Red Gate's SQL in the City US Tour 2013 Review

I attended one of these events last year in Seattle and it exceeded my expectations. SQL in the City is a free event that takes place in various cities and provides great learning and networking opportunities for the SQL Server community. This year they visited three cities; Pasadena, Atlanta and Charlotte with touring speakers Steve Jones, Grant Fritchey and members of Red Gate product team. I attended two out of three events and also spoke at the Charlotte event.

Atlanta

This event had speakers Tim Radney doing a session titled 'Life as a DBA' and Stuart Ainsworth doing a session called 'Simplifying SQL Development'. I had a great time meeting Red Gate team members again as well as their new members  and also hanging out with attendees like Tim Radney's son. The sessions were very informative but I have to say that the most useful information I got was the advice that the presenters gave me for my session in Charlotte.

Red Gate team in Atlanta

Steve Jones Presenting

Charlotte

I have been looking forward to this event since August,  when I found out that I was accepted to be a speaker, because it would be my first time presenting in the US! I got to the event very early to review my slides but spent most of the morning in awe because of the venue; the Ritz-Carlton is awesome! Eventually when I settled down I saw Tony Davis, author of Red Gate's Transaction Log Management book, and asked him to review my slide deck. His feedback caused me to make some necessary last minute changes and after three cups of coffee I was ready to go.

There were 105 people at my Understanding and Controlling Transaction Logs session and I received some positive feedback from people after the session and also a good rating from Red Gate's review. To be honest presenting for the first time in the US, added some stress to me before the session but the advice from the guys in Atlanta and seeing familiar faces in the crowd during my session made it so much easier to present. It was a great experience and I want to thank Annabel Bradford, Carly Harding, Amy Roberts, Hannah Jermy and the rest of the Red Gate team for giving me this huge opportunity and also for all their assistance in preparing for it. Also want to thank people like Tony David, Steve Jones, Grant Fritchey for the advice and tips in the morning.

Presenting in Charlotte

Besides me and the rest of the touring team, this event had speakers like Louis Davidson, Kevin Boles, Kevin Hazzard and Mickey Stuewe. The sessions that I attended were fun and informative. The extra fun stuff started around 4 pm when the Charlotte BodyWorks masseurs came to relieve some people tension, followed by the networking event at 5 pm that included food, drinks and of course free swag. I want to congratulation the Red Gate team on another successful SQL in the City Tour. How do I know it was a success? Well besides me enjoying it and learning things I met someone later in the week who had attended  and to paraphrase her "For a free event I was impressed at the level of sessions, all of them were very useful and they were done by good presenters. Some paid events don't even give you that."

Performing a demo

You can download my slide deck as well as any of the other presentations from Red Gate SQL in the City site. I want to thank Paul Randal for permission to use some of his demos during my presentation.

UPDATE: While writing this post I received a Christmas card from the "Friends at Red Gate" team so I wanted to public acknowledge that and wish everyone at Red Gate a very happy holiday and a Happy New Year as well.

NEXT REVIEW: PASS Summit 2013 Review!