Nominate your Data Steward for a Stewie Award

Do you work with a fabulous Data Steward?  You should nominate him or her for a Dataflux Stewie Award as part of International Data Steward Day, 11 October 2012.  I’ll be part of a team of elite ninja judges evaluating data stewards for their awesomeness at caring and nurturing good data practices.  Fellow judges Jill Dyché, David Loshin, Jim Harris, Phil Simon, Joyce Norris-Montanari and last year’s winner, Barbara Deemer will be looking to see how well you Love Your Data.  Also, you need to visit that page just to see their yearbook photos, too.

Data Stewards Class of 2012!

It’s that time of year again, when we honor the best and brightest – the experts who not only manage your company’s data, but keep your business running behind the scenes. In other words, your data steward.

From now until September 24, we’re taking nominations for the 2^nd Annual Data Steward of the Year Award, also known as the Stewie. It’s an honor reserved for folks who’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty to get the job done – the true honor students of the data management world.

A special sneak peek of the winner will be revealed at IDEAS 2012 in Las Vegas on October 10. After that, we’ll publicly announce this year’s Stewie Award winner on Data Stewards Day: October 11, 2012. That means the clock is ticking and you have limited time to submit your nomination. Ready?

Nominate a Data Steward Now!

With each nomination you’ll get some rocking buttons – you may have seen me sporting some on my backpack recently.  They have some snark, so they are perfect for experienced data professionals.

1 Second Guide to Not Being a Jerk on GoToMeeting

If you aren’t presenting, MUTE THYSELF.  This isn’t rocket surgery, folks.  Your office background noise doesn’t make you more important.  The fact that you are taking this call from an airport doesn’t impress me.  The fact that you must take a call while you are on the meeting isn’t a positive thing.  The fact that you are multitasking doesn’t make me like you more.  The fact you work from home and have a dog is not cute.  Okay, it is, but we don’t need to know.

If you are a fan of Wil Wheaton, you can also share this in his meme, Don’t be a Dick

Please share this with all your frenemies.

Bring Better Jobs for Returning Veterans – in just 5 Minutes #SQLFamily

Super w00t!  I just read the most amazing news at http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2011/12/08/help-the-sqlfamily-give-back.aspx

I’ve blogged recently about how small things that the data community does can make a significant difference in the world. The Microsoft SQL Server Team will donate $50, up to $20,000, to the Pragmatic Works Foundation.  The foundation will provide training to returning veterans: SQL Server, soft skills and interview coaching.

We just learned about the Pragmatic Works Foundation, a non-profit that provides free technical training to veterans, the jobless, and underemployed.  In 2012 the foundation will be embarking on a campaign to bring better jobs for returning veterans. The classes will be taught at military base hotspots around the United States and will primarily focus on introductory technical training for SQL Server and soft skill training and interview guidance. At the end of the class, job placement assistance is given to help the veterans find jobs. The cost to train each veteran for a week is approximately $50. 

So, for the first 400 submissions*, the SQL Server team will donate $50 per submission to the Pragmatic Works Foundation. You can submit your #SQLFamily stories to sqlfamilysubmission@live.com, along with your name and email address. Or, send us a link to your blog or your Twitter handle if you post your story online. We will feature a selection of submitted stories weekly on this blog into the New Year.

I can’t even describe how excited I am that a relatively small number of people, sharing their knowledge and passion with each other, have managed to grow this into something that can touch so many lives.  And that we have more opportunities to make an even great difference in the future.   I can’t wait to read some of the stories!

But we need your help.  Please take 5 minutes to send your #SQLFamily story to sqlfamilysubmission@live.com so that we can max out the donations for this great cause.  Need some ideas?

• Have you ever attended a SQLSaturday or User Group and had a discussion about how to solve a problem?  Share it.
• Have you learned something new by chatting with someone on Twitter? Share it.
• Have you solved a problem faster by getting help wit the #SQLHelp hashtag? Share it.
• Did someone in the community help you with a totally non-SQL, non-data problem? (Thanks, again Noel, for that downtown parking space for a week). Share it.
• Did someone blog about something and it made your job easier? Share it.
• Have you ever just felt better that others were out there to help? Share it.
• Have you already blogged about #SQLFamily? Share it.

We need 400 submissions to make this happen.  You have 5 minutes, I know it.   Get your story in now.  Make a difference in someone’s life, right now.

PASS Members: Take 2 Minutes to Vote and Do it Right Now

This isn’t a normal plea to get you to vote.  This is a plea to have you show that you care about all the things that PASS does actually are worth doing.

Sure, you might think you do not know the candidates well enough to choose.  Sure, you might think your vote doesn’t count.  Or that it doesn’t matter.  But you’d be wrong about all that.

