As both readers of this blog already know, I am at the Microsoft MVP Summit this week held at the mothership in Redmond. It has been a great two days so far and I am looking forward to another day of sessions full of good content.
This morning I was in a session that was highly interactive. What I mean by that is it was not a lot of slides, it was a demo of something new, and the presenters were actively soliciting feedback from the audience. And we gave it too them. The only way to describe the amount of feedback we gave on what we saw would be to tie ten firehoses together and unleashing it on the people trying to show us something shiny.
During the discussion there was an exchange that went like this:
“Hey, you know what would be cool? If you added a semicolon as a statement terminator.”
“Why?”
“Because that is what we are trying to encourage as a best practice.”
“OK, thanks for the feedback.”
And that’s when it hit me. First, the SQL Server product is HUGE. No person knows everything there is to know about SQL. That’s one of the things that makes the MVP Summit so full of awesomesauce, we get to leverage each others experience to make ourselves better.
Second, and more importantly, we help disparate groups at Microsoft communicate with each other. The people working on a specific widget are focused on that widget, and probably don’t come up for air very often. In fact, the MVP Summit might be one of the only times all year they do come up for air. And then we get into the same room with them and say things like “Hey, didn’t you hear? That widget won’t work with the new flux capacitor the guys in Building Area 51 are deploying.”
So the MVPs are able to not only leverage each others experience, we allow for different teams at Microsoft to leverage each others experience and skills. I often tell people how I view a DBA as a “Rosetta Stone” for their company, as they need to communicate with many different groups in terms that each distinct group can understand.
Well, that was on display this morning. And it felt good to help people make the right connections.
I like the Rosetta Stone analogy. To be effective, a DBA has to see all the little dots and the big picture they create (or don’t create, which often happens). It’s a job that demands consilience, for sure.
Good stuff! It’s great to hear that the experience is a valuable one for all involved. I had originally thought you guys were all there just to party 😉
I too really like the “Rosetta Stone” analogy. Often I think of the DBA role in terms of being a linchpin or bridge between the various business, user and customer groups. I will now however be borrowing (stealing) your analogy.
Speaking of Linchpin, there’s a
fantastic book of the same name by Seth Godin. I’m not sure if it’s something you have read previously but I think you would really enjoy it.