Karen Lopez: Musings on Data, Process, and Architecture

Our Blog Has Moved to blog.infoadvisors.com

website@infoadvisors.com — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:06:08 GMT

Maximizing the Social Side of a Conference

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:28:24 GMT

Thomas LaRock (blog | twitter) recently blogged about setting up a PASS Orientation Committee for the upcoming PASS Summit. He shared his ideas of instituting something that would encourage more interaction between PASS Summit attendees:

most importantly we can get these people to build a connection with someone else which is going to result in a more positive Summit experience and make it more likely to have those persons return next year.

I think it's a great idea. Anything we can do to encourage networking and community would make the summit much more valuable to everyone. There are plenty of people who are extroverts online who are introverts when it comes to in-person socializing and networking. Being introverted doesn't have to mean lonely, though.

I shared the following story during the #SQLCruise WIT session:

I was a board member of an association and attending one of my first conferences for that society. I had made it a goal to meet as many people as I could so that I'd better know the community and to get more out of the conference. I still have that goal for every event I attend.

I walked up to a small group of people, of which I knew two people in the group. The conversation was about things to do near the convention centre. I didn't know much about the area, but did contribute some great restaurants I'd found. The two people I knew wandered off and more people joined the chat. Soon, the topic changed to work-related topics:

Me: So where do you work?

Guy: Inc.

Me: That sounds interesting. What do you do there?

Guy: ….I'm sorry, I'm married

I was stunned. I replied back "Uh...great". I then walked away, not sure whether I was just insulted or complimented. After a few minutes I decided on insulted. And I was still stunned. Even as I tell this story I waiver between amused, angry, and back to amused.

It took me a long time before I could work up the courage to walk up to someone and introduce myself.

So I'm a huge fan of more organized methods to encourage people to interact in a way that gives them more freedom to just join a conversation. I don't like "ice breakers" as much as someone in a leadership position telling everyone that the event is supposed to be about meeting others and giving everyone permission to join in. Whether that is choosing to sit a any table at lunch, choosing to introduce themselves to complete strangers, or even walking up to someone who is by themselves and asking if they want to join an existing group.

The leaders of SQL Server community (and I don't just mean PASS leaders) should set examples by encouraging meeting new people. That means being proactive about ensuring everyone feels welcome at all the official events and inviting new people to the unofficial social events.

I have some more specific ideas about how this might work, but the key is for everyone to realize that we have conventions to convene. We can't all be extroverts, but we still can be part of a community.

Fun at SQLSaturday Southern Florida

website@infoadvisors.com — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 14:52:26 GMT

Yesterday I spent the day at the Southern Florida SQLSaturday. SQLSaturdays are free SQL Server training events made possible by sponsors in the data-related industry. It's amazing that volunteers can pull of a conference-like event for 375+ people and not have to charge them a dime. Breakfast, coffee, lunch and after party were all free. An amazing thing, this culture of FREE.

Check to see if there's a SQL Saturday coming to your city at www.SQLSaturday.com.

This SQL Saturday had 600+ registrants, with about 375 attending. There were 9 tracks to choose from and like most conferences I had a tough time choosing sessions. I knew many of the speakers and attendees from Twitter, so these sessions reminded me quite a bit of DAMA/EDW sessions. Plus, there was the "other conference" going on in the twitterverse at the same time.

During the day I attended mostly the Microsoft Azure and BI-related sessions, but managed to fit in a great session on PowerShell, too.

In the BI session I attended, Mike Mollenhour of Pragmatic Works used a physical cube, much like a Rubik's Cube, to demonstrate the dimensions on a fact table. He demonstrated SQL Server Analytic Services. I want to play with those when I get back, for certain.

I next attended Joe Healy's session on Introduction to SQL Azure. Azure is Microsoft's cloud-based application offering based on SQL Server. Joe, a Microsoft Evangelist, did a wonderful job explaining the features and limitations of Azure as it is right now. I appreciate it when vendor staff, especially evangelists, can pull of real-world discussions about the costs, benefits, and risks of their products. I want to hear Joe present again.

