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Why I Voted For Seattle

There has been a lot of blog chatter in the past week regarding the PASS Summit Survey. I won’t bother pointing you to each and every post and comment that has been made, as Jack Corbett has already done a great job of that. What I want to do is tell the PASS Community why I voted in favor of holding the Summit in Seattle through 2012. These reasons are my reasons alone, they do not represent the reasons for any other PASS board member. I do not pretend to speak on anyone else’s behalf with regards to this matter. If you disagree with my reasons (and I know that many of you already do), then feel free to send your comments directly to me. In fact, if enough people want, I would be happy to host a discussion on UStream tonight regarding the details I am outlining below.

So, here you go, the reasons why I decided that being in Seattle was the right decision for PASS, in no particular order of importance, just what comes to mind.

Location

I think Seattle is a great location in terms of travel as it works very well for our friends in Asia/Pac. I found it interesting that people would comment about how the cost for them to go to Seattle would increase but not one person has mentioned that the cost for someone coming from Australia or India would find it cheaper (not to mention faster). Perhaps that means that the cost is the same for someone to go from Melbourne to Orlando as it would to Seattle? Certainly it will be faster and easier for them to get to Seattle.

No matter what location we choose, someone will end up paying more to attend, and it will take longer for them to get there. I’m currently on the East Coast and would love for the Summit to be closer to me, but I also recognize that what makes things easier for me makes things more difficult for others. About the only neutral location I can think of for everyone to share the burden of travel would be Antartica, which might be perfect because we could get Bill Gates to be our keynote speaker.

Money

PASS is not flush with cash these days. Most everything we do needs to be “budget-neutral”, as we simply do not have piles of cash laying around to throw at ideas to hope something sticks. Our budget is mostly funded by the Summit, so we need to make certain that the Summit continues to generate some revenue, otherwise we operate at a loss. For a non-profit, operating at a loss is not a good thing. If you do that for too long then you will simply cease to exist. You can see our financial situation at the Governance page (you need to login to view this section).

So, the safe choice is to stay in a location that we know “works” for us. We know how to hold a Summit in Seattle that allows for us to have a chance of breaking even and possibly even make a profit that we can then reinvest back into the community. Except for the Mayans, we cannot predict the future, and yet we need to book our conferences years in advance. I have no idea what things will be like in 2012, so I err on the side of caution and felt that Seattle was the wisest choice at this time.

Branding

I want PASS to become “the” SQL Server event, and I want that event to be in the same location every year. I also want the Summit to have over 10,000 attendees each year. And guess what? Seattle cannot hold a conference of that size. Given what we are as a community right now, Seattle is a fine location for us to build a brand around. For where I want us to be, we will need to relocate, and I would love for that day to come as soon as possible. But we aren’t there yet.

Microsoft

I am certain you are all aware that without Microsoft we wouldn’t be here, right? We are the Professional Association for SQL Server. We are dedicated to promoting SQL Server. So, what is wrong with making it easier for their employees to attend our Summit?

I read a few comments about how Microsoft is able to send employees to other conferences, such as TechEd. Does any of those other conferences get hundreds of dedicated SQL Server employees? I am sure TechEd has hundreds of Microsoft employees, but that is across a variety of products and not focused on just SQL Server.

Also, keep this fact in the back of your mind: the Microsoft attendees are paying to attend. We move the Summit, we lose their attendance, and our revenues go down. In case you missed it earlier, I’ll repeat this: we are not flush with cash these days. Having those attendees is a boost to our bottom line right now, and not one I want to walk away from so easily.

SQL Saturdays

PASS is looking to start some smaller events. The acquisition of SQL Saturday is a step in that direction. Another step would be hosting events that are in between a SQL Saturday and a full Summit. We haven’t worked out the logistics but one thing we do know is that we want to keep the Summit as the main event. The regional events along with the SQL Saturdays are events that would be ways for us to promote the main Summit.

There you go, my reasons for why I voted the way I did. I am willing to discuss this through UStream tonight. If enough (say 7-10) people tell me that they want to set aside 15-20 minutes to hear me speak about the reasons I listed above, then I’ll set up the broadcast stream to start at about 7:15PM and we can let the healing begin.

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