Professional Development

Quest: “Brent, here’s a top-of-the-line Apple iPad 3G, case, camera kit, dock, and all the trimmings.” One for me, one for you. Me: “What?  Why?” Quest: “Before you went for the Microsoft Certified Master program, you kept telling us how hard it was and how high the failure rate was.  We wanted to thank you for…

The Microsoft Certified Masters program doesn’t run itself.  David Ikeda and Joe Sack manage the monster, and I’d like to take a minute to thank them for everything they do. Someone’s gotta review the applicants. Not everybody gets accepted into the program.  Some candidates don’t have the necessary experience, and some are just looking for…

If the DBA answer is always, “It depends,” how can Microsoft test DBAs? Six of the SQL MCM R8 guys Every week of the MCM program, attendees take a multiple-choice test. Afterwards, we gathered in the hallways and vigorously debated our answers. We agreed about most of the questions, but we had loud discussions about…

The MCM isn’t perfect. The instructors and David Ikeda (the lead for this rotation) are trying hard to make the experience great, but there’s some areas for improvement. I’ve been holding back from discussing them until I’d seen all of the instructors; I didn’t want to post a complaint and have people connect that complaint…

There’s something really exciting about walking into Microsoft each morning.  I know it sounds cheesy, but I get the feeling that really cool things are happening all over the campus.  Love ’em or hate ’em, Microsoft builds things that touch our everyday lives, and this is where it’s happening.  I know a lot of Microsoft…

The MCM schedule goes like this: Week 1 – M-F – training Week 1 – Weekend – study time Week 2 – Monday 8am – written exam covering Week 1’s material Week 2 – M-F – training Week 2 – Weekend – study time Week 3 – Monday 8am – written exam covering Week 2’s…

I’m more than halfway through my big adventure. Candidates are starting to complain about the lack of sleep and the abundance of material.  So far this week, we’ve covered the following material: 537 PowerPoint slides (and these aren’t Brent-style slides, either – one of the slides yesterday scored 15 bullet points) 43 T-SQL scripts 11…

I’m kinda good at a few things.  I can tune pretty much any SQL Server to make it run faster.  I play a decent game of Extreme Query Makeover.  If you talk about your SQL Server application behavior for a few minutes, I can usually tell you where your bottleneck is.  I’ve even been known…

I sit at the back of the classroom, so I get to see everybody’s laptops as they’re working.  Some folks surf the web, make travel plans, or do email.  Other folks follow along with the demos, running the scripts on their machines before the instructor gets to the next one.  I seem to have a…

Here’s everything you need to know to pass the MCM written exams: Before you get here, read the prerequisites. Again. And again. And again. My kind of email Do the demos.  Run the scripts.  Explain them out loud.  Teach the workings to your pet hamster.  Be completely comfortable with everything covered in the prerequisite reading. …

Whew. The first week was taught by Paul Randal (Blog – @PaulRandal) and Kimberly Tripp (Blog – @KimberlyLTripp), the husband-and-wife team of former Microsofties who founded SQLSkills.com.  To call them good trainers is an epic understatement.  They know how to deliver very, very technical material in ways that illustrate it well.  I had to stop…

I played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons growing up, and part of the game involves building your character.  You picked a class like thief, cleric, fighter, and so on, and your choice determined the strengths and weaknesses of your character.  Your character’s Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, and Intelligence scores were affected by your class. …