Mickey's T-SQL Ponderings

Last year I read an article about setting goals that are measurable. So I did just that. Instead of having a goal of speaking at more SQL Saturdays than the previous year, my goal was to speak at 7 SQL Saturdays. While I only spoke at 6 SQL Saturdays this year, I did deliver 9 SQL Saturday presentations. I would consider that a completed goal.

Level up

Here are some other achievements for this year.

1. I received the Best New Community Voice award from Red Gate.
2. I delivered 25 presentations to roughly 1,740 people across 20 physical and virtual events.
3. I founded the BIG PASS user group in January for Orange County, California and have been joined by Rob Hatton (l) over the summer as my co-leader.
4. Chris Yates, Jeffrey Verheul, Julie Koesmarno and I started a collaborative blogging series called SQLCoOp.
5. I had the honor of being part of the Friends of Red Gate program for a second year, speaking at SQL in The City for a second year and getting to work very closely with the SQL Prompt team. (Yes, they are my favorite team too.)
6. I wrote 31 posts this year that were viewed in 116 different countries. This happens to be the same number of posts my friend Jeffrey Verheul (b|t) had this year. So I am publicly throwing down a challenge to him to see which of us will come out of 2015 with more posts.
7. At PASS Summit I networked, live-blogged two events, hosted a Birds of a Feather table, networked, hung out at the Community Zone, networked and the feather in my cap this year…
8. I gave my first presentation at PASS Summit to a full room of 361 people. My favorite part was not the number of people, but how engaged they were. That made my day.

I raise my glass to my friends

We never accomplish anything in a vacuum, so I want to thank my friends who had the biggest impact on my life this year. There are many that are not listed, because if I did, this would be a very long post.

1. Ben McNamara (t)
2. Jes Borland (b|t)
3. Chris Yates (b|t)
4. Jeffrey Verheul (b|t)
5. Julie Koesmarno (b|t)
6. Brian Moran (b|t)
7. Ted Krueger (b|t)
8. Grant Fritchey (b|t)
9. Tim Ford (b|t)
10. Jason Horner (t)
11. Argenis Fernandez (b|t)
12. Red Gate (b|t) staff – Specifically Carly Harding, Aaron Low, and David Priddle

My next adventure

What will 2015 hold? I have some ideas and I’m setting some new goals, but only time will tell. I’ll see everyone on the flip side. Happy New Year!