The Professional Association for SQL Server recently sent its members a survey asking where they should hold their next summit – in Seattle again, or rotate it around the country.  Initially we heard that the results wouldn’t be posted for a variety of reasons, but the PASS Board of Directors heard the community loud and clear.  PASS President Rushabh Mehta announced the survey results today.

Here’s a quote from the announcement:

“At first glance, the results seem fairly clear: 81% of the 1,573 respondents want a PASS Summit on the East Coast at least every four years.”

I was expecting a strong vote to move the Summit around, but 81% – that’s amazing.  Four out of every five people agreed.  It’s hard to achieve that kind of agreement in any kind of meeting at all!  The article continues to say:

“When we look at responses from only 2008 and 2009 Summit attendees (our most successful ones by far), the number who want a future Summit outside of Seattle drops to 69%.”

Let’s think about that for a second – if we want to increase PASS Summit attendance, that means getting new people to attend.  Forget the opinions of the people who’ve already been – what about the folks who haven’t been yet?  That’s the opinions we need to hear if we want to raise attendance.  Rushabh doesn’t quote that number, but it must be higher than 81% because the average went down 12% when these people were excluded.  Wow.

Seattle. Get Used To It.

So PASS started investigating what it would take to move the Summit, and they said:

“We would not be able to achieve anywhere near the same level of support from Microsoft as we do when Summit is held in Seattle. We would lose out on at least 50% and likely 75% of Microsoft presenters, developers, and SQLCAT and CSS staff – all things a majority of survey respondents listed as important or very important.”

This is interesting, because this is where we need the raw data to answer a deeper question.  My question is, “Of people who haven’t attended the Summit before, how important is access to Microsoft staff?”  If we asked them to rank the following in order of importance, I’d be curious what they chose:

• Access to Microsoft staff
• Access to Microsoft MVPs
• Access to your peers, SQL Server community members
• Low hotel and food costs (under $150/day as opposed to over $200/day)
• Summit location nearby (within 4 hours driving distance)

When I was a DBA, I didn’t attend the PASS Summit to talk to Microsoft folks, although that was a nice fringe benefit.  I wanted to spend more time with people who had the same job, challenges, and duties that I had.  I wanted to get tips on how to do my job better, and that’s something I didn’t get from Microsoft.

But back to the press release, which notes:

“Based on Microsoft’s release cycle history (major release cycles run approximately every 3 years, with minor ones often coming in between), 2011 or 2012 will likely be a launch year. It would be disappointing for the community to lose out on the advantages of being in Seattle during a potential release year.”

Uh, hold on a second here.  If major release cycles run every 3 years, and minor ones come in between, then the odds of having a release on any given year is 2/3!  Every year is a potential release year.  As far as I’m concerned, if Microsoft wants to promote a release, they can come to the community.  This is exactly their strategy in Europe – they’re coordinating with community leaders to host regional events all over Europe for the launch of SQL Server 2008 R2.  Why does the community have to come begging to Microsoft’s doorstep?  They’re the ones making money off us.

The final word is that we’ll be in Seattle for the foreseeable future:

“The Board has decided to hold PASS Summit 2011 and PASS Summit 2012 in Seattle for the reasons listed above.”

Well, the good news is that they laid out their rationale in public for all to see.  That’s awesome, and I cheer their movement toward transparency.  I don’t agree with their decision, but I’m glad they didn’t try to hide the poll results from us.  The users clearly don’t agree with the leadership, but we elected ‘em.  I’m also excited to see that this little ruckus has caused at least one person, Jack Corbett, to consider running for election this year.  If you don’t like the way things go, this might be a great year to run.  Having 81% of the members on your side on a given issue makes for a great campaign platform, that’s for sure.  “My name is ___, and I’m committed to bringing the PASS Summit to the East Coast, unlike the current Board who wants to keep it in Seattle through 2012.”  Presto, you’re in.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

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I interviewed Bill Graziano, the VP of Marketing for PASS, at the PASS Summit this year. Bill has a contagious upbeat excitement about him that makes him a good marketing guy. He started the Blogger’s Table at the PASS keynotes last year, and we started by talking about his accomplishments in marketing PASS.

Bill’s Recent Accomplishments

Bill is very proud (rightfully so) of PASS’s imagery and branding. PASS has built up a very recognizable look and feel that shows up across all of their marketing materials. The web site, Summit signage, emails, all of it has a repeated look. The imagery will be consistent from year to year at the Summit, and they’re extending it to the European events as well.

That repeatability was a theme I heard from several Board members including Wayne, Bill, Andy Warren, and Douglas McDowell. All of them were focused on putting solid, repeatable, measurable processes into place that could be consistent over time. The more day-to-day work that can be automated or turned into a checklist, the more the Board members can focus on long-term vision work instead of fighting fires. Heck, it’s no different than us DBAs adopting Policy-Based Management – done right, it frees you up to do the things you really enjoy.

Bill and the marketing team have built a strategy for how to deliver their messages, and they’ve built targeted messages for each month of the year, all driven to increase Summit attendance. They’re starting to repeat this year after year, and they’re working on finding other ways to reach new members. Historically, our first-time-attendee percentage has averaged around 42%, and he wants to continue to grow the number of first-time attendees. One of those ways uses social networking.

PASS and Twitter

A while back, Paul Nielsen got a @SQLPASS Twitter account, and over the last year it’s gotten more and more traction. Last year’s Twitter discussions about the Summit were real eye-openers for the Board, and they’ve been monitoring it ever since. This year, Twitter enabled real-time attendee feedback for even the most minor things (like a certain hallway needs more cookies) and helped PASS to react faster to attendee needs. Wayne’s story about including the keynote on the DVD is a great example.

