PASS Summit Final Thoughts

I've got to figure out how to get to the PASS Summit every year!  It was AWESOME!





It was great to meet more of the tweeps I follow and reconnect with those that I've met before.

It was my first time to Seattle also.  The weather was better than expected. I had a great time walking around the city when time allowed. I also had the opportunity to try the local restaurants and visit the Space Needle.  Everything was great.  Especially the coffee at Top Pot Doughnuts.





Every time slot had several sessions I wanted to attend. You can't get to all the sessions you would like so buying the Conference DVDs is a must.  





Participating in my local PASS user group, SQL Saturdays, and Twitter made being a FIRST TIMER at this year's PASS Summit a non-issue. I did not feel like a FIRST TIMER. I knew a lot of people because of participating locally.  I just blended right in, had fun, and learned a ton.





Being a FIRST TIMER, I didn't realize I could download the slide decks before the DVDs arrive. A prompt from a co-worker made me aware of this benefit.  I downloaded over a dozen decks so far and reviewed them.  Great benefit. Still tons more to go through.





So, the most significant takeaways for me:

1. Meeting Ola Hallengren and Paul Randal. Talking to them about Ola's Maintenance Solution was invaluable.


2. The changes to the MCM programming have me thinking about making it a 2011 New Year's resolution. I'll have a post on that later.


3. The Separation of Duties Framework that Lara Rubbelke and ll Sung Lee debuted has me thinking how to use it back in the real world.

Suggestions for next year:

1. Any possibility of getting Youtube videos on the conference DVDs for the Top 10 highest rated sessions?


2. Put Twitter handles on the conference badges.


3. Select one of my speaker abstracts.  ;-)

I've told my manager that we should be sending a representative every year. No excuses.

I had a great time at my First PASS Summit!