The Social DBA

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The Social DBA

• Resources for Career Building

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Purpose

• Why be a Social DBA?
• How do I join the conversation?
• Classic Information Retrieval
• Social Networking Tools
• Face-to-face Opportunities
• Building a brand

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Why Me?

• Data Architect working in the field of financial
  information security
• Prior experience as DBA and a reporting /
  database developer
• Chapter leader of AtlantaMDF

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Why Be a Social DBA?

• How to be a Social DBA

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What is a Social DBA?

• Brad McGehee (Red Gate) ebook
• Exceptional DBA
• Embraces Change
• Enjoys Learning
• Some coverage of Community Participation
• Social Networking Sites
• Professional Networking
• Forums

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What is a Social DBA?

• A Social DBA is the database professional who
  learns through socialization.
• Constructivism
• Learner-centric methodology
• Constructs knowledge
• Experimentation
• Willing to take risks
• Shares both successes and failures
• Correlation to the Exceptional DBA
• Overlaps, but not exactly

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• YOUR SKILLS ARE NOT BASED SOLELY ON THE KNOWLEDGE
  YOU HAVE, BUT ALSO ON YOUR ABILITY TO FIND NEW
  INFORMATION.

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Why be a Social DBA?
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Classic Information

• How to be a Social DBA

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Information (Search)

• Books Online (duh!)
• SQLServerPedia
• http//www.sqlserverpedia.com
• A common wiki for SQL Server
• New, still accumulating information
• SQLServerCentral
• http//www.sqlservercentral.com
• Well-established
• Mix of articles and forums

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Information (Browse)

• Google Reader
• http//reader.google.com
• Search for SQL Server
• Brent Ozar
• SQLServerPedias blog syndicator

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Information (Ask a question)

• USENET (Google Groups)
• microsoft.public.sqlserver
• One of the longest running sources
• Heavily visited by giants of the industry
• Can be political (i.e, wars based on rhetoric)
• MSDN forums
• http//social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums
• Better UI than Usenet
• Filter, answer ranking, etc.

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Information (Ask a question)

• StackOverflow (and related sites)
• http//www.stackoverflow.com
• Very rich UI
• Ranking system, experience points to posters
• Wiki-style
• Leads to interesting Q A

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Social Networking

• How to be a Social DBA

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Twitter

• Instant Messenger on steroids
• Follow friends who follow other friends
• Party line metaphor
• Join in the middle of several conversations
• May not see where conversation began
• Excellent Information Resource
• Instant Answer
• Tracking of trending topics

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Twitter
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Twitter

• Several client applications
• Web http//www.twitter.com
• Smartphone apps All flavors
• Windows Mobile
• iPhone
• Blackberry
• Symbian
• Desktop Clients Windows, Mac, Linux

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Twitter

• Twitter is NOT
• A storage mechanism for answering questions
• A professional work environment
• NSFW content
• Virus/SPAM
• The best tool for conversation
• 140 characters
• Inherently public
• Lots of noise

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Facebook

• Very popular Social Networking site
• You friend people
• See their networks, not their walls
• Friends see (and edit) each others walls
• Very rich application
• Pictures
• Videos
• Games, etc

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Facebook

• Professional concerns with Facebook
• No distinction between friends
• Friends from high school
• Friends from college
• Business Associates
• Professional Contacts

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Facebook

• Professional concerns with Facebook
• No distinction between friends
• Friends from high school
• Friends from college
• Business Associates
• Professional Contacts
• Social Timesuck
• Application Ad-centric
• FB wants you to spend time on FB

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LinkedIn

• Professional Social Networking
• Designed around career
• Social Groups (forums, QA)
• Connections (friend of a friend)

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Meatspace

• SQLSaturday (yay!)
• Professional Association for SQL Server
• National Summit (November)
• Chapter meetings
• AtlantaMDF
• 2nd Monday 630-900
• http//atlantamdf.com
• Other disciplines
• CodeCamps, GGMUG, Atlanta MSPros

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Blending

• Twitter BINGO!
• Experiment at PASS Summit 2009
• Tweeters volunteer to be prey
• Games seek out tweeters and get code words
• Guerrilla networking

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ESTABLISHING IDENTITY

• How to be a Social DBA

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Blogging

• Decide WHY youre blogging.
• Extra Cash? (use established site)
• Name Recognition (use established site)
• Career Success (slow and steady)
• Whats in a name?
• Domain Name
• Your Identity

Inspired by Brent Ozar (http//brentozar.com)
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Blogging

• Be Yourself
• Blog Once a Week
• Make a Commitment
• Weekly Updates are good filler
• Post your Blog Entries on Weekdays
• Weekend posts, people dont read
• Monday morning purge

Inspired by Brent Ozar (http//brentozar.com)
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Blogging

• What platform?
• Domain provider will provide options
• Software you can customize
• Wordpress
• Themes
• Plugins (more later)
• Tweakable AND Set Forget

Inspired by Brent Ozar (http//brentozar.com)
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Blogging Tools

• Windows Live Writer
• Free
• Allows you to post to multiple blogs
• Word-processor style
• Code Prettifiers
• Simple-Talk SQL Prettifier
• http//extras.sqlservercentral.com/prettifier
• Instant SQL Fortifier
• http//www.dpriver.com/pp/sqlformat.htm

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Blogging Tools

• Google Feedburner
• http//feedburner.google.com
• Formats your blog feed for RSS/Atom readers
• Provides basic analytics
• Google Analytics
• http//www.google.com/analytics
• In-depth analysis of visitors

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Meta-Social Tools

• Ping.FM
• Events on one service notify other services
• Blog announcements
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• FriendFeed
• Similar service, more interactive
• Allows users to post back

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Questions?

• Stuart R Ainsworth
• stuart_at_codegumbo.com
• http//www.codegumbo.com
• http//www.twitter.com/stuarta
• http//www.linkedin.com/in/stuartainsworth