The wrap up!
So it is always bittersweet to go home. I love getting to see friends and family but hate that I don’t have the time to see them all. So besides that let me give you my summary.
- Great location.
- Our hotel was 6 miles away and it was truly a non-issue.
- Great venue, everything worked, was clean and all rooms were ready for presentations.
- Speed PASS!! If you aren’t doing this for your event you should.
- Free Internet, so important!
- LOVED the envelope with vendor goodies. So my new favorite order is thumb drive, plastic envelope, bags.
- Ample parking.
- Shirts were awesome. And I mostly appreciated that Hope posted a photo of them. This allowed me to pack appropriate clothing.
- Signs leading the way to the venue. If you don’t have these for your event contact Karla.
My session, by the way did I mention it was a new one? YEAH! It’s a follow up to my 45 minutes to your first SSRS report. Well it started out on an off note. My slides appeared to be missing a save – OH NOES! Then I suddenly realized I couldn’t use presentation mode. I had totally depended on that because this time I was diligent and put instructions and notes on all the slides leading to demos. And then there was the resolution issue. When I first plugged in my machine I wanted to burn my eyes out. Lucky for me it was mostly a miscommunication between Windows 8 and the projector. The lesson here is that it never hurts to try manually changing the resolution.
Honestly it felt like one of the best sessions ever. I must have been channeling my inner Stacia and Erika ( WEBSITE ). Thanks to everyone that attended, great conversations and great questions.
I want to answer a few of the comments on the evaluation forms.
Yes the slides are now up on the SQLSaturday site. I am currently working on a blog series that will break down how to create a report, basically a step by step break down of my other session.
The book give away was a surprise and there were no rules/guidelines given to us on how to give them away. I have been to sessions where the book is given away to the person who brought them coffee. I have seen trivia questions used, but I was unprepared for that. There are not names on the eval forms so doing a random drawing would be impossible. I will likely work on a gimmick for the next presentation I do.
Yes sometimes there are too many questions from the room. It is always hard to judge and sometimes the conversations add so much to the content because they are real world experiences. But it has been noted.
I was never so honored as to be invited to sit on the WIT (Women In Technology) panel. What an amazing group of ladies; Audrey and Julie ( BLOG | @DataAudrey | @JulieChix ) and Wendy ( BLOG | @wendy_dance ) and Kandy Vicini ( LinkedIn )was our host.
Topic: You.. as a brand. How important is it to create a professional presence for your career success?
Questions to prepare for…
Do you consider yourself to have a brand? And is it important to be successful?
Do you work at creating a professional persona? What do you do to create your brand?
What a wonderful exchange. Great questions and to be honest it was one of the most interactive WIT discussion I have been to. Best part is that branding is important to everyone. The DataChixs told us how they kind of accidently built their brand and how they have continued to make it work. Wendy talked about having different identities for different social media outlets and how they have come together. One thing that I want to leave you with is that it’s yours and you need to own it. So if you’ve got a catchy name or slogan you have to get that legally protected. Going with my name leaves little doubt, right? How much more legal can a birth certificate get?
And one final note. Thank you so much to Hope ( BLOG | @hope_foley ) and her amazing group of organizers. It seemed so effortless and ran like a well oiled machine. Nice work lady and I am looking forward to working with you again! It was also nice to meet your family. Thanks we really had a great time!
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