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!

When faced with a no-win scenario you need to ask yourself “What Would James T. Kirk Do”? The answer, of course, is that you change the rules of the scenario in order to achieve your goal.

Last fall I gave this blog a much needed makeover. I had a few goals in mind. One of them was to engage the readers (that would be you). And one way to measure this engagement is by using the Google Analytics, specifically the bounce rate. Now, the bounce rate is only one measure provided by the Google, there are many others, but this post will focus on only that one because I have a really cool graph to show you:

See that dip in my bounce rate? From December 1st 2010 until December 1st 2011 my bounce rate was 75.91%. From that dip on December 14th 2011 until today (March 7th, 2012) my bounce rate is 0.75%

And this dip drove me crazy. I couldn’t explain what had happened. Most of my blog changes were done over Thanksgiving weekend. But clearly something changed in mid-December. But what? I started pulling apart pieces of my blog, turning things on and off to see if they had an affect on the bounce rate. Clearly there were issues with my bounce rate and I needed to find what they were.

A little digging on the Goog and I found this article that helps explain why the traditional bounce rate metric is mostly crap anyway. It also told me about event tracking. And that gave me the clue I needed. So I went over to the plugin named Google Analyticator and found the option for Event Tracking and saw it was enabled. I disabled it and watched my bounce rate increase. I vaguely recall editing this option at some point, and it is likely I did so in mid-December and that this is the reason for my low bounce rate at the moment.

The reason event tracking changes the bounce rate is because it tells the Google that the reader is still reading my blog and marks that as an “event”. And events are considered to be the same as a pageview, which means your bounce rate is lowered as a result.

But is that a good thing? Now that my bounce rate is so low, does it have any real value for me? I went from one version of incomplete data to another. I can’t say that what I have now is any better than before. Oh, sure, I win bets with the other bloggers hanging out at Starbucks who don’t believe that my bounce rate is less than 1% for the previous 30 days. That part is nice. But in terms of engagement, I don’t think it is helping as much as it should.

So if engagement is my goal here, what metrics would I want to be using in conjunction with bounce rate?

• New Visitors – I want my content to be engaging, shareable, searchable, and useful. This metric helps me see if I am doing that.
• Top Landing Pages – I want to see which pages were hit and check the bounce rate there, this way I can see which pages were more engaging than others.
• Traffic Sources – I want to see where people are coming from. Is it through a search? A referral? I like for these percentages to be evenly distributed.
• Events – Well, if it is enabled, you might as well go and look to see what pages have the most events.

I am also thinking of disabling the bounce rate metric permanently, but I do enjoy the free lattes.

Last week I was doing some housecleaning of sorts with Google+. I had moved from the gmail.com account to using my Google domain account. As a result I noticed that my Klout score took a slight dip:

What happened here?

No, not the big dip you see…the smaller dip just to the left. Turns out that the number of +1′s, shares, and comments to the old G+ account had an effect on my Klout score, dropping it 0.94 points in one day. Being the inquisitive type of person (and knowing that there is no real value to Klout anyway but I will save that for a different post) I decided to do an experiment.

On my Klout page there is a section for Facebook statistics. Unfortunately for the past year or so all it has ever said is “Facebook activity statistics are coming soon.” I am fairly certain the Mayans are coming faster than these statistics.

Liar!

Anyway, I decided to remove the connection to Facebook since it didn’t appear to matter anyway. So I did, and the result is the rather large drop in my Klout score by 2.69 points.

Have you ever read the Klout page that explains how they do their scoring? I have. Here is the pertinent part I want you to pay attention to:

“Influence is built over time

In most instances, your influence should not radically change from one day to the next. The Klout Score is based on a rolling 90-day window, with recent activity being weighted more than older activity. So being inactive over the weekend or taking short break won’t have a major impact on your Score, but if you’re inactive for longer periods your Score will decrease gradually.”

Really? I don’t see how that can be true. And I reconnected my Facebook account the next day and then saw a jump by 2.81 points. Hey…wait a second…I gained .12 points and all I did was disconnect and reconnect one network? Hmmm….I wonder if I can keep doing that and inch my way towards 60? And now I wonder why I would ever care (sorry, that is a different blog post).

