Last night I had the pleasure of moderating at #SQLSatBrisbane and helped out Mr. Warwick Rudd (@warwick_rudd) and his hard-working crew make their first virtual SQL Saturday a real success. I’m sure it wasn’t easy. I’ve been on multiple planning teams for SQL Saturdays and I know exactly how hard it is to pull one off. I also have some ideas on how hard it is to make a virtual event work for the attendees! Putting the two together is just too hard to comprehend.
My first session was working with Mr. Rob Farley (@rob_farley) and his session, “Breaking down the Fourth Wall”. The funny thing about the session is that it was ALL ABOUT connecting with the audience. Due to this, he had me keep my web cam up during the presentation. Proper perceived etiquette is to keep the web cam for the moderator OFF so it’s not distracting from the presenter. I’m all good with that, but Rob wanted me to keep the web cam up, so up it was! The important thing was to SUPPORT the presenter because he was PRESENTING! I was happy to help out and I hope that my antics and questions were actually useful.
It was an odd dicotomy due to Rob not being able to see the faces of the attendees nor hear their questions and still being stuck with my bobble head of a web cam. We had a good time, he finished strong, and there were good comments and questions during the presentation.
My following sessions were not quite as unique, not that they weren’t all interesting! Mr. Martin Catherall (@MartyCatherall), one of the two “Martins” in Australia spoke next on Windows Functions. Marty is a really nice guy, a good sport, and really knowledgable about his topics. (I kept my web cam down!). We also had Mr. Jason Brimhall (@sqlrnnr) on “Bare Naked Skinny on SQL Server” and Mr. Anderson Rangel from Redgate with his “Devops for Databases” presentation.
The important thing here is
- They showed up and rocked
- Myself and the other moderators showed up and helped
- The SQL Saturday Brisbane team totally knocked it out of the park
That’s what community is all about. It was fun for me to do that and the speakers once again contributed with all of their many topics (28 in all). These are the things that make me proud to be part of PASS and to know so many wonderful, giving, caring, and friendly people. Do yourself a favor and join so you can “experience the love” as well!
