 Hey everybody, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat and I'm talking today with Ed. Hello. Hi. Good to be here. How's everything going? Everything's going well. It's just a little bit snowy. You're in a colder region than I am, but I think we're about the same, I think. Yeah, we've had pretty much not much this year until this week and now we're getting like multiple giant storms this week, so it's a blast. Yeah. Well, literally it's a blast. Yeah. A polar vortex type blast. Well, Ed, for folks that don't know you, who are you, where are you, and what do you do? Such a generic question. I mean, a million different ways, but I've probably been out in the world of tech for maybe 20, over 22 years now, 25 years in that range. I started out years and years ago in systems, but I do live out in Albany, New York in case any was wondering where I was talking about snow, polar wastelands, frozen Northlands, you know, winter is coming, all that stuff, but started out my career in systems, did a lot of hardware, servers, the help desk stuff, you know, fixing broken things and it was a good learning experience and I did that for a while and then one day I discovered data and then I never went back. I mean, really, I mean that, like I discovered it, I got involved in it, I kind of just bumbled my way into like, you know, working with some database servers, had no idea what I was doing, broke stuff. I have memories of things I've broke and people that were mad at me early on, but it was kind of that gateway into like something bigger that I really enjoyed and dove into. And then from that point on, it was just, you know, junior DBA, mid-level DBA, senior DBA, optimization, data architect in that world. And then around like 2010 or so, I was introduced to a local SQL server user group that was just forming. It was small. I knew a few people from college there. So I'm like, Hey, this is great. I know people. I love this. And started going to meetings. Yep. Started going to meetings. It's where it all starts, right? And met a lot of people, began kind of speaking with the group a little bit, did a talk at the group, got addicted to all this stuff, ended up going to some SQL Saturday events. And then it kind of just, every year from there, I kind of just did more and more and more. And it was, you know, I always, a lot of people ask me, you know, how do you get into speaking? How do you get into writing? How do you get what you are? And I'm like, start small and do lots of little things. Just learn one thing and talk about it. Learn something else, talk about it. Learn anything. Pick something you want to learn about, talk about it, write about it and just keep doing more. And it often just snowballs. You don't even realize how much you're doing until you're doing it and how much you know until you know it. So it's kind of a cool path, I guess. You know, it's always interesting too, watching the, because I'm involved on the board for the local user group here in Utah and somebody was asking about wanting to get involved. And you always had, I'm sure you've seen this as well, where people are like, I want to get involved and I'd love to take this on. And they don't show up again. You know, who are these people that come in and say they want to get involved and have their name, you know, up in the lights around it, because of all the prestige of running the user group that there is. Yes, of course. But, you know, but it's the people that just like show up every, every time and finally just like, you know, hey, Steve, you know, you've been here, you're here every month, you know, would you be interested in taking this on? I mean, but that's how a lot of that, the familiarity that, that happens, how you get involved with the community is showing up. Number one is so important there. And you don't realize how many people you meet too. Like there's a number of people I've met through just SQL Saturdays, user groups, events like that, bigger events, I've seen over and over and over repetitively every year for I don't know how many years now. It's pretty special. And some really cool people I met that, you know, I've gotten to know personally who, you know, local regional people as well, just, you know, from New York that I just happen to know now and I work with it just, you know, those are neat connections. And, you know, in a chat with people, I'm like, hey, I'm going to be in town. What are you up to? Oh, I'm going out for dinner tonight. You want to come along and say hi? Oh, sure. Why not? And like, it's funny how that stuff is, you know, just all kind of connects together. Well, I had to, I love asking people about their, their origin story for becoming an MVP. So it use a brand new data platform, MVP, uh, relatively new. Is it what, when, in fact, how long have you been an MVP? It was just October. So it was like a birthday present for me in October. And there you go. So five months, four months. So, so, so now you're an old timer. Uh, so what was your journey, uh, to becoming an MVP? Like, was it something that you pursued? Just kind of fall out of the sky. It was a little of both. I really enjoyed helping the community. I enjoyed organizing events. I'd organized SQL Saturday in Albany for years. I'd helped organize others volunteer at them. I've, you know, written a pile of articles. I've written a long list of things that I've done. And I found that as I was doing more and more, um, I started meeting and talking to more and more MVPs and seeing what they did and, you know, what MVP was to them. And I said, eventually like, Hey, um, that's really cool. I kind of want to do that. That sounds fun. I think interacting with Microsoft more closely would be great. I would enjoy that. It would be fun. I would learn more, um, hopefully be helpful as well. And you know, you don't engage with more people that way. And so it was kind of a combination of I was doing more and more and more. And as I did that, I met more MVPs and met more people from Microsoft. He just worked at Microsoft and, and, you know, people began asking me more often than not like, Hey, are you an MVP? And I was like, no, and you're like, really? And I'm like, Oh, okay. Maybe, uh, maybe I should do this. And so I got nominated a few times. They said, no, you stink. And I said, okay, fine. But eventually I got it. And, you know, it is fun. It really is interesting experience. Um, it's different role than I had in the past with the whole