Making Videos for Fun and Profit

As I author this post, I’m at a Microsoft conference. Today’s focus is on the creation of video content to help promote your brand. As I have some experience with this from my Pluralsight videos, I had some suggestions as to technology.

The first tool I use is from TechSmith, it is Camtasia. It is designed to do screen recordings with narration. You can record your audio during your screen recording or add narration later, or a mix of both (should, for example, you mess up and need to fix an audio flub). It has “call outs”, i.e. ways to draw on the screen, transitions, text/titles, noise reduction, and more. It can also record from your webcam, but it’s more meant for putting your head in a small box in a corner of the screen.

I’ve used the free Audacity tool to do some audio touch ups on occasion.

I recently bought CyberLink’s PowerDirector, although to be honest I haven’t yet had time to work with it but look forward to doing so. I also recently found a free video editing suite called Davinci Resolve that looks very nice, but like PowerDirector I haven’t had time to look at it. But the price is right.

Of course if you want to go all out there’s Adobe Premier. It’s the video editor the pro’s use. I haven’t used it, but my daughter uses it to edit her YouTube videos (http://annakatmeow.com is where you can see examples of it in use, her Let’s Explore Nashville and DisneyLand/Vidcon blogs made good use of its benefits. ). FYI Adobe has a program for students where you can get the entire cloud suite, normally $49 a month for only $9 a month.

I also do some video work on my iOS devices. Mostly I record on my iPhone then transfer and edit video on my 12.9 inch iPad Pro.

For recording, I use FiLMiC Pro . It’s the most complete recorder I’ve found, with tons of options. It also has a remote app, so I can setup my phone on a tripod then use one of my iPads to see what the phone sees, start and stop the recordings, etc.

If you want a mid-ranged video recording option, try MoviePro . It has a lot more features than the built in Apple software, but isn’t quite as complex as FiLMiC Pro. It also has a remote app.

For editing, I use LumaFusion . A very full featured editor. Has titles, transitions, prebuilt lower thirds, audio editing, easy addition of sound tracks, and more. I’ve edited several videos with it, and like it a lot.

On the hardware side, I use a Rode Podcaster USB mic to do my video work. A bit pricy for the hobbyist, but since I do this for a living it was a good investment. I have it 7 years now and it still works great.

With my iOS devices I invested in the Rode smartLav+ . With it I can get some really good sound quality even in less than ideal conditions.

I also own a Nikon D7000 DSLR with Video capabilities, but as good as my iPhone 7 camera is now I don’t use it all that much except for when I want to take some really great photos too. I have a variety of lenses that will out perform the iPhone camera easily. It’s just big and bulky and I need a back pack to carry around all my accessories.

I have a small tripod for my phone, and a bigger one for holding my iPads. I also have a SanDisk USB key that can plug into both iOS devices as well as your computer’s standard USB port. Makes it very easy to transfer video files from one device to another.

The last thing I ordered was off Kickstarter, I saw the guy demonstrating it at VidCon and loved it. It’s a ten foot selfie stick. I know, you’re scratching your head and thinking I’ve gone nuts. Selfie stick? But the more I thought about it the more uses I kept coming up with for it.

This will be great for taking crowd shots at big events, such as Ignite and the PASS Summit. It comes with a tripod base, so you could use it to record a stand up hallway interview with someone, or put it on a table top. And that’s just for us geeks, I can also see it being useful for journalists, or real estate agents, letting them get unique shots. Really fills a gap for when a drone would be useful but can’t be used due to being indoors or other regulations. It comes with both a phone mount as well as a GoPro mount, so I may wind up having to buy a GoPro.

Often video can be greatly enhanced through the use of soundtracks or special audio effects. A few sources I found for these include:

ZapSplat: Lots of sound effects and some music. https://www.zapsplat.com/

FreeSound: Mostly free, good but not easy to find things. https://freesound.org/

Epidemic Sound: Outstanding music, I mean really, really good. It does require a fee though, either 99 cents per minute if you only want one song, or $15 a month per youtube channel you want to use it in. http://www.epidemicsound.com/

Finally, there is an excellent YouTube channel by Amy Schmittauer called Savvy Sexy Social. She provides excellent advice on vlogging, including content creation, technical aspects. and more. She’s also authored an outstanding book which I highly reccomend called Vlog Like a Boss: How to Kill It Online with Video Blogging.