Next up was Aaron Nelson (@SQLVariant) of SQLVariant.com and SQLPowerShell.com demonstrated great things that can be automated with PowerShell. PowerShell is a free tool that is similar to a macro language that you can run on servers and workstations to automate tasks. I'm thinking of ways I might use it to automate some data modeling tool publishing and printing tasks. I've always said that the best data architect is a lazy data architect, so I believe that PowerShell can be an important item in the Data Architect's toolkit.

Back to the Azure track, I attended Scott Klein's (@ScottKlein) presentation on Developing Applications with SQL Azure. Scott, founder of BlueSyntax, has authored a soon-to-be-released book, Pro SQL Azure. This session covered the how's and why's of using SQL Server technologies in the cloud. When Azure was first released, I did open a trial account to check it out, but never seemed to find a few hours to figure it all out. Definitely going to do this soon.

The final session I attended was by Jack Corbett (@UncleBigguns) on "Don't Be Trigger Happy". I get many requests to have system functionality be implemented via triggers and these requests are usually not approved as they don't meet good practices for the cost of using triggers. Jack's presentation confirmed that.

Did I forget to mention the swag? I ended the day with 3 t-shirts (one from Aaron Nelson from CodeStock with a stylized Rose the Riveter to recognize Women in IT), one free book (a coupon), and many great small swag items from the sponsors. There were many, many prizes, including an iPad, $500 cash, other cash prizes, an Xbox 360, 40-50 books, an Ultimate MDSN subscription, and many other nifty items.

This event was possible due to the support of the sponsors. The event was held at DeVry University, who hosts many of these SQLSaturday conferences. Platinum sponsors were Redgate (also a SQLCruise sponsor), Fusion-io, expressor, swiftknowledge, and BlueSyntax.

Gold and Silver Sponsors were Microsoft, JumpstartTV, TekPartners, QQSolutions, SQL Server Magazine, PASS, Quest Software, Sapien Technologies, SQL Share, Confio, and Sherlock Technology Staffing.

If you engage with these companies, tell them that you appreciate their sponsoring events in our profession.

Finally, none of this could have happened without months of volunteering from many great Floridians. Volunteers, you did a great job

it's all about the data....

website@infoadvisors.com — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:02:45 GMT

I'm on a Boat – The Sponsors of SQLCruise

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:33:00 GMT

In my previous post, I wrote about how SQLCruise sponsors are going to reach a lot more people than just the 15 cruisers/attendees.

Who are the sponsors? (pulled from the SQLCruise website)

SQL Sentry

SQL Sentry, Inc. delivers software products that optimize the performance of Microsoft® SQL Server® environments. SQL Sentry Performance Advisor® for Analysis Services provides unparalleled insight into Analysis Services performance, including bottlenecks related to memory, storage systems, aggregation usage, queries and processing. SQL Sentry Performance Advisor for SQL Server delivers an advanced performance dashboard with relevant Windows and SQL Server metrics in a single view along with detailed insight of heavy SQL, blocking, deadlocks, and disk bottlenecks. SQL Sentry Event Manager® is the ultimate scheduling, alerting and response system for managing SQL Server jobs and other events that impact performance. Download a Free Trial today!

Red Gate Software

Red Gate Software makes tools that pay their way. Tools such as SQL Compare, SQL Backup, SQL Data Generator, SQL Prompt and many others radically simplify the business of working with Microsoft SQL Server. That’s why they’re used in most Fortune 500 companies. At Red Gate we’re mostly obsessed with getting the UI right, so that you don’t have to figure out how to use the tool. It’s just obvious. Also fun. That matters a lot. Download a free 14-day trial of all our tools at www.red-gate.com.