What I do believe this means is that we should be able to disconnect a network, measure the drop, reconnect, then repeat with a different network. The idea is that we should be able to see just how important each of the networks are for your overall score. This means you could then get an idea as to which network you should focus on in order to increase your Klout score. Is it Flickr? Instagram? YouTube?

Go ahead and try unplugging one network at a time and see where the data takes you.

This is my 600th blog post. That seems like a lot of…well…nothing. In celebration of 600 blog posts I have decided to start a meme. The concept is simple: The first Monday of every month people write about a topic. Think T-SQL Tuesday, or Un-SQL Friday but without the overhead of hosting or linking back to other posts. I just want to inspire other people to write.

Why? Well, I was given some good advice a long time ago about writing. I mentioned that I didn’t have anything to write about and my friend (a professional writer) told me:

“…then write that. Sit down at your desk, put the pen on the paper, and write out ‘I have nothing to write today.’ And if that is all you have for the day, that is fine. But chances are some extra words will come out. And when they do they will often keep flowing, like a brook that turns into a stream, and then a river.”

And she was right. So I want to give you the paper and pen. If you have felt that you wanted to write about something but never know where to get started, let Meme Monday help you get going.

The meme will be kicked off on the first Monday of each month. The first one will be on Monday, April 4th. The meme will be this:

Write a SQL blog post that tells a story in 11 words or less. (Yes, I was inspired by the same challenge laid down to Ernest Hemingway and we will use 11 words in honor of SQL11 ‘Denali’ and the fact that none of us are Hemingway.) As an example, your post could be something like “Query killed, rollback begins, family waiting while your dinner gets cold.”

I will make my attempt and then tag three others. But don’t wait to be tagged. Just write your own post and tag three people. If you have an idea for Meme Monday just let me know and I will kick it off on the first Monday of the next available month and tag others. But like I said, don’t wait to get tagged. When you see the topic just write your own post and tag some others.

And let the words flow.

It has been a while since I have been tagged in a chainpost but Brent Ozar tagged me the other day. As soon as I read the question my first response was “my biggest weakness is responding to these chainposts”. That’s when I realized my biggest weakness is that I am an asshole curmudgeon but Suzanne says that is a personality trait and I need to think of something else otherwise I may break this chain and no one wants that.

This was a hard post to write. Not because I could not think of a weakness, but because I could not point out any one weakness as my “biggest”. And what is meant by “biggest”? Isn’t size relative? And I have always been told that size doesn’t matter. Was I being lied to all these years?

Anyway, back to the post. I tried to apply some root cause analysis to as many of my weaknesses as possible. For each weakness I identified I would first ask if it was a personality trait. If not, then I would check to see if it was the result of a childhood experience (or, say, trauma). Then it would be a quick check to see if the identified weakness is actually a strength (which is impossible, really) followed by a check to see if the weakness is simply a result of my being distracted or bored.

By far the majority of my weaknesses are attributed to the fact that I always think I can do everything.

At the end of my Senior year in High School we were having the awards banquet for the Spring sports. I was on the varsity baseball team which is my way of saying I was on the bench most of the year. And with good reason, I could never bat my weight. But I was always very confident in my ability to play the field. I was always thinking to myself “what will I do if the ball is hit to me”, which is a great way to make certain you know exactly what to do when the ball arrives. You can also change where you are standing depending on the count and the expected pitch; moving five feet right or left can be the difference between a routine catch and a diving stab.

During the banquet I was called up and given an extra large helmet. This thing was huge, XXXL size, I had never seen it before and don’t know were the coach found it. But he gave it to me an explained to everyone why. “It’s for his head, because all season long while sitting on the bench whenever a ball was hit that landed in play Tom would say ‘I could have gotten that one’”. As soon as he said those words I immediately thought of a handful of times when I did say exactly that, but most of the time it was just a joke. Still, we all had a good laugh that night but I always think back to that moment because that is when I realized that (1) I do think I can get to the ball and (2) not everyone wants to hear what I think.

Maybe it is because I am the youngest of four children and that I am always trying to show others that I can do the same things they can do. I don’t know, really. But to this very day I have confidence in my abilities and confidence in my future abilities as well. I once had a close friend who seemed rather put off by my attitude that good things were going to happen to me in my lifetime. She could not understand why I felt that way about myself. Well, if I don’t have confidence in me, who will?

