SQLBits 2024- It’s Not Just a Wrap, It’s the Whole Burrito!

So, this last week I had the opportunity to speak and attend at the SQLbits conference. This was high on my list after attending an Oracle event last year where even attendees and organizers there mentioned that they admired the conference and the way that it was run.  I fully admit to running the full gambit of either hyper-aware or completely oblivious and with SQLBits, I’d been a bit of the latter and I wanted to change that.

Now I want to preface this post with saying that I refer to this month as “March madness” and that means that I’ve been traveling every week all month.  I was excruciatingly aware I’d not just traveled to London this last week but didn’t get to go home afterwards, instead heading to Boston to work with my engineers after. I consistently do everything I can with self-care and due to this I did not attend one social event that was part of the  SQLBits conference.  Yes, you heard that right-  even though I took the time to put together a costume for the big Friday night party, I did NOT go.  This is how serious this introvert responds when her social battery gets low- do the needful, screw the additional.

Yet even after missing each of the evening social events, I can still claim the event was just awesome.  Maybe my bar is just low after Covid? OK let’s just all agree I’m self-maintaining and move on, but the event as a whole and this comes from somebody who’s run both Oracle and SQL Server events was incredibly well run and that means a lot to me.  Logistics, communication, location, care, and execution are important.  SQLBits just did a fantastic job.

Theme

The aviation theme, considering the location at the Farnborough airfield area was great.  I have a soft place in my heart for planes and may enjoy watching planes take off and land more than the average attendee, but it found the venue fantastic.  I loved the boarding passes for the attendee badges, the schedules shown up on the screen like an airport departures and arrivals quite well thought out.  Each of the rooms were designated as “gates” which was another play on the aviation theme.  As this theme was promoted from the onset of the event, the vendors were in on it with aviation theme booths, swag, games and prizes.  The theme glued the event together.

Communication

Communication came more often as the event grew closer, the facts that you needed to know were laid out in the beginning of any communication, with links and the details were kept till later. The organizers were attentive to responses, and I appreciated information they provided.  The website was easy to navigate and if anything didn’t work, such as hotel logistics, etc., they were quick to address and made sure you know it was important to them you were taken care of.

Something I hadn’t seen at any event, but I was surprised when communication came out about two weeks before the event about the menu for the conference.  I’d never seen this before, but as strange as it sounds the food was good and you may say why does that even matter?  Well, truth be told, if we’re not fueled to learn do we really learn well?

Networking

The opportunity to network might not sound like it is first that important to me if I’m missing the social events, but as I’ve relayed in neurodiversity talks and blog posts, noisy, loud and distracting social gatherings aren’t productive for me.  I was, however, able to take advantage of networking opportunities during the day and these are important to me. I had the opportunity to meet with numerous folks I’d never had the chance to meet before.  Some were previous Microsoft coworkers; others were people in the community that I’d hoped to meet one day that I just hadn’t had the chance to run into.  It was great to just plop down on a couple of bean bags to discuss technical challenges we were facing or with one or with someone from a PM team on topics which are really important to me.

Sessions

The session schedule was solid at this year’s event and although there is a huge weight towards everything Microsoft Fabric these days, there  still was a careful balance between professional development and technical there was a wide variety of speakers. One of my favorite sessions that may not get a lot of credit was Bob Pusateri, who presented a great session on isolation levels with SQL Server.  For somebody multi-platform like me who’s constantly flipping from different database technologies, the opportunity to sit in this session and revisit something as vital as locking, along with his fantastic analogies/images was really appreciated.

I attended several professional development sessions, and these were a great break from some of the deeper technical content.  As someone who’s neurodivergent, it’s awesome to meet with peers in the community who stand up to the stigma around neurodiversity and share how they’ve overcome their own challenges is important to my own success.

SQLBits will definitely be on my radar for next year.  I’ll be submitting again and hope to get accepted again.  It’s a lofty goal, but I’m hoping next year, I may even have the energy to attend a social event or two.  🙂