Bill wants to broadcast the keynote videos live over the internet along with the Twitter #sqlpass stream like Microsoft does for the Mixx and PDC conferences. It all comes down to money – it’s free for one guy to do a home webcam, but it’s nowhere near free to do professional video the way PASS has done keynotes. The PASS keynotes have cameras, multiple live demos from different computers, slide decks, and more, and cost quickly goes up from there. I know somebody’s going to say volunteers could handle this, but I’d disagree. Even if we had free labor, we would need some expensive gear, and the Convention Center isn’t in the business of loaning that stuff out. Before we even think about letting volunteers try something like this, I’d ask the volunteers to prove themselves by doing a similar event at the regional level, like a SQLSaturday session with live video of multiple computers and speakers.

To me, PASS focusing on Twitter makes sense because PASS is going somewhere that the community’s already staked a claim. The community’s live and vibrant on Twitter, and PASS won’t be trying to bring people into foreign territory. It doesn’t cost a lot, doesn’t require building a new infrastructure, and doesn’t require volunteer time. PASS’s presence on LinkedIn is another no-brainer.

Some of PASS’s Recent Struggles

Unfortunately, a lot of PASS’s recent efforts (not necessarily marketing) haven’t been as successful. The wiki whitepaper and PASSPort projects have tried to get DBAs to go somewhere new and contribute new content, and they’ve failed miserably. (Bill’s face completely fell when I mentioned the word PASSport – it’s obviously a sore spot.) The vision for PASSport was a private Facebook with single-sign-on hooked up to the rest of PASS’s sites – but the reality just isn’t there yet. Nobody’s sure of what to do with it next, and finishing it requires money and time. Wiki whitepapers is even worse – the infrastructure is there, but nobody bothers to fill it out.

Given their limited resources, I asked why PASS had chosen to pursue a magazine (they’re relaunching the SQL Server Standard as a web-only publication.) Bill explained that sometimes what PASS does is based off the passion and hard work of a single board member. When someone wants something badly enough, they’ll make it happen. (This reminded me of Wayne’s remark about local chapters being built on the backs of heroic individuals.) In the case of the Standard, the primary driver was Andy Warren. Andy’s passionate about relaunching the magazine, and he helped make it happen. I asked why the Standard will succeed where PASS’s wiki whitepapers, another member-generated-content idea from last year, failed. He didn’t have an answer, but of course I shouldn’t have expected it – it’s not his endeavor. (I gotta ask Andy about that one.)

Bill echoed Wayne’s comments – PASS has no shortage of ideas, just a shortage of money and time. They need more HQ staff and more active volunteers. PASS can’t keep throwing new projects against the wall willy-nilly without a very long term plan because it runs the risk of not being taken seriously. Personally, I don’t take the Standard seriously because I don’t see a long-term future in magazines that pay contributors for content. Blogs are just evaporating that market. You can’t compete with free, especially if your goal is to diversify PASS’s revenue streams. There’s little money in paid content anymore.

PASS used to have forums, but they died off due to inactivity. They’ll be returning now that PASS members seem to be more active online. DBAs are solitary, Bill said, and they need a place to commiserate about their challenges. Forums might serve that need, although PASS doesn’t want to compete with other existing sites. I agree that PASS needs forums now that the community’s really starting to talk about PASS-specific things like voting, presentation selection, and PASS Summit topics. Bill says that as PASS matters more, people care more, and they talk more.

Bill’s New Role: Executive VP of Finance

I asked Bill what his first priority would be in his new position come January, and his response was pretty simple: ask people what they want. He intends to survey the daylights out of PASS members to find out what’s important to them in general, and what’s important to them about the Summit. Does the location matter? Does the social interactivity matter? Do the number of Microsoft-presented sessions matter? He wants to ask a lot of questions, and then set about delivering the kind of community people want.

Right now, PASS is a 2,000 person conference with a library of 40,000 reachable email addresses. He wants to plan for what happens in the future, and how we’ll be able to scale it all up to higher numbers. That’s the mark of a good DBA, too – picking metrics and trying to figure out how the system will react as those numbers increase. Bill asked some interesting questions, too, like why don’t we have a hundred virtual chapters, each with people who are really passionate about a specific narrow topic? How do we build up our virtual chapters to grow the same way our physical chapters have grown? I asked how he perceived the differences between virtual and physical chapters, and he didn’t have any preconceptions. He said they’re both needed, and an advantage of the physical chapters is that there’s a local job community with good recruiters. Virtual presence (LiveMeetings) are still hard now, but they’ll be easier in ten years. It’ll be interesting to see how things shape up.

As he leaves the VP of Marketing role, he wants to make sure that marketing is already a process. That way, the incoming VP of Marketing (Rick Heiges) can simply start marketing, rather than trying to figure out how PASS does marketing.

I asked Bill what it takes to succeed as a Board of Directors member. Bill’s idea of a blank-sheet, from-scratch board would include managers who can delegate tasks to people who have no need to do these tasks, and get them to do it. Talk about a tough role! You have to know how to use recognition and pride to encourage people to do a good job. I agree wholeheartedly, and I think future candidates would do wise to think about that. It takes someone with infectious enthusiasm like Bill’s to make the magic happen.

Next Up: Interview with Val Fontama

In my next PASS Summit interview post, I’ll recap my Project Madison conversations with Microsoft’s Val Fontama.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

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