But having such confidence became a root cause for other weaknesses. For example, I think I can do everything. All the time. And all at once. I have been spreading myself too thin for most of my adult life. It has been rare for me to only have one thing to focus on at a time. I am often involved deeply in three or four projects at a time. And when I get spread too thin then all of my work suffers. Most people function best when allowed to focus on no more than two tasks at the same time, and yet I overload myself with up to a dozen items at once.

And I think this confidence has also made me very competitive. Very. I hate losing, but I am not a poor loser. I’ll just make you play again until I win at least once. This competitive nature can cause me to butt heads, especially in the IT world, but I am getting better at dealing with those emotions.

And in a weird twist, this confidence and competitiveness also means that I get an inferiority complex and so I spend a lot of time trying to learn more and more about everything I can so that I can hold my own against anyone else. In anything. It doesn’t matter what, I want to learn as much as possible about it so that I can use that knowledge to make the right decisions at the right time. Some people will call that experience. I call it preparation for the right opportunity. But it means that I end up spending far too much extra time in front of a computer even when I am not in the office.

Which means that, as a result of my thinking I can do everything, I am not spending enough time with my family, which is the most important thing I should be doing. No question that this weakness is having the largest impact possible both inside and outside the office.

I have lost track of who has been tagged so far, so I will tag Colin Stasiuk (@BenchmarkIT), Jorge Segarra (@SQLChicken), and Ken Simmons (@kensimmons).

“It’s called Twitter, and you should get in on it, it’s like liquid bacon injected into your veins with a Jager chaser.”

And so I was introduced to Twitter back in the summer of 2008 by Brent Ozar (blog | twitter). I had no idea what Twitter was about. I remember signing up, reading a few random tweets from people I didn’t know, and thinking it was an incredible waste of time. I went dark for a few weeks, not tweeting and sometimes checking in on my stream through the web interface. Since I was not following many people, it was not very interesting. I got to see how many times Brent would stop at a Cracker Barrel when driving between Texas and Michigan. Yeah, it was really that exciting.

I believe the turning point for me was when I realized that there were actual applications that I could use to make my using Twitter easier than the web interface. I used Twhirl for a few weeks before I moved onto Tweetdeck where I have stayed ever since (and yes, I have tried Seesmic when it first came out but not recently). Once I got hold of an application my Twitter usage took off. It just made it easier for me to use Twitter.

So, I started following a bunch of SQL professionals. I also started following some celebrities. And I would also follow people who were following others. And follow people who followed me. And before I knew it I was following about 400 people. My stream was just filled with too much noise so I cut back and I am now down to about 280. And Tweetdeck allows for me to group the people I follow which means I can cut through the noise and just focus on specific tweets from IT professionals, which has greatly enhanced the ability for me to do my job as a DBA.

Along the way I found out something else about Twitter and tweets. See, the best tweets, as @badbanana said during an interview recently, are ones that have a twist to them. And he is right. It is an art form, stuffing a creative and witty thought into 140 characters. And when my geek colleagues are able to work in a twist with something related to databases, well, that’s good stuff right there.

Twitter Wit: Brilliance in 140 Characters or Less is a book filled with some of the best tweets with a twist. Congress (blog | twitter) was given a copy recently and I picked it up and went cover to cover, enjoying the art form that was being laid out in black and white before my eyes. Here are some fine examples:

“Why should I be the one to take the kids to see their psychologist? I don’t even love them!” @Fireland

“Why aren’t martini glasses shaped so that they don’t spill so easily on the bus?” @pagecrusher

“It’s happened: I have developed real emotions for my iPhone. Actually, it’s no surprise, because I was raised by a TV and a microwave.” @Stuartpaap

“Cranked the treadmill up to MAX for 15 minutes. When I finally took a break my roller skates were hot to the touch.” @thepeoplegeek

My only regret is that I wish Congress would have handed me the book right before I left for PASS this Sunday, so that I could have read it on the plane. Then again, people would have probably gotten tired of my laughing after the first few hours. If you enjoy using Twitter then you would enjoy this book. I have added it to my library, placing it on my Professional Development bookshelf.

And it is also that time of year I would dare say that this makes for a great stocking stuffer. But so does bacon, so be careful not to put bacon and this book in the same stocking. It would be harder to read afterwards, but it would smell great forever.