• There are plenty of resources to find out more about the candidates and they are collected in one place. There are bios, statements and a forum.  If you need to find out more, you can do it there.
• Your vote does count.  Nuff said.
• Your vote does matter.  It matters to the candidates who have already spent a great deal of time to submit applications, to be interviewed and to go through the voting process.  I’m not running in this election, but I know how tough it is to put myself forward for an election like this.  It’s worse that reading speaker evaluations.  It’s worse than a TSA grope.  It’s worse than flying.  It’s much worse than spending 2 minutes voting. 

The least we can do as beneficiaries of all the great things that volunteers do, both Board members and minions, is to take the time to vote.  Not only do you get to pick three people to represent you on the Board, you get to show PASS  that what they do actually matters.

I participate in many volunteer-driven organizations.  It’s sad when only 1% of members can take the time to vote.  We should have thousands of people voting.  Voting closes 20 December, but there’s no reason at all to wait.

2 minutes.  Show them it matters. Go do it now.

Donate to #SQLRun and Be Famous

If you have donated to our SQLRun fund raising for the Portland, OR-based Ray of Hope Charity, we will put our thanks to you on our blog.  First, we’re going to recognize you by first name or company name right on the front page of our blog:

We will also give you a Tweet shout out of thanks to our 4,000 followers.

All those who donate will also be listed on our Thank You Blog Roll at the top of our blog page:

If you donate $100 or more, you can have your own image and text banner displayed in the same area as the thank you banner on the home page — and this can link to your blog, website, or social media page.  Donate $500 or more to our Ray of Hope campaign and you’ll get your very own sponsored blog post and all of the above.  We will include any company matching donations in your total.

Of course, we reserve the right to post only content that is professional and in the right spirit of our fundraising mission.

If you have already sponsored us you can send me (@datachick or website@infoadvisors.com) the links or content you’d like to have listed. 

Finally, if you donated anonymously, we will not be listing your information anywhere unless you ask us to.

Thanks to all who have already donated and to those of you who will.  We think Ray of Hope is wonderful charity.

#SQLRun Support Rob and Karen in the Portland Half Marathon

Click To Sponsor us

Rob and I will be running the Portland Half Marathon (that’s 13.1 miles) on 9 October 2011.  We’ve even created a hashtag, #SQLRun , to help follow our plans and races. Other #SQLRun participants will be using it, too.  You can help us by donating and being part of our scream team.

Donate

As part of our entry, we must raise at least $1500 for a charity, Ray of Hope.  We chose this charity because:

1. It’s a small charity.  No multi-million dollar advertising campaign, no lawsuits to enforce their alleged trademark on certain colours, no primetime commercials. 
2. They are program-oriented. There are no spew of pink/green/bluewashing third party products in weak fund raising schemes, no celebrity endorsements, no product deals with companies hoping to make their products look better.   They don’t pay any salaries at all, just a tiny budget for office supplies and marketing.
3. They need our help.  With such a tiny budget, I imagine that our data community could make a huge difference in what programs they are able to deliver.  With almost all your donation going to programs (see below), you personally can make a big difference in someone’s life.
4. Let’s just say that Kenya is well-known for their running expertise.  We will be drawing upon our inner Kenyans to complete this race.

A great fit for us in that we I love fund raising for causes where the charity meets those requirements and they sound as if they could use some help getting more of their programs in the field.  I’d love to blow the top off our fundraising goal for them.

From the Ray of Hope website:

What does your contribution to Ray of Hope provide for our programs in Kenya?

• $20 Gives labor support and nourishment to a woman delivering at the Bware Maternity Center
• $25 Water for one week at the ROH Clinic and Learning Center in Kawangware
• $50 School supplies for one primary school classroom per term
• $100 Monthly salary for an HIV/AIDS Outreach worker in Kawangware
• $250 Cost of a Girls Empowerment Seminar for 100 girls in a rural community
• $750 Full year sponsorship for one student at a secondary boarding school
• $1200 Cost of a 6,000 L water harvesting tank and roof gutters at a primary school

You can see how even a small donation can make a difference.

Click To Sponsor us

Be on our Scream Team

What if you aren’t able to donate at this time?  We’ll, we’d love to have you on our scream team, either in person or virtually.  As we get ready for this race, we’ll be training and running local races to help whip us into shape…at least in shape enough to finish the race upright and smiling.  Your virtual shout outs on Twitter and Facebook will mean a lot to us and the other #SQLRun participants.  So when you see our Fitbit, Runkeeper, Runmeter, Nike+ , Garmin or other data collection/reporting status updates "cluttering" our timelines, remember that we are training for a very long run as well as raising money for a great cause.  Tell your community members running #SQLRun that you support them in their efforts.

If you are going to be in Portland the weekend of 8-9 Octobers (remember, there’s a Portland SQLSaturday on 8 October), you can come downtown Portland to cheer us on.  The race has a cut off of 8 hours, but we don’t expect to take nearly that long .  All the #SQLRun participants would LOVE to see you on the side the course, cheering them on.

You can be part of our team by running, walking, fund raising, donating, cheering our training or cheering for us during the race.  Just do it. (Apologies to Nike).