MSSQLTips.com

MSSQLTips.com is a free community website focused on Microsoft SQL Server. The site offers tips, tricks, scripts, sample code, whitepapers, webcasts, tutorials, giveaways and more all related to SQL Server. Subscribe to our newsletter and get tips sent directly to you. If you have a SQL experience you want to share, we are always looking for new contributors.

Quest Software

Now more than ever, organizations need to work smart and improve efficiency. Quest Software creates and supports smart systems management products—helping our customers solve everyday IT challenges faster and easier. At Quest, we focus on our customers first. Our products and people are dedicated to helping customers manage their critical applications, databases, Windows infrastructure and virtual environments. The combination of our proven, award-winning software and strong customer relationships makes Quest a smart, reliable technology partner. Visit us today.

Not only did these sponsors give cash to off-set the cost we cruisers had to pay for the training, they did some AWESOME things to make the event even better:

SQL Sentry donated FOUR registrations and cruises. They initially set out to donate one, via a contest, but once they saw the fabulous entries, they decided to pony up for 4 prizes. I just about fell out of my chair when that was announced.
Redgate has donated 2 licenses of SQL Source Control, plus other fun swag. Redgate Press is donating two books, Defensive Database Programming by Alex Kuznetsov and Dynamic Management Views written by one of the SQL Cruiser trainers – Tim Ford and Louis Davidson
Each sponsor donated a loaded up Netbook. That means 4 of us will be going home with a free computer. I've left room in my bag for the one I'm hoping to get.
Quest Software gave us Amazon gift certificates to load up on books for the cruise

Also included in the swag:

Brent gave us a copy of his book, Professional SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting, autographed.
Hawaiian Shirts, towels, sunscreen, lip balm and a lei.

Do you want to see more events in the data world? Do you want them be less expensive, plus be more fun? Then you should also help thank and promote the sponsors of these events, whether or not they are your local DAMA meeting, Enterprise Data World, PASS Summit, or your local user group. These events could not happen without their sponsors. Make sure you thank them for participating…and help share the thanks by many by tweeting about them and posting your appreciation to your networks.

Thank you SQL Sentry, Redgate, MSSQLtips.com, and Quest Software.

SQLCruise – The "Social-ism" Factor

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:18:00 GMT

In my previous post, I wrote about my plans to embark on a traincation on SQLCruise.

Like all these events, the sponsors have been fabulous, going well beyond what normally they might do for a regular 15-person event. Why? Because their "reach" has expanded well beyond those 15 people. Each person involved with this event has been promoting it. Everyone who follows us on Twitter and Facebook has been exposed to this event and the sponsor's products. I'm guessing that's more than 100,000 people. The impact the sponsors have had on the success of event is so important that I'm reserving a blog post for them, coming up next.

I mention this because I think it is a real game-changer for how companies interact with their current and future customers. It used to be that vendors only wanted to sponsor events with many warm bodies in attendance because other than the printed brochure, that was pretty much the entire marketing reach for sponsors. These days, though, the reach can be much further. For instance, this blog post is going to be read by more people than just those of you who would normally visit our website. This post will be automatically posted to my own Facebook and Twitter feeds. And I'm willing to bet that a number of my followers and social networking friends are going to share it with their followers and friends. They will be re-tweeting it, sharing it on Facebook, and commenting on it on LinkedIn.

Forward thinking organizations, such as the sponsors of SQLCruise, get that. The power of social networking isn't just the re-connecting with your high school friends, but in connecting with people who know people you know. Remember my post about job hunting? The same principle applies here, too.

Our tweeting about the event even managed to get to Dave Webb, Editor of ComputerWorld Canada, who wrote about the event as Sea, Sun, and SQL.

It works the same way locally, with in-person events. In fact, it is easier to have long, in-depth conversations with real life events. However, that doesn't scale well when you want to reach hundreds of thousands of people. So organizations need to leverage both types of marketing – the traditional meet-and-greet events such as your local DAMA or IRMAC meeting and the events that are much more shared and promoted online. Sponsors for online events can often get more focused marketing, hitting more of their primary market via the communication that happens from follower to follower.

