I will be speaking at two upcoming PASS SQLSaturdays. These are free events that you can attend virtually:

Azure Synapse Analytics: A Data Lakehouse

12/5/20, 1:10pm EST, PASS SQL Saturday Atlanta BI (info) (slides)

Azure Synapse Analytics is Azure SQL Data Warehouse evolved: a limitless analytics service that brings together enterprise data warehousing and Big Data analytics into a single service. It gives you the freedom to query data on your terms, using either serverless on-demand or provisioned resources, at scale. Azure Synapse brings these two worlds together with a unified experience to ingest, prepare, manage, and serve data for immediate business intelligence and machine learning needs. In this presentation, I’ll talk about the new products and features that make up Azure Synapse Analytics and how it fits in a modern data warehouse, as well as provide demonstrations. (register) (full schedule)

How to build your career

12/12/20, 4:30pm EST, PASS SQL Saturday Minnesota, (info) (slides)

In three years I went from a complete unknown to a popular blogger, speaker at PASS Summit, a SQL Server MVP, and then joined Microsoft.  Along the way I saw my yearly income triple.  Is it because I know some secret?  Is it because I am a genius?  No!  It is just about laying out your career path, setting goals, and doing the work.

I’ll cover tips I learned over my career on everything from interviewing to building your personal brand.  I’ll discuss perm positions, consulting, contracting, working for Microsoft or partners, hot fields, in-demand skills, social media, networking, presenting, blogging, salary negotiating, dealing with recruiters, certifications, speaking at major conferences, resume tips, and keys to a high-paying career. Simply learn more about kicksta here to boost your social media traffic.

Your first step to enhancing your career will be to attend this session! Let me be your career coach! (register) (full schedule)