It all started with a garbage can.

Not just any old garbage can, mind you. It was this one from SimpleHuman. We’ve had it for years, and it was wonderful except for one small detail.

It was broken.

The lid would not stay open any longer. The springs underneath had broken away, most likely due to the fact that SimpleHuman didn’t do any QA testing that involved very small children abusing the lid in many, many ways. Considering the cost  of the can we decided to just deal with the broken lid…for the past five years.

Because we could not find a replacement lid, earlier this year we considered buying a new can. Before opening my wallet (again) I decided to drop a quick note to SimpleHuman on their website and inquire about getting a replacement part for a can they no longer were offering for sale. Within a few days I got back an email that seemed rather amazing (and I am paraphrasing here):

“We’re sending you a replacement.”

I didn’t really believe that they were going to send me the part because (1) I don’t recall giving them my address and (2) there was no way I was covered under any type of warranty. Two weeks later a new lid arrived. I was shocked. And then it hit me: I am now a customer of SimpleHuman for life.

Why am I telling you this? Great question.

I often hear people ask “what is the ROI for this”? I think ROI is an awful way to measure something. It is shortsighted at best, typically focused on monetary gains. And ROI is often hard to calculate with any degree of certainty as well. I mean, you know how much something will cost, that part is easy. What you can never predict is how much return you will get. That’s why the SEC makes companies tell you how “past performance is no indication of future results”.

When I hear of someone asking about the ROI on something I often laugh to myself and think “what’s the ROI on the water cooler”? How many times has there been a conversation around the water cooler that has led to something amazing being done? And what is the ROI on that coffee table in the reception area? Can’t we measure that? What about the ROI on this blog?

I think a much better metric for everyone to digest is this: ROE, or Return On Experience.

Back to SimpleHuman. My experience with them as a customer has resulted in my loyalty. Even if I never buy something from them again the experience has led to me singing their praises in this blog post. If they had said to me “hey Tom, here’s $100 to write something nice about us” I would have refused. But that is essentially what happened, right? They gave me something of monetary value, sure, but they also gave me an experience that has more than just money behind it.

Now, stop and think for a minute. Think about your customers. Think about the end users for the systems you build and maintain.

What is your ROE with them?

Now, what can you do today to make that ROE even better than yesterday?

This video is an hour-long but well worth sharing with you today. One of the main takeaways from this video I want you to have is the fact that troubleshooting performance is not always rocket surgery. When you watch this video and listen to Conor Cunningham talk about some of the real world examples he has faced you will see what I mean.

I also liked how they help you to understand the concept of how to “bucketize” performance issues. It goes something like this:

Are all queries affected, or just a subset of queries affected?

If all queries are having performance issues then you will want to examine settings that affect the entire instance, such as memory settings, or high CPU utilization. You will want to do this first before trying to examine any one particular query.

If it is only a subset of queries (or users, or a particular application) then you will want to focus your efforts on those queries first. Otherwise you will be wasting time trying to fix one query without addressing the root cause of the performance issue affecting all queries. [A great example of this for my customers has to do with virtualization: why waste time trying to tune one query when the reason for the slowness is because your memory settings have been dynamically changed? Better to spend five minutes talking to your server admins about the memory for your guest than to waste time trying to get a query to suddenly run faster with less memory available.]

Just being able to diagnose “all versus some” in the first five minutes of triage in a production down situation can save you a lot of time as you begin to form your action plan to correct problem and bring performance back to within acceptable limits. Set aside some time this week to watch this video and learn more.

Have you heard about or seen the Born to Learn blog from MS Learning? Did you know that Microsoft certifications are celebrating their twentieth anniversary this year? That’s one year older than Jonathan Kehayias (blog | @SQLPoolboy)!

Tomorrow at 9AM ET I am taking part in a tweetchat with MS Learning where we want to help promote the new training and certification options for SQL Server 2012. If you can’t make the 9AM show we will be doing a repeat performance at 9PM ET as well.

We will be tweeting about the skills database professionals will need to be successful in the future, and how the role of the DBA will evolve over the next 5+ years. We will also offer expert advice on getting certified, keeping your skills relevant for career advancement, and getting a foot in the door for a job.

If you want to join just use the #20yrs20ways hashtag and send us your questions, comments, and concerns. I look forward taking part in this as it gets me one step closer to being paid to tweet all day as a full-time job. You can find out more details at http://borntolearn.mslearn.net/btl/b/weblog/archive/2012/03/06/2020tweetchats.aspx

See you tomorrow!