…is exactly what the title of this blog post would have been if (1) I had actually met Mr. Gabor previously and (2) if I actually had polio. I have no doubt he could cure polio, nervous stutters, facial tics, and xenophobia in one or possibly two sessions. The guy is that good and that is why I am going to attend his networking seminar on Monday, November 2nd at the PASS Community Summit from 4:30 to 6:30PM.

Remember how I had a list of people I was hoping to meet at PASS for the first time? Well, I finally figured out a date and time to meet with them. Everyone is welcome to join me before, during, or after Don’s session. The before works fine for me, the after works really well because I can practice all the Jedi mind tricks he is going to show me for only $60.

Yeah, that’s right for only $60 I am going to get a focused two hour seminar with a networking expert. Need proof of his ability to work miracles? Have you talked with Andy Warren recently? That guy is a walking billboard for Don Gabor right about now. Remember how Andy scared the hell out of anybody around him? Now he only makes them a little bit nervous, that’s how far Don has taken him in such a short amount of time. Imagine how far Don can take yourself!

I am very much a shy person and can use all the help I can get when it comes to working a room. And even if you are not looking to work a room, Don is going to teach you skills that can help with more personal situations, say when you are in a meeting with only two or three people. You will learn how to carry a conversation (great for meetings), how to present yourself (great for interviews), and how to follow up and build lasting business relationships (just great).

So, I will ping that gang of mine and see if they want to meet before or after, but I really hope I can convince them to attend the seminar with me. The idea of going to a networking event to meet complete strangers scares the hell out of me. I would feel much safer if I knew I was going there to meet up with a bunch of people I have met online in the past year because Chris Hansen has shown me just how safe that can be these days.

“…i don’t care what you think, as long as it’s about me, the best of us can find happiness in misery…”

A while back I wrote a post about why I do not like newsgroups, and how much better the MVP forums are. Some comments were left that indicated I was being an ass for telling people just how great things are now that I am on the other side. Sorry about that, it was not my intent. And no, you don’t have to spend your life in those newsgroups and forums in order to become an MVP, I am proof of that.

Ok, let’s all move forward, shall we? Great, because I have some good news.

Twitter is awesome.

Seriously.

Right now I am following about 300 database professionals. Some are MVPs, most are not. But time and again I see interactions between these professionals the remind me how great it is to be a part of this community. Sure, the private newsgroups are good, but they are no Twitter. So, for those that felt I was being rude to talk about a wonderful private forum, let me tell you about an even better public forum. Get on Twitter and run through the list of people I am following. Even if you just listen in on their discussions you stand to learn quite a lot.

As much as I enjoy browsing the MVP forums for some interesting discussions, I enjoy Twitter a lot more. I can get a lot of good information from both but Twitter seems to be better at giving me some perception on the personality of the person behind the messages.

Just when I thought I might be getting my chaste back, I got tagged again, this time by SQLChicken. Just the thought of chicken wrapped in bacon being served on a skewer at the Rodizio Grill was enough to make me want to respond to this latest web chainpost. Honestly, I love being on top of the food chain. It took my ancestors millions of years to get me here, no way I am going to disgrace their memory by not eating meat, especially tasty pieces of pork.

Anyway, the question is easy: How did I get started as a DBA?

It is a fair question, one that comes up infrequently, but always makes for a nice trip down memory lane. And while I cannot pinpoint the exact moment I decided I wanted to become a DBA, I can recall a series of events that led me to this very seat.

First, I was always good at mathematics. Not that being good at math has anything to do with being a DBA. Rather, being good at mathematics led me to refine my analytical skills, and those skills are quite valuable no matter what your profession. Along the way as I grew older I was fascinated by computers to varying degrees. I went to graduate school to get an MS in mathematics and then landed a job as…a programmer. Yep, working the Powerbuilder on top of Informix. You got a problem with that?

Now, as I learned more and more about programming, I also learned more and more about databases. I started putting together my own little databases for various scenarios, just to understand more about how they worked. I was sent to a Sybase ASE class (I still have those manuals!), and after some time I took that knowledge to my next job, which was now Powerbuilder on top of Oracle.

