Anyway, he was able to get Hell’s Kitchen (site | @HellsKitchenMN) as the venue and convince SQL Karaoker extraordinaire, Jason Strate (blog | @StrateSQL) to be the guest host!  Way to go Mike!

So if you’re going to be in Minneapolis on June 22, go sign up to hang out with your SQLFriends and Jason, but remember space is limited so Book Now!

Also there are still spots available for the SQLFriends lunch with Jason’s co-author Ted Krueger (blog | @onpnt).  So if you’re in Chicago-land on May 18th and not headed to a SQLSaturday #119 pre-con come out and have lunch with your SQLFriends and Ted – Book Now!

Saturday, April 21, – SQL Saturday #118  Madison, WI – http://www.sqlsaturday.com/118/eventhome.aspx I’ll be presenting on Database Development using SQL Server Data Tools

Wednesday, May 2 – CodeMastery Boston, MA – http://codemastery.com/boston/ I’ll be presenting on Data Warehouse Design & Dimensional Modeling

Friday, May 18 – SQLFriends Lunch Lombard, IL – Come out to lunch with guest host Ted Krueger (@onpnt | blog) Go register now

Saturday, May 19 – SQL Saturday #119 Chicago, IL – http://www.sqlsaturday.com/119/eventhome.aspx I’ll be presenting Writing Professional Database Code

Hope to see you there!

At 11:30 the staff asked if I was ready to send people back as there was a group forming at the entrance.  So the attendees drifted in over the next few minutes and salad and drinks were being served.  I welcomed everyone around 11:45 again reiterating the point of the event being a networking event and that Brent would be rotating between the tables but feel free to talk and just get to know each other.

I purposely chose a family style restaurant to just reinforce the networking.   However, if I’m completely honest, my fear was that everyone would just clap up and look to Brent and/or myself to lead discussion, however I was blown away by the response.  Immediately people started chatting and enjoying themselves.  In fact a couple minutes later I attempted to get everyone’s attention again as I had forgotten to mention something in my welcome, however I wasn’t really able to succeed.  We had three tables that each sat 12 people and Brent and I both moved around the tables to ensure everyone got involved in the discussing and had a good time.

As far as I’m concerned, the event was a huge success.  To be able to get people in the community together to chat was just awesome.  There was no prescription of what people had to discuss, I heard discussions about blogs, Chicago current events, parking tickets, the food and of course SQL Server among other things (hey what is discussed at a SQLFriends event, stays at a SQLFriends event ).  To be able to put smart people together and just listen to the conversations was exactly what I was aiming for.

Food continued coming out and people continued laughing and enjoying themselves all the way up until the end.

I am interested in hearing the attendees perspective – Bob (blog | @SQLBob) already posted his here.  There were also couple suggestions for the next one that I’d be interested in hearing opinions on.

Name Tags – I purposely didn’t use them as I feel they are a crutch to learning someone’s name, however it was requested and I have no problem doing it

Space on both ends of the table – the way the tables were situated was against the wall, not allowing anyone to easily enter the conversation, I don’t know that this can change due to the venue set up but it’s a good observation/suggestion.  Although I can’t say that I really saw many of the attendees themselves moving around until the end when about half had left.

Lastly I’ve had a number of people ask about the second event, I’m proud to announce that registration is now open.  The event is taking place the Friday May, 18th, the day before SQLSaturday Chicago (another event I’m helping organize), you are registered aren’t you?  As far as the guest host?  They are a blogger, author, SQL MVP and PASS Regional Mentor, you’ll have to head over to http://sqlfriends.org/2012/03/sqlfriends-lunch-take-2  to find out who though.

In my career I’ve had the opportunity to be a member of Business Networking, Intl (BNI); attend, present and help organize SQLSaturday’s and User Group meetings, as well as attend SharePoint Saturdays and national conferences. All of these have their place and are great. However as I attended SQLPASS this past year I was hearing and seeing a similar theme.  People were stating that they were planning purchasing the DVD set and instead focus on networking and the discussions while they were there.  Every night there were multiple events the purpose of which was to build relationships.  In fact the conference itself had as special event and badge for first time attendees to ensure they were welcomed.

In parallel I spend some time listening to ESPN Radio and occasionally they have an event at Morton’s steakhouse in select U.S. cities entitled Lunch with a Legend. The idea is they bring in a Sports legend, have a nice lunch and allow people to get their questions answered.

Well putting two and two together, and coming up with four – I realized that many of the #SQLFamily relationships are by-products of getting together for training.  Instead, why not have an event where the whole point was to network and build those relationships?  Enter SQLFriends Lunch – a two hour #SQLFamily style lunch with Brent Ozar and 30 of your SQLFriends!  The event is scheduled for Friday, March 23 11:30 am – 1:30 pm at Buca Di Beppo.  The cost you ask?  Purely the cost of lunch – $30.00.

So if you didn’t already, now would you head over and register for the SQLFriends Lunch.  Don’t miss out on a great time!

In addition to this, I’m officially giving the call for “experts” that would like to come and be part of future SQLFriends Lunches.

Thanks to Ted Krueger (blog | twitter) for the constant encouragement, Andy Leonard (blog | twitter) and SQLPeople (blog | twitter) for the assistance and Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) for agreeing to be our first expert!

If you want to be the best, you need to beat the best

The reason this is important is that we often don’t know what we are truly capable of until pushed to our limits.  To get pushed to our limits we need to be challenged by something or someone that will cause us to stretch further and get outside of our comfort zone.  By definition this isn’t a relaxed, comfortable situation.  That’s how we get better.  On the flip side it is said of teams that are up and down:

they play to the level of their competition

As SQL Server professionals it’s easy to play to the level of our competition (i.e., our current data environment).  I don’t know how many times I’ve interviewed someone with 7+ years experience with SQL Server that considers themselves a senior person, when in fact they have just had the same one year experience, 7 times.

So while attending Are you a Linchpin? Career Management Lessons to Help You Become Indispensible, I posed the question to the panel: during the ebbs and flows of their careers, how do they keep challenging and pushing themselves?

Kevin (twitter | blog) restated the question succinctly this way:

• Year 1 – Focus on Reliability/Standardization
• Year 2 – Focus on Optimization
• Year 3 – Focus on Automation
• Year 4 – Focus on lolcats (ok so Kevin didn’t specifically say lolcats)

And the question is what to do year 4.  First was a motivation discussion surrounding the concept of what you do today is a down payment on tomorrow

Then came a couple suggestions:

• Ask for additional problems within your company that need solving
• Review things you worked on before, the idea being that your better now than you were 3 years ago (referencing the example above), go back and improve those first scripts you created

So let’s change 1 word of the quote to make it applicable:

If you want to be the best, you need to beat the your best

While this is more applicable, this is a tough nut to crack, and I’m always interested in how people deal with this situation.  Some people create extensive labs to be able to test a multitude scenarios, some people create projects on codeplex, while others might attempt to attain some uber-certification.  The point is to continually challenge yourself and improve.

As part of this discussion, it’s important to understand how you learn.  Personally, I learn best through discussion and just doing it.  I don’t learn well from a class nor from a book.  For me, classes are when I don’t even know where to begin and I use books mainly for reference.  However I have known people that learn best by books, in fact I had a developer once that was able to sit by himself in the corner with a book and learn a new language in a week!

For me, this is why we have community.  The discussion.  Events like SQLPASS, SQLSaturday and local user groups along with tools like twitter and blogging can produce great discussions and out of those discussions can come creativity and ideas that challenge assumptions or opens your eyes to additional possibilities.

So how do you beat your best?