I’ve written about the interview process before. It should be more of a conversation. I like to joke with people and compare it to a first date scenario; you want to get to know the person better before you decide to spend more time with them.

Every interview I have ever known has had the goal of getting the same three questions answered:

1. Can you do the job?
2. Will you love the job?
3. Can we tolerate working with you?

Keeping those questions in mind I found this post interesting this past weekend: http://www.inc.com/paul-schoemaker/to-hire-well-throw-away-the-job-description.html

I can’t say that I agree with the idea of taking a chance on just anyone, but I do like the idea of throwing away the job description. Well, most of the job description, anyway. I’ve seen so many poorly written job descriptions that it is easy to understand why I think they should be thrown away.

I believe job descriptions are packed with buzzwords for one of two reasons. The first reason is to draw in as many applicants as possible, because the position is truly open and they have no idea what the job details are truly like. The second reason is to keep out as many applicants as possible because there is already an inside candidate who also happens to meet each and every last bullet point, no matter how obscure.

Either one leads to a less than desirable candidate pool. Either nobody applies or everyone applies. If everyone applies then the hiring manager needs to use supplemental materials (i.e. resumes) in order to decide who should come in for an interview. The problem with this process is that the job description was so complex that the right people weren’t applying. That means the hiring manager isn’t going through the right stack of resumes to begin with.

I believe the hiring process should be much simpler: simpler job descriptions, simpler conversations, simpler focus on those three core questions. It works out to be the best thing for everyone.

If I were you, I wouldn't dare interrupt him.

Big words and long sentences will likely not serve you well as a writer. When it comes to making presentations the same holds true: don’t ramble on hoping to find the words that will have everyone in the room thinking you are the smartest person to ever grace their presence.

I’ve learned a few things along the way. First: use short sentences when writing. Second, eliminate the “jelly” when writing and when speaking. Third, it’s hard to do those first two things when you are told to “write naturally, as if you were speaking” and you tend to ramble anyway like your whole life is one long run-on sentence. But I digress…

I came across the following two links recently and so I wanted to share them with you.

First we have a link to a memo written by David Ogilvy to his employees titled “How to Write” and it was a list of tips that included the following gems:

• Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.
• Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification,attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.
• If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.
• If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

This isn’t the first time I have heard suggestions about how writing should be kept to short sentences. The most notable reference example I have been told about came from Hemingway. I believe that he knew a thing or two about writing, especially the whole “write drunk, edit sober” part.

Second we have a link to an article about presentations, “In Presentations, Learn To Say Less”. This post ties well to the earlier reference I had to the jelly effect: focus on the important details when speaking to someone. Eliminate the jelly. The classic example is when you describe your company to someone and the first thing you say is “we were founded in 1986″. Nobody cares when you were founded. Nintendo was founded in 1889 but didn’t start making video games until the mid 1970′s and OMG nobody cares about any of that. They only want to know when the next game will be released so stop wasting their time!

The article has some nice points that I have been using when putting together my outlines like I am doing for TechEd at the moment:

• Work backwards. Start with the key points and fill in the details on how to get to the key points.
• Practice your presentation without slides. This will help with your delivery, especially with transitions.
• Imagine the questions that your audience may ask.

If you learn to write less it will also translate to your presentation style. This will help you be an effective communicator, someone who others will want to read more frequently, or attend your presentations more often.

This week I had to take a step back and reflect on some things in my life. Some personal, some career oriented. I think it is good to spend the time reflecting on where you are, where you are heading, and where you want to be.

This time around I did something different: I watched myself give a talk…

I don’t normally watch myself speak. I can’t stand it. Honestly, I don’t know why anyone would ever come to listen to me talk. But I watched my Someday talk because I needed a reminder. I needed to stop for a moment and reflect on everything. Where I was, where I am, and where I want to be heading. I needed to remind myself about all the somedays that have already happened, and the ones that will never happen…and the ones that will happen.

I strongly believe that “you get what you give”. To me that is how the Universe works. Every now and then I think we all need to be reminded of that.

If you are planning on attending TechEd this year then you will have a chance to see myself and Denny Cherry (blog | @mrdenny) deliver a precon seminar. The title is “Microsoft SQL Server Performance Tuning and Optimization” and we are very excited to have this opportunity. And apparently Microsoft is excited to have us as well, because they are also sending the two of us to Amsterdam to do a repeat performance two weeks later for TechEd Europe.