Why am I telling you, Dear Architect, about sponsorship and social networking? Because you can apply the same principles to your own internal marketing of your deliverables and services.

Does your company have a portal? An internal blog? Are you and your colleagues in your group making use of them? Or are you just relying on quarterly status meetings within the IT group to get the word out for what you are doing? How many people in your company:

Know what a Data Architect does?
Know what deliverables a Data Architect delivers?
Know what you do, what your struggles are, and understand how they have an important role to play when it comes to getting data right?

What about your project teams? Do they have a wiki, a blog that you could be contributing to?

It's time to think about your "reach". The more people who know who you are, what you do, and why you just might be the only people in IT who are compensated to worry about data quality, data availability and information success, the better.

But just telling people about it via a description of your job title on the corporate portal might not be enough. You need to interact with others in your company and your team members. That means embracing the social networking, internally and externally, to grow your network of contacts. And in doing so, you will learn about their struggles, their deliverables, and their needs.

I'm on a Boat, with Friends

website@infoadvisors.com — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:41:00 GMT

In just a week I'll be leaving for some SQL Server training. But not just normal hotel conference room, bad coffee, 8-straight hours of slides-type training; this is the inaugural SQLCruise. SQLCruise is being given by Brent Ozar (twitter | blog ) and Tim Ford (twitter | blog) who are well-known and well-respected in the SQL community. That's right; I'm going on a "traincation".

Sounds like an expensive, luxury fake training exercise, right? Nope. The cost of this event is LESS than I would pay for traditional training. Shorter cruises, such as the one we are going on costs about $200 a day for each person and that includes room, board, and activities. Some hotel rates I've had to pay over the years are double that amount.

When Brent and Tim announced that they were going to offer in-depth training on a cruise, I knew right away that I was going to enroll. I was the first person to do so, in fact. I've had on my professional development plan for the last while to brush up on my knowledge and skills in the lower rows of the Zachman Framework. I believe it is important for data architects to have a good knowledge of database development techniques. This helps us collaborate better with DBAs and developers. So I've been reading more about SQL Server and attending some of the many free, online events that the SQL community offers.

As you know, I travel quite a bit, so almost all my vacations are tacked on to the beginning or end of a business trip. The SQLCruise allows me to vacation in between training sessions, which are held during the travel time between ports.

The most unique thing about this trip has been the fact that the team of people that are part of this event (instructors, attendees, and sponsors) have been networking via Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn in the weeks leading up to the cruise. Unlike traditional courses, I now "know" every person with whom I'll be working before I even get there. This networking has allowed us to help the instructors fine tune topics, logistics, and plans to what we as attendees want. It has also helped attendees understand what we needed to do to prepare for the course.

I'm hoping that there will be many SQLCruises coming in the future. I'm also thinking that the training we do here at InfoAdvisors should be offered in non-traditional venues. I'd love to hear your ideas on the types of locations/events/other options that might make a traincation a real option for you.

Looking for a Job? Some Free Advice That's Paid For #1

website@infoadvisors.com — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 01:13:00 GMT

Lately I've been helping clients find employees/contractors and helping friends find jobs. I'm not in the job helping business, but I do have many years of experience screening resumes for clients and pointing people to opportunities I thought I'd share with some some of my most valuable job finding tips.

Before I get to the details, I'd like to point out that I'm not really going to make a distinction between employment and contracting in this post. The tips here, for the most part, can apply to either type of job. In addition, the market itself treats both contractors and employees the same. Contract versus Permanent really involves legal, tax, and accounting issues more than anything. There are significant financial differences between the two, but that's another post.

