My inspirational team

This month the T-SQL Tuesday theme is “Who has made a meaningful contribution to your life in the world of data?”, and is hosted by Ewald Cress (@sqlonice).

It was good to reflect on this over the past week, and there are (of course!) a lot of people that I could list. I could list some of the people that were prominent in the community when I first discovered it all those years ago. I could list those people that I turn to when I have questions about things.

But there’s one group of people that for me stands out above all the rest. So much so that I’ve hired them.

I’ve had my company for nine years now, and during that time I’ve had up to seven people in the team. Well over a dozen different people have represented the LobsterPot Solutions brand, and they’ve all been amazing. Here are a few stats about our past and present LobsterPot team:

• There have been MVPs, of course. Six MVPs, in fact, have been employed here. One became an MVP after leaving us, and two no longer have MVP status, but still… six!
• There have been user group leaders. Seven (or maybe eight) of us lead or have led groups.
• A few former employees now lead their own businesses.
• One former employee is completing a PhD.
• One former employee is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft.
• One former employee attends the PASS Summit on her vacation time.

You see, they are all leaders. They almost all give presentations at events. They all make meaningful contributions to the data community.

And they have all made a meaningful contribution to my own life. I may have paid them a salary, but they’ve all left an impact on me personally.

@rob_farley