As I was registering for my first Summit back in 2004 I asked my manager Vinny if he felt that I should look to attend one of the many available pre-conference seminars that were being offered. Vinny didn’t hesitate to say “yes”, and in fact I believe he said something to the effect that “…at many conferences [...]

I have been fortunate to have visited a lot of cities in my career. As a result, I have a short list of preferred places to frequent. One of those spots I discovered in 2006 while at the PASS Summit in Seattle and every time I visit Seattle I go back at least once. It [...]

I once left a keynote session to sit with Donald Farmer for a few minutes while he was in the speaker room getting ready for his session later in the day. For the record, Buck Woody (blog | @buckwoody) was at the table with Donald as well, and this is the actual first recorded moment in [...]

At the 2008 PASS Summit something magical happened. It was there at the Summit, during the keynote, when I truly understood the power of Twitter. Until then I really didn’t see Twitter as anything more than a way to pass time with your friends.
I remember being on Twitter with what seemed like about at most ten [...]

One aspect of the PASS Summit that often gets overlooked are the hands-on labs provided by Microsoft. Now, truth be told, I’ve only taken part in the labs once, back in 2005. I did so because SQL 2005 was coming out and I wanted to walk through a handful of scenarios in the labs so that I [...]

One thing I learned early on is that when you pack your bags for the PASS Summit you ALWAYS leave room for the swag that you will be taking back home. I’ve made the mistake of packing for the week and forgetting this fact. One year I had a bunch of things shipped home because there was [...]