First, Happy New Year!
From 2005-2009, Microsoft awarded me the Microsoft MVP award in the .NET/C# area, mainly for the articles/book I wrote and community events where I presented many sessions. Each year I felt incredibly fortunate to receive the award - and will always be indebted to people like Bonnie Berent and Rod Paddock / CoDe Magazine for their help and support.
I've always been an applications developer, so my work efforts and areas of study have been both in development languages and database platforms (and the integration of the two). For many projects, my knowledge of C# and .NET as well as Transact-SQL, analytics, and reporting served well in providing additional value.
Over time, I found myself developing/speaking/writing more on the database end and somewhat less on the .NET end. It is certainly not because of lack of interest in .NET/C# - I just saw more opportunities in the SQL Server area. The ultimate turning point was in 2007, when I began training and writing courseware for SetFocus in their SQL Server/Business Intelligence area.
Through 2008 my community work was roughly half .NET and half SQL/BI. In 2009 it was almost all SQL/BI. In 2009, I taught approximately 450 student/weeks for SetFocus in the SQL/BI area, wrote numerous custom courseware modules for them, and did over a dozen user group / CodeCamp presentations in the community in different SQL categories.
Microsoft (very graciously) allowed me to transition from .NET MVP to SQL Server MVP (received notification this morning). So, to MVP Leads P.J. Forgione, Suzanna Moran, and Ryan Bolz, thank you very much! I also want to say thank you to my friend Andy Leonard, who is a SQL Server MVP and put in some good words for me. Anyone who knows Andy, knows that he is one of the sharpest and one of the NICEST guys around.
And most of all, a big thank you to SetFocus for giving me the opportunity to train with them. My training volume this past year surely had a big impact on being awarded SQL Server MVP.
So what's in store for me, going forward? Well, my professional plans for 2010 are as follows:
· To continue blogging on this site about SetFocus news and providing different tidbits of what we cover in our SQL Server / Business Intelligence Master's Training Programs.
· To continue blogging about new things that are coming down the pike with regards to SQL Server 2008R2, SQL Server vNext, SharePoint 2010, etc.
· Speak for as many different user groups and weekend community (e.g. CodeCamp and SQL Saturday events) as I can. I did fewer community presentations in 2009 than past years, partly because of the birth of our daughter. (Some view me as a workaholic, but trust me, family comes first!) So I plan to hit a few more events this year.
· I've started on my new book - working title is Expert Business Intelligence Solutions with SQL Server 2008 and other Microsoft Technologies. It might see the light of day in August/September of this new year. More details later...
· And hopefully train several hundred student/weeks again!
Addressing a particular problem that people will need to solve, helps you create a niche market to market your affiliate products.
Posted by: dynamic business intelligence | January 17, 2011 at 10:57 PM