SQLDay in Poland

Today I’m sitting in the historic city of Wrocław in Poland. I’m not sure I ever would have thought to visit, except that over a year ago I was asked to one of the special guest speakers at SQL Day – one of the largest SQL Server-centric events in the world.

The city is a charming place, and despite the rain that’s falling today and my jet lag from travelling for over 27 hours, this place has fascinated me, from the architectural mix of plain v elegant and old v new to its friendly people. I knew of Silesia from a board game, but didn’t know of Wrocław, and certainly didn’t know how to say it (which is roughly “Vrotz-waff”). I’ve walked around, enjoyed some coffee in a Czekoladziarnia, looked around the museum in the Old Town Hall, and will enjoy seeing the attendees at the event which is in the Centennial Hall – which I’m told is the second most significant building here (I even saw photos of it in the museum) and is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The image below is from VisitWroclaw.eu.

Along with the PASS Summit (USA), SQLBits (UK), and the Data Platform Summit (India), I would consider this to complete the other Grand Slam of SQL events around the world. I’ve done precon seminars at the other three, and tomorrow rounds it off. It’s a great honour to be invited to be one of the special guests – when I look at the list of others they’ve had over the years I know I’m in excellent company.

I’m probably the only speaker here who won’t be using a computer. I’ve discovered over the past couple of years that if I can explain concepts without using one, it exercises a different part of the brain and people understand in a deeper way. And so I’m going to spend a day talking about SQL Internals and Performance, using a flip chart, and using audience members to help demonstrate concepts. Hopefully they’ll enjoy it and be able to approach their data in a different way. I have two other presentations to give later in the week which will also be different to the rest – one will hopefully involve audience discussion, and the other is a session that I’ve done as a keynote before, about story-telling and seeing yourself in movies. I hope to be thought-provoking and entertaining. If I can inspire the data community in any way, then I’ll be happy.

@rob_farley