The MVP Program–My Experience

Recently I saw two posts in which former participants writing about issues they perceived in the Microsoft MVP program. I’d like to take moment to contrast their experience with mine, specifically commenting on posts made in the post by Onuora Amobi titled “My year as a Microsoft MVP and the 7 reasons Microsoft need to fix their MVP program”. I’ll then add a few thoughts about Rob Eisenberg’s post “How I Lost, Regained, and then Turned Down an MVP Award”.

Unfortunately, these gentleman had a bad experience with the MVP program. This is disappointing, as I truly believe the MVP program is great, based on my own experiences. Let me respond to the 7 points made in the first post, and contrast them with my experiences as a SQL Server MVP since 2008.

What’s the Point?

Mr. Amobi stated “The MVP program seemed rather pointless”. To me, the point was quite clear from the outset. The information and tools provided to me allowed me to further enhance my ability to be a conduit for the community. I had contacts to pass information to from the community, and vice versa.

Additionally the MSDN/TechNet subscriptions gave me the ability to further enhance my knowledge of Microsoft products. Just recently I’ve been practicing setting up a scale-out deployment of SSRS. No way I would have been able to have 3 different Windows Servers plus 3 SQL Server licenses without the benefit. I’m now going to be able to pass this information on to the community in the form of new presentations, blog posts, and the like.

Quality Control

Here the author echoed a point form the Rob Eisenberg’s post in which he met an MVP who had limited knowledge of Technology X, the subject of this MVPs award. However, this person had continually posted and retweeted information about Technology X.

A major consideration of the MVP Award is about reaching the community with information about Technology X. Getting information into the hands of people who use that technology. Microsoft judged that this person was doing an effective job of helping the community, and hence the award. Technical competence is certainly important, but it’s not the only criteria for getting an MVP award.

Lack of Communication

Mr. Amobi complains there were no opportunities to participate. Yet he passed up the main chance of the year to communicate with the teams, the MVP Summit. For me the summit is the place I learn new things, give feed back to the teams, and learn things covered by my NDA. It’s where I learn what new technologies I should be focused on so I’ll be ready to help the community when they are released. Perhaps if he had attended he would have had the chance for the interaction that he desired.

Being an MVP also helped solidify relationships with other areas in Microsoft. The developer evangelist for our region, Glen Gordon, checks in with the MVPs in this area regularly. He often participates with us in events, or provides assistance for our Code Camps and SQL Saturdays.

NDA for what?

The author says that during his year he didn’t have any opportunities for calls or interactions with the teams, and hence no reason for his NDA. In addition to the summit, our SQL lead sends out weekly e-mails in which he lists upcoming conference calls / interactions with product teams, almost all of which are covered under NDA.

For him to get none of these notices is disappointing. Clearly someone dropped the ball. Our lead in the SQL group (who just moved to a new assignment) was very good about us getting this information. I hope Mr. Amobi didn’t wait for the end of his year to point this out. I’ve made it a point to make friends with as many of the Developer Evangelists, other MVPs (including those in other disciplines) and other MVP leads. This not only gives me multiple ways of reaching out, but more importantly has let me make some great friends.

Career Impact

Mr. Amobi didn’t see any benefit, career wise to being an MVP. For me it’s had a huge impact. Through my MVP award I was given the opportunity to participate in not one but two books. My current job at Pragmatic Works is also a direct result of being an MVP.

Arbitrary Renewals

The author first makes the assertion that his award wasn’t renewed because he was asking questions such as the ones in his post. I really can’t speak to that, but if it were the case many long time SQL MVPs wouldn’t be here anymore. As a rule most of us are pretty opinionated, and have no issues speaking out when we see problems with the program, or what Microsoft is doing in general.

That said, I have no inside information on the people who decide who gets an MVP award. Perhaps he’s right, and they did indeed drop him for the reasons he states.

He then makes a statement that I consider rather risky.

“I’ll put my Web or FaceBook or Google or Twitter or Technology stats up against any MVP and I guarantee that I represent the voice of thousands of Microsoft consumers way more than they do.”

I know MVPs who are “household” names in the SQL world. I’m not doubting the reach of Mr. Amobi, clearly he has made significant contributions for which I applaud him. And in the consumer realm he may even be right. But in my opinion statements like the above degrade the conversation into a “mine is bigger than yours” contest.

