"Whoosh". That's
the sound
the last quarter of 2012 made as it rushed by. My first year on
the PASS Board is complete,
and the last three months of it were probably
the busiest.
PASS Summit 2012
Much of October was devoted to preparing for Summit. Every Board member, HQ staffer
and dozens of volunteers were busy in
the run-up to our flagship event. It takes a lot of work to put on
the Summit.
The community meetings, first-timers program, keynotes, sessions
and that fabulous
Community Appreciation party are
the result of many hours of preparation.
Virtual Chapters at
the Summit
With a lot of help from Karla Landrum, Michelle Nalliah, Lana Montgomery
and others at HQ
the VCs had a good presence at Summit. We started
the week with a VC leaders meeting. I shared some information about
the activities
and growth during
the first part of
the year.
From January - September 2012:
The number of VCs increased from 14 to 20
VC membership grew from 55,200 to 80,100
Total attendance at VC meetings increased from 1,480 to 2,198
Been part of PASS Global Growth with language-based VC- including Chinese, Spanish
and Portuguese.
We also heard from some VC leaders
and volunteers. Ryan Adams (Performance VC) shared his tips for successful marketing of VC events. Amy Lewis (Business Intelligence VC) described how
the BI chapter has expanded to support PASS' global growth by finding volunteers to organize events at times that are convenient for people in Europe
and Australia. Felipe Ferreira (Portuguese language VC) described
the experience of building a user group first in Brazil, then expanding to work with Portuguese-speaking data professionals around
the world.
Virtual Chapter leaders
and volunteers were in evidence throughout Summit, beginning with
the Welcome Reception. For
the past several years VCs have had an organized presence at this event, signing up new members
and advertising their meetings. Many VC leaders also spent time at
the Community Zone. This new addition to
the Summit proved to be a vibrant spot were new members
and volunteers could network with others
and find out how to start a chapter or host a SQL Saturday.
Women In Technology
2012 was
the 10th WIT Luncheon to be held at Summit. I was honored to be asked to be on
the panel to discuss
the topic "Where Have We Been
and Where are We Going?"
The PASS
community has come a long way in our understanding of issues facing women in tech
and our support of women in
the organization. It was great to hear from panelists Stefanie Higgins
and Kevin Kline who were there at
the beginning as well as Kendra Little
and Jen Stirrup who are part of
the progress being made by women in our
community today.
Bylaw Changes
The Board spent a good deal of time in 2012 discussing how to move our global growth initiatives forward. An important component of this is a proposed change to how
the Board is elected with some seats representing geographic regions. At
the end of December we voted on these proposed bylaw changes which have been published for review.
The member review
and feedback is open until February 8. I encourage all members to review these changes
and send any feedback to
[email protected] In addition to reading
the bylaws, I recommend reading Bill Graziano's blog post on
the subject.
Business Analytics Conference
At Summit we announced a new event:
the PASS Business Analytics Conference.
The inaugural event will be April 10-12, 2013 in Chicago.
The world of data is changing rapidly. More
and more businesses want to extract value
and insight from their data. Data professionals who provide these insights or enable others to do so are in demand.
The BA Conference offers expert content on predictive analytics, data exploration
and visualization, content delivery strategies
and more. By holding this new event PASS is participating in important discussions happening in our industry, offering our members more educational value
and reaching out to data professionals who are not currently part of our organization.
New Year, New Portfolio
In addition to my work with
the Virtual Chapters I am also now responsible for
the 24 Hours of PASS portfolio. Since
the first 24HOP of 2013 is scheduled for January 30 we started
the transition of
the portfolio work from Rob Farley to me right after Summit. Work immediately started to secure speakers for
the January event. We have also been evaluating webinar platforms that can be used for 24HOP as well as
the Virtual Chapters.
Next Up
24 Hours of PASS: Business Analytics Edition will be held on January 30. I'll be there
and will moderate one or two sessions.
The 24HOP topics are a sneak peek into
the type of content that will be offered at
the Business Analytics Conference. I hope to see some of you there.
The Virtual Chapters have hit
the ground running in 2013; many of them have events scheduled.
The Application Development VC is getting restarted
and a new Business Analytics VC will be starting soon. Check out
the lineup
and join
the VCs that interest you.
And watch
the Events page
and Connector for announcements of upcoming meetings.
At
the end of January I will be attending a Board meeting in Seattle,
and February 23 I will be at SQL Saturday #177 in Silicon Valley.
