, PASS doesn’t have huge wad of cash lying in the bank. Two bad Summits in a row and we might need to stand on the street corner with cans to raise money. For better or worse; I perceive Seattle as being safer from a fiscal perspective. People might grumble about going to Seattle again. But I’m pretty sure they will. At least for the next few years.
Here’s the second reason. Moving PASS to another city is theoretically easy. There are lots of cities big enough to host us. I’m on the East Coast and have been doing Microsoft stuff for almost 20 years. Trust me. Going to Seattle in November doesn’t rock my world. But having access to 400 or so Microsoft employees including most of the SQLCAT team and a ridiculous number of very senior developers does in fact rock my world. Even after 20 years of doing this.
The truth is that Microsoft will not send 400 people to a location other than Seattle. We’d be lucky to get 40. We’d probably get closer to 20-30 and the people that Microsoft sends will be less senior. Ever heard of TechEd? Pretty big show, right? PASS has a massively bigger SQL dev team presence. Does the entire SQLCAT team go to TechEd? Nope. Not even close.
I know some people in the community have suggested that Microsoft would still send a ton of people. But do the math. First. Flying 400 people and paying for hotel for a week for each of them would cost Microsoft well over $1,000,000. Trust me. Ain’t gonna happen. Second. Those 400 people can come to PASS for short periods of time during the week and still do their day jobs. Travel for a week? No. Microsoft isn’t going to shut down the dev team for a week.
The survey wasn’t crafted to present a bias. We’re great SQL Server folks; but I’ve never been a Survey MVP. The survey might have flaws. I can think of at least one. I would have wanted at least one more question. The question would be something like this:
“Let’s assume you want to move Summit. Would you still want to move from Seattle if you knew that the move would mean we’d have 20-30 B+ team engineers from Microsoft rather than 400 people from Microsoft including the full A+ team. “
Ultimately, that’s what it comes down to.
So.
Let’s assume you want to move Summit. Would you still want to move from Seattle if you knew that the move would mean we’d have 20-30 B+ team engineers from Microsoft rather than 400 people from Microsoft including the full A+ team?
I’d like to know. There’s nothing wrong if your answer to that question is yes. But I think it’s an important question to consider. Talk to me.
Brian Moran
PASS BoD Member
BTW. My comments above are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of anyone else on the Board.
March 24, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Dave Schutz (3/24/2010)
I participated in the survey and think the PASS board read our ideas, then based on PASS management needs ignored our requests to move Summit around. Rushabh's reasons for not moving Summit had to do with cost, time, etc for the PASS organization, we the membership were ignored. If the decision to move/not move Summit was already determined then why have the survey in the first place?
To answer a question that's been posed a lot - the survey went out to gauge the opinions of the community. The Board genuinely does want to know what the members of PASS have to say but, at the same time, we have to work within considerable time constraints. A few weeks ago, Rushabh mentioned (in the PASS blog: http://www.sqlpass.org/Community/PASSBlog/tabid/75/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/141/Default.aspx) that we are searching for locations for 2013 and beyond. That's not because we don't care but because we need to plan things very far into the future. Many convention centers are already booked solid for 2012 and are starting to book for 2013.
So, in short, we had the survey because we heard you and we wanted to hear more of what you had to say. Yes, PASS already has commitments to Seattle for the next two years, but we want to make sure that wherever we have the Summit that it's what the community wants. For the record, I voted for keeping the Summit in Seattle for the same reasons that Brian Moran voted for it. I think that the MS presence at the event is invaluable. Clearly I'm in the minority and I'm willing to admit that PASS needs to listen to other people.
Rushabh mentioned that we're looking into putting on a second, smaller, North American event. The Board of Directors are still in the early stages of looking into a smaller conference, but I want everyone to know that I'm paying attention to what you're saying. The other Board members are paying attention.
P.S. These are my opinions and words, not the Board's.
Also, Dave I'm not picking on you, you just had the most quotable response.
Jeremiah Peschka
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Managing Director - Brent Ozar PLF, LLC
March 24, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Bill,
I don't think we've met. Nice to meet you.
Your comment about not being able to get answers about some deep FTS questions is interesting. It made me realize that MVP's and some other people in the community tend to have channels to get questions like that answered. But many people don't. Your questions would make for some interesting reading. I'll personally try to get you the answers. But better. I'm going to start a discussion on the PASS BoD email list saying 'how do we scale this' so that we can effectively pool interesting questions from the community and get answers.
Brian Moran
March 25, 2010 at 3:45 am
Jeremiah, Brian, thanks for your opinions.
It's good to hear from you, and I would encourage you both to communicate with the community more often, as Andy and Thomas have done. It is refreshing to get communications from the board.
I understand your fiscal issues, however the next two Summits in Seattle, or the next one, would provide you with some buffer on cash. Not to mention that we are not asking for every Summit elsewhere. Every other one would be nice, but 1 of 3 would be great as well and I think that addresses the fiscal issue.
In terms of MS, I ask almost everyone that I meet at events (UGs, SQL Saturday, etc.) and the vast majority never really spend time with MS. To some extent people do want answers, but a small group of MS people could still engage, or maybe even take issues on the PASS site and followup later on blogs or the PASS site for issues. I would bet most people do in fact go for networking with the community, and hearing other real world professionals talk about their jobs.
March 25, 2010 at 5:52 am
Jeremiah,
You weren't picking on me, I have no problem with your response. It's good to have discussion on this topic as it is important to the PASS community. I'm not abdicating moving Summit every year. I believe the survey revealed that most people supported having a different location every 3 - 5 years. Keep it in Seattle the rest of the time. The idea of having smaller regional events is okay, but I think those events would have smaller turnout and less chance to meet everyone.
Moving Summit out of Seattle once every 3 - 5 years shouldn't be insurmountable.
Also I'd like to thank those of you who spend their time on the board dealing with these difficult issues, it keeps PASS running.
March 25, 2010 at 6:14 am
Jeremiah/Brian, my name is Malathi and i run the user group out of Louisville. Thank you for the clarifications, most of it made sense to me. In terms of location and priorities my experience has been similar to Steve's that the vast majority of members and people i meet want a small group of MS people but the preference is on networking and hearing real world experiences. I had 8 people minimum attending the summit until we made Seattle a regular and now am doing to 3 that is inclusive of 2 speakers.
I am a little confused though on the cost factor. The othe sql summit is hosted at Vegas and offers rates competitive to PASS, how is that possible? My understanding from what Bill G explained some time ago is the effort around logistics at another location and considering that it is a volunteering effort am more than happy to understand the limitations.
Thank you
March 25, 2010 at 6:28 am
Although it was a lot smaller and covered fewer miles, I used to be part of a group of people who ran Methodist Youth conferences - around 200 people between 14 and 25 in the UK, getting together to discuss how the Methodist Church in the UK should operate from a youth perspective.
Each year teams from different towns and cities would present to the conference, requesting that it be held in their location. The location would be voted on, and the succesful team would handle the logistics of holding the event there.
This took a lot of stress off the "Youth Exec", allowed the conference attendees to choose the location, and drummed up local support. As with PASS, we had an extremely limited budget.
Do you think this kind of approach might work in a few years time?
March 25, 2010 at 6:53 am
Ben - that's an interesting idea. And a pretty compelling one. I don't know how well it would work for the big Summit, but I'm not about to rule it out 🙂
Thanks for sharing your experience. If it's working for one group then there's a really good chance that it will work for someone else.
Jeremiah Peschka
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Managing Director - Brent Ozar PLF, LLC
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