Now let me speak to the arbitrariness of the award. In the other article I sited by Rob Eisenberg he complained the process of getting the award is a black box. He’s exactly right, it is. It’s a combination of achievements plus subjective judgment on the part of the Microsoft product teams.

That’s done for a very specific reason. If there were a set formula you would have people who would game the system, do things just to meet some minimum requirement in order to gain the perceived benefits of being an MVP. At that point it would cease to be an award and instead become another credential.

I much prefer the current system. I have a much greater confidence that the people who get the award are deserving people who are interested in helping the community, and not just trying to get the award as another notch on their career belt.

It’s clear that this is not an important program to Microsoft

Based on my experiences this could not be further from the truth. Just in money alone Microsoft has made a huge commitment to the program. But what really speaks to me is the involvement of he very highest level of Microsoft management. Had he attended the summit he would have seen Steve Ballmer himself addressing the crowd. When the CEO along with a slate of vice presidents takes time to address the audience it speaks volumes about Microsoft’s commitment.

True, as an MVP I had to pay part of the cost. Budgets are tight for everyone. I felt the program was so important though I paid for two of the last three summits out of my own pocket. But it was an investment in me and my career. I made contacts and solidified relationships that are mutually beneficial for me and my fellow MVPs.

Another word or two…

I’d like to take just a moment to address a few points from Rob Eisenberg’s post. He was upset that his MVP lead apparently didn’t know enough about his accomplishments, and seemed insulted that he should have to fill out a spreadsheet detailing his activities.

I know our SQL MVP lead has to deal with at least 300 just in our discipline. I’m not sure the exact number, but there’s just no humanly way possible that even with a fantastic relationship they could be expected to know every single contribution a person makes to the community over the course of year. I made it as positive an experience as I could. It was a great time to update my resume, to add my community involvement, book authoring, etc.

I would like to say Rob makes a point about open source, although I do see some shifting of Microsoft’s involvement with open source. They established the CodePlex site, and use it as a conduit for distributing the SQL Server sample databases. They are now giving support for jQuery, and most recently announced support for Hadoop.

While I wish they could move a bit faster, they do have a very tricky legal tight rope to walk. Many licenses in the open source world require that should code be used from that project derivatives must also be open source. For a company who makes money selling software and guarding trade secrets, this is not the ideal situation.

There is one point I totally agree with Rob on though. The format of the spreadsheet was pretty lame.

The mystical MVP program

It saddens me that the two gentleman had such negative experiences. I wish a better job could have been done to keep talented people like these in the program. I am glad though they continue to be supportive of the community.

As for me, becoming an MVP was one of the highlights of my life, both personally and professionally. It opened doors for me, giving me a chance to fulfill a dream of becoming an author. It opened the door to become an employee of one of the most prestigious BI consulting firms in the world.

Most importantly, it has allowed me to make friends with some of the top professionals in not just the SQL community, but other disciplines such as .Net and SharePoint. The level of excellence these people have make me strive even harder to stay on top of my game.

For me, my MVP experience has been nothing but positive, and I will continue to serve as long as I can.

Arcane 2011 Year in Review

Seems most folks I know are doing “Year in Review” posts for their blogs. Not wanting to miss a chance to do a blatant rip-off I thought I’d jump on the band wagon.

My MVP Award was renewed for 2011. This award is something I’m both proud and humbled to receive, especially in the SQL community. MVPs in general are a very helpful, friendly bunch, and the SQL especially so. I really like the new #SQLFamily hashtag that’s being used on Twitter. Aside from my family, I think becoming an MVP is the thing I’m most proud of in my life.

I was quite happy when my second co-authored book, SQL Server MVP Deep Dives Vol II came out. All proceeds went to charity, it felt great to help out both the children in Operation Smile and the SQL community.

I’ve continued my public speaking, being allowed to present at places such as the New York City Code Camp, SQL Rally in Orlando, and one of my favorites CodeStock.

I produced quite a bit of new training content for Pluralsight, to positive reviews. I’m glad this relationship is continuing, teaching is the best way to learn new things and I’ve learned a great deal, and hopefully helped a few others.

The most exciting news of my year though was going to work for Pragmatic Works! You could have knocked me over with a feather when, at the MVP Summit last year, Brian Knight (I should say THE Brian Knight) looks at me and says “So, you looking for a job?” When someone of Brian’s caliber asks if you want a job, you don’t say no.

