SQLAuthority News – Author Visit – SQL Hour at Patni Computer Systems

Ahmedabad SQL Server User Group has started organizing a special event, “SQL Hour”, where we visit IT companies and interact with the SQL Server professionals. We had the first meeting this Saturday, 4th October 2008 at Patni Computer Systems, Gandhinangar.

This meeting was lead by SQL Server User Group President Jacob Sebastian, who is known for his knowledge of “SQL Server – Behind the Scene”. He presented first session where he explained what is User Group and importance of “SQL Hour”.

The meeting was very interesting and attendees were very responsive. We want to congratulate all the attendees as they really took interest in session and initiated new discussion.

I presented session titled “Know your SQL” and Jacob presented excellent session with hands on examples on “Query Optimization Basics”. Though sessions were titled as basics, there were many topics which were unknown to experienced DBAs.

“SQL Hour” at Patni was very productive, very interesting and we are very much happy about it. If you are interested to host “SQL Hour” at your company, contact us and we will be happy to meet you. Again, we would like to thank SQL enthusiastic Chintak to invite us at Patni Computer Systems.

Jacob Presenting “Query Optimization Basics”

Pinal Presenting “Know Your SQL”

How to Host a SQL Hour at Your Company

An hour sounds short, but it is the right size for a busy office. People can join during a break without feeling that a whole day is gone. Keep one short talk on a basic topic, one demo with real queries, and leave time for questions. In my experience, the questions are where the real learning happens.

A few things make it work well: a room with a projector, a laptop with SQL Server and a sample database ready, and one person inside the company who invites colleagues and collects questions before the day. Ask attendees to bring a problem from their own work. A real slow query teaches more than any slide.

Local user groups still love to visit companies and colleges. If you want something similar for your team, reach out to your nearest SQL Server user group and ask.

Published by Pinal Dave on SQLAuthority. More of my work at pinaldave.com.