What an amazing week I had at PASS Summit 2011 in Seattle, WA! I hadn’t attended a PASS conference since September of 2005 when it was in Grapevine, Texas. It has grown so much since then. I am not sure how many people attended back then, but I’d guesstimate about 1500. They announced that at this year’s conference there were 4000 attendees. WOW! Here are my favorite aspects of this conference: Networking! – Not only did I meet a lot of new people, but I also got to meet people in person that I’ve known on the Internet for years like Mladen Prajdic (blog|twitter) and Rob Volk (blog|twitter). I even met someone that I’d recently helped out in the SQLTeam forums. Learning – I took a lot of notes during the sessions I attended and plan on blogging very soon about them. It is amazing the amount of things you learn and the things that you unlearn. Yes I said unlearn. Some of the stuff that I thought I knew was either out-dated or just plain wrong. Fun, fun, fun – To say that this conference was fun would be an understatement. I had a blast! I attended the “Welcome Reception and Quizbowl” on Tuesday night, the “Exhibitor Reception” on Wednesday night, and the “Community Appreciation Party” at GameWorks on Thursday night. There were many other after-hours events to attend, but I had to make my kids a priority at night so I had to get back to my hotel room before 9pm so that I could Skype with them. It was very entertaining reading and posting with #sqlpass on Twitter. Twitter has changed the conference experience for the better. I will definitely be able to do my job better due to attending this conference. The return on investment is HUGE!