Coming to work at Pragmatic Works was a great career move for me. We currently have five (yes, FIVE) MVPs working here. That’s a huge percentage considering the size of our company. And there’s quite a few of our guys that are working hard in the community, and I see an MVP award in their future.

In addition to the regular consulting you might expect I’ve also gotten to do a lot of training. I love doing training, its so gratifying to share knowledge, guide students, see that look of “ah-ha” on their faces when it all clicks for them. I think that has been my favorite part of the job so far.

As a company Pragmatic Works is doing very well, entering into several new, exciting partnerships. Plus, they keep increasing our benefits! In a time when other companies are cutting costs, they have given us three new benefits!

With this level of technical expertise, it keeps me challenged. It also inspires me toward even more professional achievements.

On the home front, I now have a teenager living in my home. My sweet little baby girl turned 13 this year! Holy cow, how did that happen? I mean, last time I checked I was only 17 myself. And her sister is not far behind.

They had a great year, we home school and they got involved in a science program at Auburn University where they learn scientific techniques. They did some forensic investigations, and are now learning how to do proper experiments, clearly defining the various steps. They get all this brain power from their teacher / mother, my wife is the real brains in the family.

They also took up new extra curricular activities. My youngest, Anna, learned to ice skate and even did her first skating show just before Christmas. My older daughter, Raven, now plays the guitar and has given her first recital. My home office is under her bedroom, and I often get to enjoy the sounds of her practicing over my head.

And of course, last but not least, I have to give a special shout out to my lovely wife of 15 years, Ammie. She has been very supportive of my career, even though with the new work related travel it has meant more work for her. I know I’m very lucky to have a wife this supportive. Thanks sweetheart!

With that, another year bites the dust. 2012 is shaping up to be an exciting year. Assuming of course the world doesn’t end. But if it did, I suppose that would be exciting too, so either way it’s a win, excitement wise.

Welcome to COMFRAME

I admit to being remiss lately, my poor blog has been neglected for these past few weeks. I can only plead mea culpa and explain.

A few weeks ago I had an opportunity placed before me that I simply could not refuse. I’d been happy at my old job and wasn’t looking, but a good friend of mine works for a great company called COMFRAME. They are a consulting firm that does a variety of things, including Enterprise Project Management, .Net and Java development projects, SOA, and most important to me, Business Intelligence.

To make a long story short my friend took a lesson from the Godfather movies and “made me an offer I couldn’t refuse”. I am now a COMFRAME employee! The work is very exciting, I’ll be an architect on a BI project that is using Silverlight 3 for it’s front end. We are working with data from Microsoft Project, not only that but it’s the world’s biggest implementation of Project Server, so I’ll get to work with the fine folks at Microsoft even more closely. We’re also a Microsoft Partner, which will give me new avenues for relationships that will compliment my MVP.

I got to meet the customer this week, although brief they seemed very easy to work with, and nice as well. I also got to meet the development team I’ll be working with, I’m impressed with the work they’ve done so far and can’t wait to roll up my sleeves and dive in.

I’ve had a crazy time wrapping up my old job and starting my new one, hopefully I can get back to regular blogging soon. I’ve been doing a lot with SSIS and SSAS which will give me lots of good material to talk about, not to mention any Silverlight 3 work I get to explore.

Thank You

I found out today Microsoft renewed my MVP award for the 2009-2010 year. I am grateful that my efforts to serve the community were recognized. I’m grateful to Microsoft for caring enough about the community to have setup a program to recognize and more importantly enable those who server.

I am also grateful to you, the readers and my friends in the technical community for allowing me in, for reading my blog, and letting me speak at various community events. Your support, encouragement and friendship have been invaluable.

Finally and most importantly I need to thank my lovely wife and two beautiful daughters. They have endured a lot of evenings of me getting home late after an event, or seeing me face down over a hot laptop working on some new presentation or blog post. Without their love and support none of my efforts would have been possible.

Big Thinkers – Andy Warren

I’m devoting this week to “Big Thinkers”. I want to highlight individuals who challenge my thought processes and cause me to think about my profession, my methodologies, and force me to reflect on my skills. Some of these individuals I have the privilege of knowing personally, others I have only known via Podcasts or Twitter. I’m hoping that by highlighting these Big Thinkers you too will be challenged to grow and evolve in your craft. Last week was focused on individuals in the development community, this week will focus on the SQL Server realm.

