This past week I was fortunate enough to have been selected to take part in an elite SQL Server on vSphere workshop at VMware headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. It was, without a doubt, the finest training event I can recall attending in my life.
I’ve written previously, and received negative feedback about, my opinions for what the word “training” means. So I was happy to see VMware do all the things I’ve said need to be done for a proper training class. The organizers managed to satisfy every attendee beyond expectations. I’m sitting here at the San Jose airport trying to figure out why the training this week resonated so well with everyone and I have a few ideas I wanted to share.
Pre-Qualified Audience
VMware recruited specific people to attend this session. There wasn’t an open call. You had to be considered the “best-of-the-best” in the field of virtualizing SQL Server. Thanks to the years I’ve spent helping customers to use Database Performance Analyzer with the VM option to tune their VMs running SQL Server I was chosen. By hand-picking the class attendees it made it easier to tailor the program for what we would want. Most of the common instructor led classes don’t have this luxury, they have to lecture to the people that sign up. But it wouldn’t take much to pre-qualify attendees by having them answer a few questions, perhaps survey style, after they express interest in attending.
No Marketecture
We had more than our share of PowerPoint slides this week. But the funny thing about the slides…they were wonderful! They were concise, to the point. and devoid of any “marketecture”. The speakers were engaging, actively soliciting feedback from the class. Many times the slides were an afterthought to the nature of the conversation. And that’s what a good slide deck should be, anyway, an afterthought. The slides should be there to support your conversation, not to serve as your entire lecture. The years I spent teaching mathematics I used exactly zero slides. I would lecture on the concepts and draw diagrams and formulas as a way to interact with the students. It’s a method that tends to work rather well for learning.
The Labs
Possibly my favorite part of the week were the hands on labs. This is what made this an actual training event as opposed to just a lecture. By putting my hands on the products I left at the end of the week with practical experience that I would not have had if I was just being lectured to for three days. But it wasn’t just the labs, it was how the labs were constructed. I’ve attended many labs that have detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to complete tasks. You know the type, “click here, go there, do this, now you’re awesome”. Because they knew they were presenting to an elite audience the labs this week had NONE of that crap. The labs this week just stated a task, without prompts. So for example we saw “create a datastore”, and we were left on our own to get that done. On top of that, we also worked in teams. Similar to the idea behind paired programming, we were placed into teams of three, allowing for greater interaction and learning. It was very clear that the folks at VMware put may, many hours of work into getting these labs built.
Guest Speakers
We had lots of guest speakers during the week. They included Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware as well as Matt Kixmoeller, VP of Marketing for PureStorage. We also got to meet with members of the dev teams at VMware, the marketing team, and the customer support team. In each case they spoke to us very open and candidly, trusting us with NDA-level details whenever appropriate. Having the guest speakers provide additional context on their visions of technology and market space really helped put the training content into perspective. Not once did I think to myself “why are they building this”, I already knew where they were heading, and why. On top of that, all the guest speakers seemed to be actively engaged in acquiring our feedback. This is especially true of the person that talked about working with a “very large database” that was less than 200GB. (Denny Cherry (blog | @mrdenny) just called that “adorable”.) And when we shared our experiences everyone from VMware seemed genuinely interested in what we had to share.
Cool Things
We got to see some very cool things this week. Some new products (like VSAN), ways to better use existing products, and even a ball game at AT&T park (home of the San Francisco Giants). Oh, and we had dinner on the VMware front lawn one night, too. For three straight days you were left thinking to yourself at one point or another “wow, that was cool.”
Conversations
I’ve already mentioned the guest speakers. The conversations with them were wonderful. But it was also the conversations with each other, too, that were wonderful to take part in. I’ve talked before about the idea of SQLFamily but it was on full display this week. At the end of the week I had someone point out to me that our group seemed to be very familiar with each other, to the point that we had known each other for years and simply traveled from one event to the next, like a wolf pack or something. Yeah, it’s a lot like that. The conversations this week were wonderful as we shared stories about what we’ve seen in our shops, what might work best in some cases, and what definitely would not work in any case.
I am amazed as to how fast the past three days went. There was very little down time. We had very short breaks. Even lunch didn’t last too long. We were up at 7AM and working by 7:30. Every minute was packed with training. Guests would come in to present. Conversations would happen. We’d explore our lab scenarios. We would have another speaker, more conversations, more learning. We were tasked to break the Pure Storage flash array (we didn’t break it, but as a group we were able to push it beyond what anyone was expecting to see). By keeping things constantly moving along we never had time to be distracted by the outside world. I’ve got three days of emails to get caught up on as well as a family that I’ve spoken only briefly with during a 10 minutes break two days ago. The fast pace and energy from the speakers really added to the overall experience.
I’m very happy to have taken part in this unique event put on by VMware. I’m hoping they continue with this program, as I can see real value in growing this to something on par with the Microsoft MVP program.