community. But, um, I find I'm doing more now and I'm enjoying what I'm doing. And when things come up and I have a dead end, there's this outlet for that dead end now that I get to say, Hey, I have this big community of people who know everything or at least they know enough that if they can't figure it out, they'll be willing to admit it and, and, you know, find some interesting way to turn it around to something like, you know, Hey, what's this thing mean to the SQL server air logs that I found that no one knows. We don't know either, but we think it's harmless. Good enough for me. Yeah. Stuff like that comes up every so often. It's just kind of fun. I guess the story was gradual. I guess it wasn't like I just came up with a cape one day. It was a very gradual process that marinated over time. Well, I'm interested to know too, is like you said that you had been nominated a couple of times. Like, did you change anything about what you were doing or how you were capturing and kind of, uh, surfacing the different community activities that you were doing? Honestly, I think I wasn't doing enough and the pandemic actually helped that strangely enough. Um, before there were virtual events, you know, I have family. I have two kids. I have a wife. I, you know, do lots of stuff with them. So, you know, traveling nonstop is possible, but difficult. I don't feel great about like, you know, just leaving them and going places all the time. It's not really cool to me to do that too much. So, uh, and they're young kids. So they want to see me a lot. Um, and so before the pandemic events were in person mostly, there was some virtual, but a lot of it was in person and I could only travel so much. So I would go to, you know, maybe a big event a month in person, but that was kind of like my limit and I found that more than that was challenging personally to do. Um, but the pandemic, there was this huge, you know, surgeons of online events everywhere and a lot of them stuck around, you know, even as more in person events return. And I found that balance was perfect, that I could do, you know, an event in person here and there and everywhere, but then do additional work online. And I also found that a lot of online groups grew during the pandemic, um, that weren't as big before. And so like online groups that may have had five or 10 people before now have dozens or hundreds. And so, um, which is more engagement opportunities now than there were before. And that was pretty nice. And while some of my in person events got, you know, chopped to pieces, like my sequel, Saturday in Albany has not happened since 2020. It's kind of lame at the same time. I know that getting a big event here now would be kind of hard until things stabilize a bit, but it can help with New Jersey or Boston or New York city. And they'll still exist. So it's, it was kind of one of those, like I needed to do more, I think, and it was a good opportunity to do more. Um, really virtually was a nice thing. So this balance, I hope the balance continues to exist between in person and virtual events so that people have access to both. Well, that's something I tell people all the time, because I realize for people that aren't. Presenting all, you know, all the time that, that, you know, obviously, uh, public speaking is tops like some of the biggest fears in the world. Uh, I think that's a cross cultures. People have a fear of that. And so people say, well, do I have to go do all these events to become an MVP? And no, you don't. In fact, I know MVPs that do not step on stage at all. And they don't like virtual or, uh, in, in person. And they just do other things. They're big in the forums. They write books. They write a lot of kind. I mean, creating content, creating, you know, helping, giving back to the community. That's the, the, the, the real thing that you need to think about, but it could be through a number of different mediums. Doesn't have to be events. And that was one of the cool discoveries I made too. And I became the MVP was, um, you know, before that, most of the people I engaged with that were MVPs were also speakers. They were at events. And I saw them at events and events and events and events. And it was cool. Um, but after seeing more people around, I realized, Hey, there's all different types of MVPs out there. Some speak, some don't. Some are always writing and blogging and some create events for others can speak. Like, Hey, I, I built this big, awesome thing. I do it once a week and you can speak and not me. And that's cool. All these things are cool. And all different types of people. I see people on the email list every single day talking about stuff way over my head. And I love reading it. So it's just kind of neat to see that variety out there and what different people have to contribute. Yep. You know, one of the other things that I, I loved, uh, and you kind of alluded to this too is that, so I started during the pandemic with a group of friends that we, you know, how the people started doing the online meetings, just to chat, you know, not do anything about it. We started going through and trying to answer unanswered questions in various forums. And, uh, and so having a mix of having somebody who's an exchange expert, somebody who's an Azure identity, a management expert, a bunch of collaboration people that we were able to, you know, we had shared experiences across a lot of these different problems and give different perspective. We did that every week as a live stream for over a year. You know, because we kept thinking, well, just do it during the pandemic. So, you know, for six to eight weeks and it just kept going and going. But we've kind of continued that and doing like an AMA style where we do little short videos. But getting together with, as you talked about, you know, other people that know the answers to questions you don't know. And that's another way to, to just to work with other people, other experts to create other content, other answers and feedback. You don't have to create a video. You don't have to create blog posts. You could just answer those questions in the forum, go and do the research and provide, you know, through the forums. But yeah, there's a lot of different ways to get back. It's, it's just finding those ways that are comfortable for you that are, you know, that become habits for you. Now, 100% say that, like, when I was younger, the idea of getting in front of crowds, speaking, even just