Rather than “Big Thinker”, I think the label “Big Do-er” may be more accurate when it comes to today’s selection. Andy Warren maintains a blog at SQL Server Central (and was also one of its founders), and runs End to End Training out of Orlando FL. He also had a vision for training videos that were short in duration (roughly five minutes) and very focused on a single subject, hence he created JumpstartTV.

His biggest contribution to the community perhaps centers around SQL Saturday. Andy saw the success around code camps, events where developers could congregate on a Saturday and take free community based training. At the same time he recognized some of the difficulties around them. They tended to be hard to find, without a standard look and feel to their websites. There was also a hurdle for people wanting to put on a code camp for the first time. Andy decided to act.

He created SQL Saturday.com, a centralized website where anyone wishing to put on a SQL Saturday could advertise their event, handle registrations, schedules, and speakers. He created a guide for event planners, to give them a checklist for their event. Speaking from personal experience, I know we followed the guide closely and found it very valuable when our group held SQL Saturday 7 recently. Finally Andy throws himself into the event as well, appearing personally at as many SQL Saturdays as humanly possible.

Truly Andy is the shining example of “one man can make a difference” and I can but hope my own contributions will come anywhere close to Andy’s.

Big Thinkers – Pinal Dave

Pinal Dave reminds me of that chef who goes “bang” all the time. I first got to know him when I was working on a SQL Server project and doing some things that were new to me. I’d do a web search and “bang”, there came the answer on his blog. Another search and “bang” there was his blog in the top 10 results again. Over and over that day I’d search and “bang” there would be the answer, right on his blog in an easy to read and understand format.

Pinal has to be one of the most prolific writers I’ve seen, his blog SQL Authority is filled with informative, easy to understand articles. I also had the privilege of meeting him at the MVP summit earlier this year, and he has got to be the nicest guy in SQL Server you’ll ever meet. He is also a frequent poster on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pinaldave. To me he is the embodiment of helpful service, and reminds me to remain humble as I work in the SQL community.

Go ahead, give his blog a try. By the end of the day you too may be thinking “Hey, who needs Books on Line when you have Pinal Dave?”

Big Thinkers – Kimberly Tripp and Paul Randal

Today’s pick is actually a two for one special. Perhaps not fair since individually either of them is outstanding in the SQL Server field and have appeared on more podcasts and events than I can count, but since they got married they have become an unstoppable, inseparable duo. I speak of course of Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp. While most couples argue over paint color, they argue over indexing strategies. As I said they’ve been on more podcasts than I can count, some of my favorites though were Dot Net Rocks Episodes 178, 110, 74, 217, plus RunAsRadio shows 104, 76, 74, 72, and my favorite Episode 36. In addition to podcasts I’ve seen them present live at TechEd.

I like Paul and Kim because they make SQL Server fun. Yes, I said fun. During one of their presentations I feel like a kid being shown a toy catalog a page at a time. When its over I can’t wait to get my hands on the geeky SQL Server toys I’ve just been shown. Take a listen, I believe you’ll find their fun infectious and will soon be ‘playing’ with a new toy called SQL Server.

(And just for the record, I don’t care what Carl Franklin says, Kimberly is the cuter one of the two. )

Big Thinkers – Mark Miller

Mark Miller is an insane genius. I can think of no other way to describe his quirky sense of humor, unbridled energy, and extreme coding ability. What he does for me though is make me think deeply about user interfaces, and how they can make or break my application. Not just in vague ways either, Mark can demonstrate in concrete terms what makes a good UI. How many pixels does the mouse have to travel in order to let the user accomplish the task? Are the colors used of a similar hue and shade? How can I use contrast most effectively in my user interface?

Of course in some ways the education I’ve received is a classic double edge sword. Now when I sit down with a new app I began analyzing it in terms of what I know, and immediately thinking of how it could be better. Some might call that hubris, I prefer to think of it as critical thinking based on good UI design methodologies preached by the “Millenator”.

Mark has appeared on Dot Net Rocks numerous times, including Episodes 80, 101, 134, 153, 185, 338, and 395. He has also done a ‘boat load’ of DNR TV episodes, including Episodes 5, 40, 44, 72, and 107. His best work though, can be seen in the two part DNR TV series on “The Science of a Great User Experience”, Episodes 112 and 123. In these episodes Mark actually demonstrates good UI in a way that you can visually see the clear improvements using the techniques he recommends.

