First Time Speakers #SQLSatNash

SQLSat Nashville is chaired by yours truly and there are a few things I want everyone to know about this event.

2018 will be the 5th year I’ve been at the helm of this event and every year we’ve worked to help community members. We have offered Pre-Cons to seasoned speakers that wanted to try longer teaching sessions. Last year we hooked first-time SQLSaturday speakers up with mentors to help them.

For 2018 we are again offering first-time speakers mentors and opportunities to update abstracts after the CFS ends. This will give you a little more time to finesse your submission after working with your mentor. We’ve had several folks . . . → Read More: First Time Speakers #SQLSatNash

Inside SQLSaturday – The Schedule

So in the previous post we discovered how each SQLSaturday gets sessions for their event; if you missed reading that, the short answer is that it is all up to the speakers in the #SQLCommunity. Now we are going to figure out how schedules are made.

How many sessions do we choose?

Well, some events select every speaker and just build out a schedule from there. Some events use a different method; this is the most common way: # of predicted attendees /number of seats in a room = # of rooms needed, and then # of rooms * # of time slots = # of sessions needed. The second . . . → Read More: Inside SQLSaturday – The Schedule

Inside SQLSaturday – Sessions

I had planned on titling this “Mommy, where do SQLSaturday Sessions come from?”; but since I already had this series going I thought I would stick to the proper format.

Speakers: Where do they come from?

Every SQLSaturday is hosted on the PASS SQLSaturday website. When an event goes live, there is generally a couple hours until some 2000+ emails are sent out to ALL folks that have ever presented at a SQLSaturday. Since these events can go live anywhere from 6 months to 180 days before the event it is hard sometimes for speakers to remember when an event is. This also means that we get emails for EVERY . . . → Read More: Inside SQLSaturday – Sessions

Inside SQLSaturday – Who and How

So it has become obvious over the years that attendees are pretty much in the dark when it comes to the inner workings of a SQLSaturday event. I am going to work on this series again only this time for attendees. We’ve started the process of organizing SQLSatNash 2018 so it’s a good time to write as we go through the process. Today I want to fill in the blanks of WHO and HOW.

WHO?

Have you ever wondered who organizes a SQLSaturday event? How they got that job? Well every event has a different who and there is no one from Pass directly involved with an event. Pass provides . . . → Read More: Inside SQLSaturday – Who and How

Visualizing SQLSaturday Data–Session Details

Recently I downloaded the session submissions report from the SQLSaturday Admin site, it was time to work on the schedule. But first I must upload it into my SQLSat480 database. I like having a database year over year and I just love to play with data. So I ran some queries to give me information about my submissions. While relaying these details to my husband I declared “I need to put this into PowerBI”. When he got home from work he was able to see what it was I had created and said “so what did that take you like half an hour”, “Pffft!” I said, “like 10 minutes”. On . . . → Read More: Visualizing SQLSaturday Data–Session Details

Power BI–Visualizing SQLSaturday Data

Inside SQLSaturday

This morning I was having a discussion with my husband about our SQLSaturday location. He is extremely concerned that moving the event further away from downtown Nashville would hurt attendance. I tried discussing it with him but he finally said “I’d like to see the data so we could know where everyone is coming from.” I said well I have all the data give me a minute. 10 minutes later I am Skyping him asking how to share with him the 2 Power BI maps I have made.

How did we get here? I ran the last 2 Nashville SQLSaturday events. Because I took a big leap in . . . → Read More: Power BI–Visualizing SQLSaturday Data

Inside SQLSaturday – Romancing your Sponsors

Romancing your Sponsors

To be honest, this seems like a no brainer, but I have noticed that in some locations the sponsors are just “there” so to speak. So these are my tips and a lot of them I have gathered from the sponsors over the last year or so.

Make sure your sponsor area gets good foot traffic–this is how they meet your attendees. Don’t build rooms as tracks that would keep folks in 1 room or one end of a building the entire day. Have lunch set up early and allow the sponsors and lunch speakers to go through so they will be ready for the lunch break. . . . → Read More: Inside SQLSaturday – Romancing your Sponsors

Inside SQLSaturday – PayPal

PayPal

This year PASS changed the way money is handled for a SQLSaturday. In the past, they had a PayPal account and all the money was collected there. You would then request disbursement from them, with a limit of like 3 or something and 30 days after the event they’d allow you to pull out any remaining amount. Now, you must provide your own PayPal Account. But what does that mean to you? These details are things that happened to me and may not be a concern for you, if you’ve mastered PayPal.

Verify your account This was a newly-created PayPal account and we were unaware that you must verify . . . → Read More: Inside SQLSaturday – PayPal