Have you ever heard about the salaries that Oracle DBA’s get? At some point I expressed an interest to my supervisors that I wanted to know more about Oracle database administration. More importantly I wanted to know more about how to make more money than the scraps they were paying me. Needless to say, that never happened. After my brief stay there I landed here, still working as a programmer (Powerbuilder on top of Sybase this time), and still wondering about database administration.

After a year or so my manager mentioned that they were looking to bring a DBA on board, and I went to the manager responsible for hiring the DBA’s and told her I wanted the job. She laughed in the most polite way possible and told me they were going to bring in someone else. However, they were looking to get some people trained as junior DBA’s, and she would keep me in mind for that. The person they brought in was Frank, my mentor, who proceeded to offer me valuable in-house training to help me get started.

After about a year or so, Frank moved on. Actually, he and the other DBA we had at that time both gave notice during the same week. I was offered the chance to take on the DBA responsibilities. That was over five years ago. Since then I have attained my certifications, been involved with PASS, and met some truly wonderful people.

So, how did I get started? Well, I was able to find the things I was interested in (database design, performance tuning, etc.), and then find ways to get training in those areas, and then find an opportunity to apply that training. Once I got my foot in the door, I have worked even harder to keep my skills sharp, always looking to improve upon what I know today. When I go home at night I ask my children if they learned anything new today, the same question I ask myself when I am driving home, because I always want to be moving forward.

It has not been easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is, right?

Because I dare not break the chain, I am tagging the following bacon-loving professionals:

Kendal Van Dyke (@SQLDBA)

Aaron Alton (@AaronTheHOBT)

Tim Ford (@SQLAgentMan)

I forget when I first discovered newsgroups. After all, I have been online for what seems like my entire life and have bounced from one forum to another. But as the Internet has evolved one thing remains true for me: newsgroups are an awful way to communicate and get help.

Would you consider posting a question about a particular food item and placing it on the bulletin board that is hanging on the wall as you walk out of the grocery store? What good would that do you anyway? If you post a question it is when you are on your way out and usually you are not allowed to enter that same way so you would not get an answer until the next time you exit the store (unless you break the rules by walking in through the out door), and by that time the answer would not be helpful until the next time you reenter the store. Honestly, it is about the most inefficient way I can think of to get an answer to a nutritional question, and yet I would still rather do that than go to any nutritional newsgroup on the Internet.

So, why do people use forums or newsgroups? Because they want information about something. They want good, quality answers, from people they can trust. On the other hand, they have no idea who these people are, and often times accept answers that are simply wrong. So, why do you believe it when a stranger tells you that it is okay to live on coffee and cigarettes but you scoff at your doctor who tells you that you are slowly killing yourself? “Forget you doc, because papa_doc told me online last night that it is okay to keep up with the smoking, and he knows what he is talking about because he has a website and all you have is a diploma hanging on the wall. How do I know that diploma is even real?”

So, let me sum up all the reasons why I abhor newsgroups.

1. It takes too long to get an answer, especially if you need an answer quickly.
2. Sometimes, people are quite rude.
3. Most times, the answers are flat out wrong.
4. Many questions are not being asked in the right forums.
5. Moderators spend far too much time moving questions between forums.
6. End users get frustrated when their questions are moved.
7. You do not know who you can trust.
8. You can review threads later, but have no idea which answer was correct.

Actually, I could go on, but you get the idea. Now, I know not all forums are like this. For example, I enjoy reading the questions and answers on StackOverflow. But I am not there every day, trying to answer questions. When I do stop by a lot of the questions have already been answered anyway, usually by Brent Ozar.

So, why do I love the private MVP forums? Because they are everything anyone could ever hope for in a newsgroup.

When I troll the MVP forums all I find are courteous people, with great questions and wonderful answers. I find a community of people, dedicated to helping others, also helping each other. It has been a great experience to be able to participate in these forums. It is a way to connect with a focused group of professionals in a very specific manner. Similar to me posting a question about bacon right in the section of the grocery store where they sell the bacon. You know only people interested in bacon would ever be looking there, and those are the people you want to connect with anyway.

If newsgroups were people, the MVP forums would be the boy you want to date your daughter.

To date I have not answered any question in the MVP forums yet. Why? Because they are usually answered already by the time I get there. But I know my time will come, and I will be able to help another MVP with something.