1. The best jobs often never get posted or sent to an agency for placement

In 25 years I've never gotten a job or a contract via responding to an ad. I know people who have done that successfully. It just hasn't been something that I've needed to do. I've just rely on word of mouth to find out about opportunities. The reason why the best jobs aren't posted is that it costs companies time, money, and risk when they hire via ads. Why? Because they get unfiltered resumes that need to be screened and candidates need to be put through a series of screening interviews just to get to a manageable list of candidates. It's truly a fire hose of resumes that show up. And they really don't want to drink that water.

When I screened resumes from posted ads, I'd guess that 95-99% of the resumes we received were non-starters: the applicants had little or none of the skills we were looking for. This is especially true for more advanced positions. We also saw a lot of resume claims that turned out to be less than truthful. I even once received my own resume with someone else's name pasted on the top. That's how difficult hiring from ads is.

So most of the best jobs aren't ever posted anywhere. Instead, a manager or team is asked "do you know anyone looking for a job? We need a widget administrator who can start tomorrow." So the teams start asking their network "who's looking for work" and more often than not someone knows someone who fits the bill, or close enough.

Some organizations do work within regulatory environments that require all jobs to be posted, but in my experience, those jobs are often already filled before the posting goes up.

Does that mean you need to start diving through corporate dumpsters to find out where these non-posted jobs are? Nope. If you want to find the best jobs, don't start with the ads (websites, newspapers, craigslist). Start with your network for friends.

You don't need to know about the jobs; you just need to know the people who know about those jobs.

2. Jobs posted via agencies are stuffed with Yes/No Tests…and almost no one has all the answers right.

You've seen these postings: full of acronyms, 10 versions of RDBMSs, coding tools, degree requirements, language requirements, etc. Even if the technologies listed have almost nothing to do with the job. Why do agencies do this? The first reason is that if the overload the requirements, they can better manage that fire hose in point 1. The second is that Yes/No technical skills ("Do you have 10 years experience with RDF?", "Do you have 10 years experience with SQL Server 2012?") are much easier to screen on than more subjective skills ("Can you explain the tradeoffs of Kimball versus Inmon?", "Can you properly normalize an OLTP data model for a retail store that might someday get into the ecommerce business?"). The people screening these really need clear and unambiguous tests for screening resumes. Their clients are often clueless that this sort of gate-keeping is happening.

The job posting overload is also used later for negotiations. "We won't pay as much for someone who has only 9.42 years of RDF". They know that it isn't necessary for the candidate to have all the answers, but when they don't, they want to keep more of the referral fees.

So don't let a job posting slip by just because you don't meet all the criteria in the posting. You should be able to meet most of it and you should be able to do the job before submitting, but cross those gates when you are negotiating, not when you are trying to figure out if you are allowed to apply. And don't be an idiot by pointing out to an interviewer where your skills don't fit. Be honest in your assessment, but don't draw attention to weaknesses. I had a great candidate who sailed through the interview with the tech team, only to blow it with the hiring manger and HR rep by mentioning more than 5 times that he didn't have the most recent skills in one of the requirements.

Don't let a list of True / False tests work against you.

3. Don't tell anyone except your spouse/partner and your pets that you are interviewing for a specific job.

I worked with a bright woman who was relocating to a great city for her spouse's job. So she had given notice at the client site and started looking for a new job in the new city. She had many exciting opportunities there and shared those stories with lots of details of where she was interviewing and how much it paid.

One of our co-workers told a friend in that city about the job. He interviewed and got it. A week later another co-worker interviewed with her next great opportunity and got that job.

If she had just been vague about the opportunity or, ideally, just kept it all quiet, she may have landed one of those jobs. She thought she was safe because the city was so far away. It's a small world. All this happened before the Internet, too. With the speed that information travels these days, posting that you are interviewing with a company on your Facebook or other social network might just mean you are giving that job away to someone else. By all means, tell people you are interviewing; just don't give away the details. Be overly vague.

Think of job hunting like treasure hunting: the fewer people who know about the treasure, the less likely you will have to share it.

