My week at SQLBits 2023: Why You Should send your Employees to Conferences

As I'm now tired, but happy and heading back on my bus of national express to Heathrow airport and taking a plane there back to my hometown Zurich, Switzerland, I'd like to wrap up my days here in Wales for the extremely fantastic SQLBits conference. It was amazingly well organized, and I really hope I may return next year! I truly had a blast being here, while learning tons, meeting lots of people and last but not least, speaking here.

So, I really want to say a huge thank you to everyone who were somehow involved with #sqlbits2023 that made it a such great success as it is! That includes not only the organizing team ( Simon Sabin , Darren Green , Anette Allen (sorry, couldn't find you!), Jonathan Allen , Alex Whittles , Rob Sewell , Tracy and last but not least Sewell (sorry again!)). But this also includes the numerous amout of helpers, volunteers and all the sponsors of SQLBits . Last but not least, all the visitors that made the conference what it was - a truly extraordinary experience and incredibly thrilling, resourceful place to learn.

For those who were not as lucky as I was, to be able to go to #SQLBits2023 , I absolutely believe that employers should send their fair share of delegation of people to conferences like this. I often get to hear that "you can't measure the value of a conference like this". However, I am sure that many, many things that companies do and believe in, they can't be measured either. Yet, there is undeniably a benefit, for example having a marketing department. For a lot of campaigns, the direct benefit is hard to measure, and many companies choose not even bother to measure them properly, yet there is undeniably a benefit from it. The same is true for people who were being sent to conferences, for they not only learn more about stuff that they may face sooner or later. And it is work, too. Trust me, after the conference, I was worn out, I was tired, even though I had an exciting time. People may have fun at conferences and that is because they love their topic. But they not only learn more about solving problems, but also networking. Networking, talking to people with other insights and ideas, is extremely valuable. If you, as an employer, send your people and yes, paying them to do so, they feel valued, they feel appreciated and taken seriously. They will chat with other experts, and believe me, most of those well known people, MVPs, they do like to chat with others. They are there for exact this reason. Because IT is really a fast pacing world, and if you intend to keep your employees for a longer term, then you need to develop their skills and fantastic conferences like SQLBits do help tremendously. That being said, I want to list some encounters I've had, tell short stories about them and prove that it does make sense, having IT people to network outside their country, and yes, even outside of their IT areas and even to listen to stimulating, non-technical talks that can expand your social skills.

Following, I'll name some incredible people I've met:

Valerie Junk with whom I've I've enjoyed a great fruitous and interesting discussion over lunch, together with my friend Nikola Ilic . I hope I'll have the pleasure to meet both again in near future!

André Kamman who's an incredible person and I would love to meet again! Unfortunately, we didn't have the beer together as i wished to, but lets do that another time!

My friend Alpa Buddhabhatti who was truly inspiring! I hope you'll have huge success during your continuing speaking journey! I will definitively continue to watch you doing so!

Adriano da Silva , who I've been friends with for years, but haven't had the chance to meet in person yet, but finally, we did last Tuesday night!

Same is true for Tracy A. Boggiano , an amazing and fun person to be around with! We shall meet again online soon for our Virtual DEI Group we're leading together with our friend Deepthi Goguri . We'll also meet at #MVPSummit in Redmond this April!

Craig Porteous , Ben Weissman , and William Durkin , great to meet and chat with you again! I hope we'll meet again, perhaps at this years DATA:Scotland ?

Cathrine Wilhelmsen , we unfortunately didn't have the opportunity to really chat together, my apologies for that! I hope you've loved the swiss chocolate that I could pass to you quickly, though! But perhaps we'll have another chance at the MVP Summit? By the way, I really loved your inspiring talk about pushing yourself outside of comfort zone to learn thing - an amazing presentation! I wish I was as talented as you for giving presentations!

?????? Gavita Regunath, Ph.D. whom I also would have loved to talk more, again, perhaps at the MVP Summit in April?

Traci and Rob Sewell (sorry, Traci, no Link to you. Couldn't find you on LinkedIn) so amazing people, both of them. Not only having so big hearts and to give to the community, but also so incredibly kind, passionate and knowledgeable.

I admire Mathias Thierbach for his sheer determination he must have brought up for publishing his amazing Tabular Definition Language ! I've been blown away of your presentation together with Gabi Münster !

Speaking of which, Gabi Münster , Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen , Denis Selimovic and Nikola Ilic joined up for a picture taken by Reitse Eskens (see topmost picture) - it was the first time ever that the first organization team of DATA BASH 2022 had an assembly of 5 people in one place. I haven't met both Markus Ehrenmueller-Jensen and Gabi Münster in person yet before this conference.

I could go on much longer and tell you that those encounters were worth every penny I've spent in UK. However, instead of naming more people and putting sharing my experience with them, I'll just list them here. Some of them, I've just met, others, I have known for years, but online only, and again others have been friends for years also in real life. If I forget anyone, please apologize me for that, my mind has failed you in that case. I truly had a blast with all of you and hope to see you soon again or hope to chat with you either here on LinkedIn (PMs are welcome!) or through my other channels like Mastodon .

Kristyna Ferris , Andrew Pruski , Reitse Eskens , Pragati Jain , Grace O'Halloran , Mathias Halkj?r Petersen , Kurt Buhler , Cláudio Silva , Matt Gordon , Shaun Atkinson (sorry, couldn't find you on LinkedIn!), Johan Ludvig Bratt?s , Alex Whittles , Mara Pereira , Michael Johnson , Sander Stad , Dinakar Nethi , Nicky van Vroenhoven , Buck Woody , Taiob Ali , Stephanie Locke , Rodney Kidd , Deborah Melkin , Andy Yun , Heini Ilmarinen , Steve Jones , Alexander Klein , Erin Stellato , Kevin Chant , Gethyn Ellis , Justin Bird , Anthony Nocentino , Patrick LeBlanc , Adam Saxton , Olivier Van Steenlandt

and like I've said, many, many more that just don't cross my mind right now.

Now, I am very excited to go home and I look forward to be back with my wife [who chose not to get tagged] again.

#conference #microsoft #sqlserver #sqlfamily #azure #azurefamily #powerbi #powerbifamily