SQLAuthority News – SQL PASS Summit, Seattle 2009 – Day 3

The third day at SQL PASS Summit was education + entertainment day for me. During the last 10 days, I woke up at 4:00 AM regularly. However, as I had way too much fun yesterday at various parties earlier, I did not get up till 7:30 AM. By the time I woke up, I realized that I was late for my early breakfast meeting with Solid Quality Global Mentors. I somehow managed to reach there at 8:00 AM and we talked for nearly an hour. After the meeting, I headed to Keynote. Keynote is the best time of the day and wanton one wants to miss it.

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Today’s Keynote was extremely entertaining and educating. Audience was seen having a great time at various demos. I wished that all our technical sessions should be like this session as it was one of the excellent demos. Let us see few quick notes from the Keynote.

• Rushabh Mehta – President Elect started the keynote asking humorous question why there is no free drink at PASS and explained the budget
• Projected revenues in FY 2010 are $3.2 million, a 15% drop in revenues, while there was a 40% increase in community spending. There was 67% reduction in IT expenses
• Jacob Sebastian, the PASS Outreach Program leader, was recognized for his excellent leadership
• Charley Hanania and Allen Kinsel won PASSion Award
• Tom Casey, GM, Business Intelligence and Amir Netz presented excellent demos and future vision
• Power pivot demos were excellent and warmly welcomed by community
• Touchscreen Powerpivot demo was the major highlight of the Keynote

I attended technical session of Rushabh Mehta (President Elect for PASS, SQL Server MVP and CEO, Solid Quality India). He talked about ‘Overcome SSIS Deployment and Configuration Challenges’. Now, who knew that it would be very humorous session? Rushabh started the session with reference to the movie ‘What About Bob?’ and kept the whole session as story line of the movie. Many of us will agree that subjects like SSIS, deployment issues and configuration complexity are very dry subjects. However, with audience interaction and the presentation of this technically complex subject in simple words, the whole session was the highlight of the day. I confess that I am expert in BI, but not someone who knew it inside out. In fact, I am intrigued to learn more about this particular subject after attending this excellent session. I have requested Rushabh to spend some time with me and explain the extension of this subject.

I had many different meetings scheduled today. All of them were successful. I managed to run around the exhibition hall and meet many different MS vendors. I really enjoyed meeting them and I also learned about the upcoming technology. One of the vendors really impressed me with an excellent demo; I have requested the full evaluation version for their software. If they provide me the same, I will try that out and post my review here soon. If their software meets my expectations I have built after seeing the demo, I will sincerely wish to see them go mainstream with that product.

During evening, I had two different parties to attend and both party were rockstar party. It is so interesting that no matter how many different parties we go, we usually find the same people walking around. I found very strong presence of Microsoft in both the parties. Party hosted by Solid Quality Mentors had excellent food and drinks. I met many different SQL Experts there and we did NOT talk SQL. It was party and time to relax! As there was such a fun, I was late to attend the party of Microsoft which was hosted at Gameworks. Everybody went crazy with the games. Lots of game, food and drinks again here as well.

In the evening, I attended two different parties and both the parties were rocking to the fullest. It is so interesting that no matter how many different parties we go, we usually find the same people walking around. I found a strong presence of Microsoft in both the parties. Party hosted by Solid Quality Mentors had excellent food and drinks. I met many different SQL Experts there and we did NOT talk SQL! It was party and time to relax! As there was so much fun, I was almost late to attend the party of Microsoft, which was hosted at Gameworks. Everybody went crazy with lots of games, food, and drinks.

I just enjoyed the third day of the summit. Just one more day to go – I just wish this summit never ends. However, I strongly miss my family and especially my 2-month old daughter (and wife! – i know its clichéd but its true!!).

Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)