4. Don't be afraid or embarrassed to tell people you are looking for work

There was a time when looking for a job meant that you had some character flaw, that you were unemployable or that you were a bad employee. Of course, unemployment was really low, you could keep a job for 25 years, and you got a nifty gold watch before you retired.

With unemployment hovering around 10% or more in some locations, many people are looking for jobs. If you keep quiet about or worse, lie about your job hunting quest, you are shutting out the very people who can help you find that best job I mentioned in point one. We are fortunate that in the IT world, there are still plenty of open jobs that pay well and offer great opportunities. If you are having trouble finding out about opportunities it means you need to work on meeting more people, not searching more job boards.

I never think poorly of someone who tells me they are job-hunting. In fact, my first thought is usually "Cool! How exciting to be looking for new projects". Which brings me to my next point…

5. Don't just look for a job; look for a project.

Most hiring in IT happens for these reasons: 1) A new project is starting and the company can't find enough people internally to staff it. 2) A new project is starting and the company doesn't have the skills it needs to staff it. 3) Someone has left the company and the organization needs to hire someone to fill their role.

Almost all the job opportunities that come across my desk are due to the first two points. Rarely the third reason. That could be because my work is overly focused on the project work, but I also think it is due to the project-orientation of most IT positions.

So don't tell people you are just looking for a job; tell them you are also looking for a project. Ask people about their projects.

Get them thinking about their projects…and you…and their projects…See? You're doing that right now, aren't you?

6. Stop calling yourself Unemployed.

I cringe every time I see one of my social network buddies update their profile with UNEMPLOYED at UNEMPLOYED. When a hiring manager sees an update pop up on their Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn pages, do you think they say "Ooh -- an Unemployed. Daym, I need to get me one of those!"

BTW, I absolutely cherish the "time off" I have between engagements. This is when I do all my research, training, public speaking and building my network. How can I afford to do that? It's all in my business model….but that's another post. I don't tell people I'm unemployed. I know that some people think of it that way, but that's their problem, not mine. I run a business. I don't make money just via billable hours. Again, another post.

Tell people who you are: "Sr. Project Manager" or "Data Architect". Then tell them you are looking for a new project…or job.

And while we are on this subject, don't call yourself "Part Time Data Architect", "Job Hunter", "On the Dole" or "Given Up Looking for a Job". I've seen those in profiles and it just doesn't make me want to pick up the phone and talk to them.

You might have a slightly different take on some of these recommendations and I'd like to hear about that. The more we share our tips, the more we help each other.

There's more coming: Part Two of this FATPF on job hunting and leveraging Social Networks coming soon.

I'm Speaking: DAMA Portland 15 June – Data Modeling Contentious Issues

website@infoadvisors.com — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 02:25:00 GMT

I'll be speaking at DAMA Portland (Oregon) on Tuesday, June 15 on:

Data Modeling Contentious Issues (back by popular demand!)

and

5 Classic Data Modeling Mistakes & How to Avoid Them

Visit the DAMA PDX website to register.

Standard Insurance Auditorium
900, SW 5th Avenue,
Portland, OR 97204

Technorati Tags: Data Modeling,Presentations,Speaking,Karen Lopez,Mistakes,Contentious Issues.

I'm Speaking: DAMA Puget Sound – Managing Reference Data and Codes

website@infoadvisors.com — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:28:00 GMT

I will be presenting at DAMA Puget Sound (Seattle) on Wednesday, June 16 on:

Managing Reference Data and Codes
Do you leave the management of reference data, codes, and enumerations up to developers or users? If so, you could be adding more risk than you are aware of! In this presentation, Karen López demonstrates tools and techniques for managing reference data and codes, includes ten success tips for keeping models and code values in sync. When presenting this topic to DAMA chapters, she has found the discussions can be surprisingly contentious - join us for a great debate!

Visit the DAMA PS website to register.

Best Western Executive Inn - 200 Taylor Ave N, Seattle, WA

Hope to see you there.

Technorati Tags: Reference Data,Data Modeling,Codes,Risk,Tools