I can think of no better way to wrap up Big Thinkers week than to recommend the mad genius that is Mark Miller.

But wait, there’s more! This week I focused on Big Thinkers in the development community. Next week I’ll put on my other hat and focus on Big Thinkers in the SQL Server community!

Big Thinkers – Richard Campbell

Richard Campbell is one of those people who, at least to us lowly mortals, appears to be able to do it all. He knows hardware, SQL Server, and .Net fluently. He runs his own company Strangeloop Networks, is a frequent speaker at conventions, and finds the time to do two podcasts a week. In addition to hosting he was also the interviewee, in Dot Net Rocks Episode 300 and more recently Episode 157 of Hanselminutes.

I got to meet Richard at DevLink 2008, and had a fascinating conversation with him in the bar for quite a long time. I can say that he is as friendly and knowledgeable in person as he appears on the show. Richard serves as proof that it is indeed possible to be proficient in multiple technologies, and forces me to think about ways to improve myself and to continually learn and grow. Whenever I hear Richard speak it inspires me to hit the books even harder to work toward the pinnacle of my craft.

Big Thinkers – Ted Neward

It’s hard to believe anyone would not know who Ted Neward is. I had the pleasure of meeting him at DevLink 2008, then saw him again at the 2009 MVP summit where we had several enjoyable conversations. Ted is truly a renaissance man when it comes to languages. He is best known for his skills in Java and .Net, and more recently F#, but his love for programming languages seems boundless. It’s not about knowing a language though, it’s about understanding how each language solves programming problems. For example, how does language A handle variables versus language B? What advantages or disadvantages does that approach give language A over B?

By attempting to understand how a language solves problems, we can take those techniques and apply them in other languages. F# is a great example, it is a language from Microsoft Research that is functional rather than object based. Recently though I have seen several articles on how to implement functional methods in C#, traditionally an object based language.

Ted has been on Dot Net Rocks probably more times than anyone one else, as well as it’s sister video podcast DNRTV. One of my favorite episodes was a little over a year ago, “Ted Neward on the New Language Renaissance”. Very recently he was on Code Cast, in Episode 21 he was talking about .Net and Java and how Oracles buy out of Sun affects the industry.

The most memorable podcast I have seen him in was an interview he did on F#. I was on my way to DevLink 2008, got about half way there when my poor old truck broke down. As I sat waiting in a local Taco Bell for rescue, I pulled out my laptop and watched some videos I’d downloaded including Ted’s F# interview. If you notice in the video, Ted is wearing a rather snazzy “I Love C#” t-shirt. The next day I get back on the road and once again strike out for DevLink arriving just in time for the last session of the day, a session on F# with Ted and Amanda Laucher. I was quite thrown to see Ted wearing the exact same shirt. I had to pinch myself to ensure I had not fallen asleep in the Taco Bell!

Hopefully Ted’s love of languages, his passion to learn different ways to solve problems will wear off on you too. And who knows, with his new found fame and fortune perhaps he can afford a second t-shirt!

Big Thinkers – The Alan Stevens Syndrome

The first person I’d like to highlight is someone I consider a friend, fellow MVP Alan Stevens. Alan hails from Knoxville TN and is constantly involved in community activities, such as the upcoming CodeStock and DevLink events. I like Alan for two reasons. First, he is constantly evaluating his skills and seeking to learn from others. His approach to coding strikes me as almost Zen like, in his quest to constantly learn and improve. Alan seems to be on a trip to code enlightenment, but (to borrow an old line) realizes the journey is as important as the destination.

Second, Alan has a deep passion for community. To meet with other developers and share knowledge. Note I did not say teach, although many would consider him an excellent teacher. Instead when Alan is explaining a concept I can see he is learning as much, if not more than the people he is sharing with. Alan is also well known for his evangelism of “open spaces” as a learning platform. If you have never been to an open spaces session, a group of developers get together and post suggestions on what to discuss. The group votes and topics are selected, and then a free flow of ideas ensues. These are truly remarkable, I highly suggest you try and attend at least one open spaces session if you get the opportunity. I honestly think one day Alan will launch a conference that is nothing but a day of “open spaces” discussions.

