Jeff Pries

SQL Server, Power BI, and other Business Intelligence and data technologies

Tag: Volunteering

SQL Saturday Recap: #845 – Atlanta, GA

May 21, 2019 /

Saturday, May 18th marked the 10th anniversary for SQL Saturday Atlanta. As per usual, an army of organizers, sponsors, speakers, and volunteers helped to pull off another incredible event. The scope of SQL Saturday Atlanta never fails to impress and this year was no exception with no shortage of incredible speakers and fascinating topics, not to mention a very large number of folks who traveled multiple states to attend the event.

A theme is tradition for SQL Saturday and officially the theme was “Office Space,” which is a pretty fun one to work with. Unofficially, I think the theme was “Docker” and “Kubernetes” based on the number of sessions mentioning one of the other (usually both) and the huge amount of buzz about those topics in the halls. It’s going to be really interesting how these new technologies shape the SQL Server world over the next 5 years.

As always, a fantastic event and time very well spent for anybody in the field. The event organization was very professional and the entire day flowed great. Avoiding room capacity issues while still having huge Microsoft speakers such as Bob Ward and Buck Woody sessions is an accomplishment all in of itself!

Do yourself a favor and attend this event next year (if you missed this year)!

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SQL Saturday Recap: #733 – Atlanta, GA

May 25, 2018 /

This past Saturday, May 19th marked the 733rd SQL Saturday Event — SQL Saturday #733 – Atlanta.  Being my home event, and consistently a large and well-executed event, I look forward to this one every year and also volunteer to help out with room proctoring and any other help that is needed.  Since the loss of the GSU Alpharetta Campus as a venue, the event has bounced around looking for a new home.  This year, it was hosted at the Alpharetta Campus of Gwinnett Technical College, which I felt was an excellent venue (though not quite as convenient to me as last year’s Duluth Campus).

Like previous years, I felt the event was executed very well — with an army of organizers and volunteers, it seemed like everything was handled well with only minor mishaps here and there.  The new location was great and will hopefully end up being a new permanent home for the event.  As I was helping to work the event, I didn’t get to attend as many sessions as I would have liked, but everything I attended was excellent and time well spent.

 

Marco Russo presenting “DAX Optimization Examples” — my favorite session of the day. He easily could’ve filled multiple hours with his content and I look forward to seeing him speak again whenever I next get the opportunity!

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SQL Saturday Recap: #521 – Atlanta, GA

May 22, 2016 /

SQL Saturday Roundup: #521 – Atlanta, GASQL Saturday 521

This past Saturday marked the annual event that many of us look forward to all year long.  Called by some to be the “Summit of the South,” SQL Saturday Atlanta is always a large and very professionally run event which draws hordes of SQL Server Professionals nationwide.  Again, this year, the event did not disappoint.  Despite the initial overcast and rainy weather which opened up the day, a record number of 590 attendees attended this awesome event!

For the second year in a row, I volunteered my time to help make the event as great as it could be.  For the first time in the past few years, I was did not attend any of the event’s preconference sessions, which typically run all day on Friday.  That being said, the sessions that were being given were excellent topics which were presented by some truly great speakers.  I’m sure everyone who attended learned a ton and had a great time.

While I didn’t attend any preconference sessions on Friday, SQL Saturday Atlanta did still begin for me on Friday when I headed over to the site Friday afternoon to begin helping with prep.  We had a great group of organizers and volunteers onsite to perform the bag stuffing and venue setup.  Additionally, this year, the decision was made to pre-print all of the attendee admission tickets, name badges, and raffle tickets (rather than relying on attendees to pre-print their items at home prior to the event to bring them with).  This allowed for nicer name badges and perforated raffle tickets to be used, but was a very laborious process collating and assembling the packets for the morning’s registration.  I ended up spending all of my time Friday afternoon helping out with the registration packet assembly process.

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SQL Saturday Recap: #392 – Atlanta, GA

May 19, 2015 /

sqlsatatl392SQL Saturday Roundup: #392 – Atlanta, GA

This past Saturday a time-honored event was held in Alpharetta, GA.  That tradition, straight out of past — or is it future? was SQL Saturday Atlanta.  Called by some the “PASS Summit of the South,” SQL Saturday Atlanta was the 392nd event in the SQL Saturday series and continues the yearly streak in Atlanta since SQL Saturday #13 in 2009.

It seems each year, the stakes are raised higher and higher as far as size, quality, and theme — and this year was no exception.  With this summer marking the 30th anniversary of Back to the Future, it seems appropriate that the event was called Back to SQL Saturday and given a full, over-the-top Back to the Future theme.  But, before we talk about Saturday, we first have to travel back in time — to Friday…

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