Every year, the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) holds an international Summit.  This year it’s Monday, November 8th through Thursday, November 11th in Seattle, Washington.

Anyone can submit sessions to present.  If your session is accepted, you get a free registration, saving you around $2,000.  Even if you’re not planning on going to the Summit, you should consider submitting a session if you’ve ever done presentations at the local level.  If your submissions are accepted, you get a free PASS (ha ha ho ho), and your employer is much more likely to send you to Seattle.  It’s cheaper for them, and there’s some prestige for them if their staff speak at national events.  You can submit your PASS Summit sessions here.

Here’s what I’ve submitted for this year:

Hey Ma, Watch This: Useless and Dangerous Stunts

If you want useful stuff, go to another session. If you’re looking for things to do on your production server, you’re in the wrong place. In this presentation, Brent will be running around with scissors, doing all kinds of oddball T-SQL stunts that have no business in the business world. If you’re the kind of person who loves using a number after the GO statement (like GO 10), then you’ll love this session.

(This is an all-new session that I’ve submitted to SQLSaturday South Florida and SQLSaturday Columbus OH.  I want to present it at smaller events before I try it at the Summit.)

You’re Not Attractive – But Your Presentations Can Be

Come hear Buck Woody (Microsoft’s Real World DBA) and Brent Ozar (SQL Server Certified Master) explain how they make high scores at presentations. It’s not luck, charm or (surprisingly) good looks – there are tips and tricks you can use to make your own presentations rock. With Buck and Brent in the same room it’s much like Forest’s Box of Chocolates, but you’re sure to learn more about presentation techniques that you can extract into your own style.

(If this one doesn’t get accepted, I’ll be seriously bummed. Buck and I have been swapping notes, laughing our rears off as we plan it out.)

Performance Tuning for Race Car Drivers

Times are tough even for the best drivers: Helio Castroneves is dancing for money and Danica Patrick is doing ads for what appears to be an adult services company. Maybe it’s time to switch careers, and Brent has just the thing. Use your hard-earned knowledge of high speeds, million-dollar hardware and surviving disastrous crashes to become a SQL Server performance tuner! In this session, Brent will show you why Colin Chapman and Enzo Ferrari would have used index tuning, database mirroring, and other tools that can give you an edge.

(This is one of my favorite presentations.  I originally gave it at SQLbits in the UK and I’ve given it at a couple of smaller online events, but never at a national event in the US.)

Virtualization and SAN Basics for DBAs

These two technologies can make a very big – and very bad – difference in how your SQL Server performs. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get the real, honest lowdown from a virtualization administrator, a SAN administrator, and a DBA? Wouldn’t it be even better if one person had done all three, and could give you the pros and cons of each point of view? That person is Brent Ozar, a Microsoft Certified Master who’s been there and done that.

(I’ve done a few virtualization and SAN presentations over the last couple of years, and I’m trying to distill them into a single “basics” presentation.  I did a webcast on this, and I got feedback that some of the topics were too advanced, so I’m still refining this one.  I’ll probably put an “advanced” one into my rotation for next year.)