Sunday, June 13, 2004 - Posts
I suppose that if I were a puppeteer and I found a magic portal that literally allowed me to be in mind of another, popping into Mike's brain for a day would make an interesting stop. Especially last Thursday, when he came to Omaha to do an MSDN event. You see, Mike is the Developer Community Champion for the Twin Cities region.
We've informally chatted before when he visited Omaha earlier in the year to do the Security focused event. All the long, he's struck me decent guy with a good grasp on the technology and the materials. He also stood out in my mind as a great example of what Toastmasters doesn't and can't teach out about speaking in the real-world.
This Thursday, it felt like we really connected.
The presentations he made went well except for one thing: there was a cricket in the audio system. The first presentation was about Report Services. I'm pleased to report that Mike turned me on to using the Report Viewer control for WinForm applications. Guess I still have lots to learn about that product. The next section was using Application Blocks. While I'm glad he covered these, I'm still struggling to see why I'd want to go to all of the work of using a publisher model for exception management. Maybe my view of things is too shallow. Mike also covered ASP.NET 2.0 and the auto-form demo got lots of "ohhhh" and "ahhhs." Finally, he covered Yukon. Obviously, this got the most of my attention. Some notes for my Omaha readers:
- This is probably the last time you'll see SQL Workbench as it has been replaced with something called "SQL Server Management Studio." Same concept though.
- The "::" method accessor for CLR-types as been replaced with "." Thus making it more in keeping with C# and VB.NET
- The XQuery example shown was interesting in that it was an actual XPath statement rather than a FLWR constructor.
What completely pleased me to no end about this event is that almost from the time it started to the time it end, the room was packed to standing room only! Way to go Omaha!
I noticed something else that day about Mike. He was much more relaxed and actually seemed to be having fun presenting to us. Later in the day, he confided that he really loves that -- he enjoys presenting. It's obvious: he so gets on a roll when the crowd is engaging with him. That's not something you can learn, IMHO, that's just being a good speaker.
Later that night, we had one of the best Omaha.NET User Group meetings I can remember this year. Our own Dave Bettin did a rich drill down into Indigo. I really feel like I understand that stack much better now. Dave also demonstrated that once he relaxed, he had fun presenting.
After the User Group meeting, many of us headed towards the Old Chicago on West Maple for a .NET Pub Club. Those are great because you can really spend time talking to somebody about their projects, problems and ideas. But I found myself just stealing glimpses of Mike, seeing how he interacted and engaged with people on a one-to-one basis. You could tell he was still getting energized from the engagement.
Mike was nice enough to chat with me for a while after the Pub Club about the things we really feel passionate about: the technology, writing and speaking. Totally enjoyable. I just hope that somebody in every town that gets a DCC visit has as good of experience as I did.
This just in from Susan Bradley, care taker of the MVP site...
http://www.msmvps.com/Opml.aspx
The list is short, but the blogs are awesome.
If you an MVP and you're not blogging -- shame on you.
Taken out today: Apocalypse
# of referenced posts by category: Developement: 4; Other:
1; SQL: 1; WILY: 4
Post of the day: An
Introduction to the XQuery (and XPath 2.0) Type System: The Impact on XQuery
and XPath
This is hard, really hard. Saying goodbye always is. When something is a big part of your life -- so much so that it becomes part of your identity, ending it hurts. But what was is no longer what is. I've changed and its time to make some serious decisions. It is time, frankly, to do the right (or write) thing.
Omega: I'm sad to announce that I'm ending Take Outs as daily exercise.
More than anything, Take Outs was my daily discipline as a writer. It forced me to read, think and write -- the activities which sharpen the writer's saw. But the future was almost immediately on the revealed to me -- while it served that purpose and it had become something else, too. Very early on I worked on a system automated the process. With an elaborate database and WinForm (yes, I know, that's a shocking admission -- I do write WinForm code sometimes) client. That too was an exercise in sharpening the saw -- the programmer's saw. I'm not shelving Take Outs because I think my saw is sharp enough, but since return from TechEd, I've realized that I've been sawing the wrong wood. I've also realized that I'm been sharpening when I should be sawing.
After meeting many of you face to face at TechEd, I've come to appreciate that you liked Take Outs because it was a useful thing. Trust me, when folks said "you're the new Scoble" that was a great tribute. Robert set a high mark, and I'm pleased to have been compared to it. I am also damn honored that many of you got some value from it. That makes shutting it down so very hard. But whereas Scoble is comfortable as a Human Aggregator, I'm just not, at least not consistently. I need to shift gears. I need to generate.
In other words, it is high time my off my butt and actually did something, not just talked about doing it. But if I'm doing to do it, I'm going to give it my soul and it's going to be as much a part of me as I am of it.
Alpha: I'm pleased to announce that I'll soon be writing a weekly column for the SQL Server World Wide User Group community. Steve and I are still working out some of the specifics, but I have to love the charter he's given me:
Well, frankly, you can write about anything you like, as long as it's SQL Server-related... I'm more a stickler for content than word count
I'm looking for the first article to be on-line by July 1st, 2004.
I'm currently pondering a title and theme for the column. The current thought is "Alter View, Create Function." I hope to keep the level fairly high and you can bet there is going to be more than just a little Zen and Taoist philosophy woven in.
As for my efforts on SQLJunkies and this brand: it is stronger than ever. I totally believe in the vision that Donny and Doug have and I'm more committed to it than ever. These two efforts are more complementary than competing. In fact, I'm hoping to make another announcement on that front any day now.