Denny and I have been working on the precon now for a couple of weeks. It’s tough since we both have full time jobs and live on opposite ends of the country, but we manage to meet at least once a week over Skype to discuss the session. Here are just a few of the performance tuning items we are planning to discuss:

• Table Partitioning
• Filtered Indexes
• Columnstore

In addition to those items, we are also going to discuss how you can implement AlwaysOn read only replicas to help scale your system for performance as well as walk you through some general troubleshooting techniques with regarding to execution plans.

The last registration update had our precon in the lead for attendees, in both countries. We’d like to keep that trend going.

Go and get yourself registered for Orlando, Amsterdam, or both!

You could be here!

Do you enjoy working with SQL Server? Do you enjoy relaxing in wine country? Would you like to work with SQL server AND relax in wine country at the same time?

I know I would. And so would Denny Cherry. In fact, Denny liked the idea so much he decided to create SQL Excursions, a series of events where people can get together to learn about SQL in a relaxing manner. And I was honored that Denny asked me to be the first guest presenter with him for the very first SQL Excursion coming up in Napa, CA from May 17-19.

Check out the agenda for the event. If you want I can summarize it for you here: #SQLWINNING

Performance Tuning Made Easy - This will be similar to the half-day session offered at PASS that had 250 people in the room and another 100 that were turned away. If you were one of those 100, you will want to attend as I plan on taking a deeper dive into how to help you be more effective in your current role, something I cannot do when speaking to hundreds of people at once.

Storage Configuration and Tuning - Denny Cherry is one of the top experts in the world when it comes to storage configuration and tuning and a Microsoft Certified Master in SQL Server. Come listen to him teach you some tips and tricks with regards to storage, which will lead nicely into…

Virtualization and SQL Server - …Denny and I sharing our experiences with SQL Server running in a virtualized environment. We expect to not only show you some examples of VMWare and Hyper-V, but we are also planning on having you put your hands on the products as well. We want you to leave Napa feeling comfortable navigating your way through a virtual environment.

SQL Server Indexing Top Down - Denny will walk you through indexing and SQL Server, discussing strategies for how you can tune queries using proper indexing and how to conduct proper index maintenance.

How Table Partitioning Works to Save You Money - Denny has been helping clients for years save money with some very simple partitioning techniques. Denny will help you understand how to get this done for your shop as well.

Hands On Troubleshooting - This will be similar to the series of “Choose Your Own Adventure” talks that I have been participating in recently. We will walk you through real scenarios where you will need to troubleshoot using native tools only. This shared learning experience will provide you a solid base for how to troubleshoot the vast majority of performance issues in your own shop.

OK, now comes the important part: go here to register. Don’t forget we will have wine tastings, wonderful weather, great food, and an opportunity to network and build relationships with your peers that will serve you well going forward.

I can’t wait to see you there!

Never eat alone!

Today I did a guest post over at the SQL Server team blog and you can click here to go read it for yourself. Go ahead, I can wait.

Done?

Good.

I listed out three things that you can do right now to jumpstart your career. Of course there’s more ways than just those. Some of my favorite ones include: writing, speaking, and never eat alone.

If you are not writing (or speaking), get started. The simple effort of improving your communication skills will serve you well and I always finds leads to greater job satisfaction. No, not for that lousy job you have now, but for the next job. You know, the one that will be better because they need someone with good communication skills. Yeah, that one.

And never, ever eat alone. Check out this email I sent back in 2004:

—–Original Message—–
From: LaRock, Thomas W
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 2:11 PM
To: Kinsel, Allen; Wright, Patrick
Subject: hermits

OK, I’ll be the first one to send off a quick email to the others. No reason for all of us to be anti-social.

It was nice to meet both of you while at PASS this year. I hope that we can stay in touch from time to time.

I received an email requesting some info about myself for volunteering for PASS. I decided to walk the walk and sent back some info so I should be getting involved with a committee or two of some sort. Hopefully we will be able to stay in touch through PASS, if not through regular email.

Best,

Thomas LaRock
Database Administration Manager

Had I chosen to eat alone at the 2004 PASS Summit I am certain my path would have been very, very different.

Since I wrote just last week about interview questions for a DBA, I came across this article and wanted to share it here also. I don’t believe that an interview should be a trivia contest. These questions aren’t about knowing a trivial piece of information. They are (probably) designed to illicit a response that helps everyone to understand your thought process.

http://mashable.com/2011/12/27/glassdoor-interview-questions-2011/

When it comes to a job interview my advice is this: don’t panic. Be yourself, have a conversation, and let people know who you are and how you think. If you pretend to be somebody else and get hired the end result is often a poor fit.