If you would like to hear more about Alan, I’d suggest you learn directly from him. In February he was featured on episode 420 of Dot Net Rocks:

http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=420

Alan also gave an excellent presentation called “Coding In Public – If You’re Gonna Suck, Do It With Gusto!” which was recorded in video and placed on his blog. (By the way, if you are wondering just what the “Alan Stevens Syndrome” is you’ll have to watch the video!)

http://netcave.org/CodingInPublicSlidesAndVideo.aspx

More MVP Summit Sunday

Here are some more pics from the session I attended. I spent my afternoon in a C# / VB.Net MVP to MVP session. Got some really good ideas from it.

Jason Bock

Jeff Certain

Bill Vaughn

Joe Kunk

Kathleen Dollard

The only pic from the keynote presentation I think I can safely share. If you were at last years summit, this will have a lot of meaning for you.

OK, now it’s time to party! Some shots from Party with Palermo. A few folks I’ve named, others I didn’t know but feel free to comment if you do know.

The Queen of F#

Happy Birthday Woody

Sara is a party animal.

The Awesome

Decisions decisions decisions.

Jeff and Justin

Rodney

Mr Party himself.

Todd

Jessica

MVP Summit

I’m here at the MVP Summit along with 1,500 of my closest friends. Here’s a few photos I took on Saturday, first of a quick walk I took down to the waterfront then at dinner. I’ll put them in thumbnailish size, but be sure to click to see a bigger version. Enjoy!

Enough fun at the waterfront, time for dinner.

Dinner at the Elephant & Castle, an English styled pub.

It’s Bangers & Mash, in case you are wondering.

After dinner, standing around trying to decide “what next”

What next? A random bar across the street.

I ought to do a contest. “Caption this pic” of the Elder.

Mr. Awesome.

All other pics from the night are being held for ransom. Please, cash only, in small, unmarked bills. 😉

Arcane Code, MVP

Just a few minutes ago I received an e-mail. “Dear Robert Cain,” it began, “Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2008 Microsoft MVP Award! The MVP Award is our way to say thank you for promoting the spirit of community and improving people’s lives and the industry’s success every day.”

Wow.

I admit it’s a goal I’ve had for the last year and a half, and have worked hard to achieve, but I still have a hard time believing it’s finally happened. For those who are unfamiliar with the award, MVP stands for Most Valuable Professional. Microsoft gives the award for work in the user group communities. My award was given in the SQL area. I am humbled to be joining an elite crowd, worldwide the website shows only 223 people in this category. Even though the award is for my efforts, those efforts were in the community and I had a lot of help from the community. Thus there are some folks I’d like to publicly thank.

The first is Doug Turnure, who up until Monday was the Developer Evangelist (DE) for AL/MS/GA. Doug mentored me, and gave me a lot of practical, valuable advice. I’d also like to thank the new DE for the area, Glen Gordon, who also gave me aid. Two other DE’s, Joe Healy and Brian Hitney also deserve a word of thanks. Even though I lived out of their normal operating areas they still took time to answer my questions and let me know of speaking opportunities.

There are also some 2007 MVPs who took time to give me advice and guidance. Todd Miranda, Jeff Barnes, Wally McClure, Kevin Boles and Keith Elder deserve a big thank you.

Next I’d like to thank all my co-workers, too numerous to mention, who tolerated my constant e-mails about user group meetings, events, and suffered as I practiced my presentations on them.

I would also be neglectful if I failed to say thanks to everyone in the various user groups I attend. BSDA, BUG.Net, Steel City SQL, SOA Society, TechBirmingham and others opened their doors to me and gave me chances to give back to the community. I should also say thanks to the various user groups across the south east, such as Atlanta, Orlando, Tallahassee, and Huntsville (to name a few) who opened their doors to me.

To all the readers of my blog I also need to give thanks. Your participation via comments and e-mail feedback helped keep my blog alive as a source of ongoing information for the community.

Next I want to thank my daughters, Raven and Anna, for putting up with Daddy being gone weekly to user groups, having his nose constantly in a book or laptop, or having to travel and spend time in hotel rooms while Daddy was in code camps. (Don’t worry, they didn’t suffer too much, they invented popcorn and “chick flick” night to compensate, and with Mommy’s help easily found the shopping malls.)

Finally, and most importantly I need to thank my wonderful wife ‘Ammie’, for taking care of the household while I was giving presentations, for bringing me dinner at my computer while I worked on blog posts, and for putting up with all the late nights I’d crawl in bed after getting immersed with some fascinating new technology and losing all track of time. Thanks honey!