I am completely blown away by our community. Period. It makes me feel proud that so many people all around the world have formed such a strong group that help each other 24×7 in as many ways as you can think of! What’s more, I always point out that personally, I am not aware of any other “family” that can even get close to what we as SQL Family do(someone to correct me if I am wrong). That being said some time ago I came up with an idea.
Let me start here – I am blessed and grateful to be able to travel and speak at many SQL Server conferences all across Europe. Being there, I meet a lot of people from the community – guys that I know and have been communicating with already, but also new people. People who are at least as passionate for SQL Server as me and many of the other speakers, bloggers, etc. Those guys, however, for one reason or another, are not that well-known in the SQL community and at the same time, they have an amazing knowledge and experience. That’s a shame, I thought.
At one beautiful day I discovered Google Hangouts which is a very cool peace of technology that allows you to create a video session (very close to what a Skype call is), but the coolest part of it is that while the conversation is ongoing, other people can actually watch it live! Not to mention something else – once you end the call, Google will actually save it for you and even upload it automatically to your YouTube profile in a matter of minutes. That’s great, but hooow is this related to the SQL Family, you may be asking?
If you combine the information from the above 2 paragraphs you may end up somewhere here – why don’t we try to give a voice to as many people from the community as possible? Let’s ask them to introduce themselves to the world and share their experience and knowledge with the other part of the family in an easy and not disturbing way. That’s what my mission is with the SQLHangout videos. I ask people I met and know, who I believe have a lot to say to join me and talk on a topic we choose for a 20 – 30 minutes which we later on share with the whole community. This is also the perfect moment(I have consider writing this blog post a month ago) to express my gratitude and really thank to those 20 world-class professionals who already joined the hangout sessions! I am so amazed by the fact that they agreed because they were willing to give up from their personal time to record those with me! That’s amazing and I am really happy that I know all of you! Thank you, all!
Nowadays, all of us are carefully managing our time more than ever as time is one of the most precious assets we have! The people in the SQL Family though, find ways to help others by using part of their 24 hours a day and by expecting nothing in return! This is just one more reason why our community and the people who are part of it just rocks! Thank you, Jeff, for hosting number 57! An absolute pleasure for me to be part of it! Hope you will join for a SQLHangout soon! 🙂