networking and talking to people wasn't the easiest thing. Like, I was definitely like a young nerd who was afraid of people and was for a while. It took years before I was more comfortable with people. And then more years before I was really comfortable speaking and presenting and not being nervous beyond belief. And that was, that was years and years of like, if I just keep doing this, it'll stop hurting, right? And it does, it eventually does, but it takes practice. And for different types of people, it takes more or less too. Like, I know some people who like one time in their company and other people it could take forever. So it's just, it's very different. But I always encourage people to think about ways to give back and whatever, like one of the biggest things I see people do sometimes will take all the work they've done to throw it in GitHub and say, hey, I have a bunch of scripts I've written, a bunch of ideas I come up with, I'm gonna throw it in GitHub and share it with people and say, here you go, enjoy. And suddenly you don't realize it, you're a content contributor. And that's really cool. You didn't do anything, anything new potentially yet. You just put it all out there. So no longer is it in your hard drive and your computer at home, but now it's out there. And that, that contribution style is not difficult. And it can be very beneficial. Like all it takes is you did one thing that one other person didn't do and now you're their hero and people are happy. Yep. Well Ed, looking at what's out there now with Microsoft of course is releasing things at a lightning pace. So what are kind of your hot topics in the data platform field? I can't keep up. I'll be honest, like it's very hard to keep up. I've spent a lot of time on the core SQL server data platform, on the SQL surface area, on like how data is stored in SQL server, the infrastructure, a lot of the internals. I've enjoyed that a lot. I've dug into indexing and column store and the new T SQL with every single version and all the improvements and how you can use and make your code faster. You know, optimization is a big long list of things kind of in that realm that I've worked on for years, gotten very comfortable with and done more with. And as Microsoft's building more and more tools, I want to kind of learn more now. And so I'm starting to get ready to just dive into more. Like I want to dive into Synapse which is something I have very little experience with and I'll admit I have very little experience with it. I've used some of the pieces of it in the past when they were pieces in the past but at the tools as a whole it's just growing and evolving faster than imagined. So I'm honestly, we need more people like you that with your background that are in writing about talking about that. So yeah, that'd be great. That's the next step I'm pretty much taking and I'm sure by the time I dig into that and become even vaguely good at that in like what, 20 years, there'll be more, it won't be that long but it'll feel that way. And there'll be other things that have gotten bigger and more elaborate. So I definitely have credit to Microsoft for trying to keep pace with everything changing so fast but at the same time it 100% can be overwhelming. And I think I've spoken to other MVPs recently over the same exact sentiment that like they're very excited about all these things but at the same time, keeping up with each other. It is overwhelming. Yeah, there is so much. Well, that's why I just say it's like, look you set it up front. It's like, no, there is no person that has that God-like status that knows everything about everything. And so you have to find people that in different areas that you just don't have the ability to cover on those topics. And I just have my go-to subject matter experts in different areas that I read their blogs, follow their videos, just see what they're talking about. That's how I keep up in those other areas. That's what you have to do. This is the part of the area. Like this is the part where networking is a good thing. I think some people think of networking as kind of like a dirty word. Like, oh, it's like shoes of people and it's lame and you're just, it's not like that though. Like it's always helping people. And you know, I found that over time I began just building up a list of people I knew who were good at different things. And they needed something for me that had come to me and asked a question because I knew it, I could answer it really fast. And if I had a question I would go to them. I remember specifically a project having to get data out of SSAS. Now I knew nothing about SSAS at the time. It was like an alien thing to me, like DAX, MDX, all that was just, I don't know how that works. I can learn it, but boy, I don't really want to. And then I found somebody who knew it. That was Steve Simon, a MVP, a former MVP. He's I think retired now. But he like within five minutes was like, oh, here's an article, here's what you gotta do. I'll send you over the scripts and stuff. And it took like 10 minutes of his time. But the 10 minutes of his time saved me weeks of torment and torture that I would have had to go on through to figure something out that I knew had an easy solution somewhere, but I didn't know where to find it. And now that sort of experience is really positive. And it just reminds us that, you know, there's lots of answers out there. And as long as you're open to giving answers, there's loads of people open to providing answers to you as well. And it's a really nice thing to have. And that's what makes the community the community and not just how much people are trying to make money, which other communities are, honestly, there are other communities out there outside of the one we're in where people just want to make money and it's all closely guarded secrets. And can't really evolve that way. Well, it was one thing that I constantly tell people is like, you can't be shy. If there's somebody that has, that's wearing the, I'm wearing the sweatshirt here, but wearing the logo, you know, we're some of the most connected, and social people, that's why we were selected by Microsoft as MVPs, ask questions, reach out and connect with us. If you like, and there might be 10 people, like with the same similar message. So if you like the style, if you like the approach, I try to incorporate humor into the content that I create. And as my kids will attest that, you know, I'm constantly playing jokes on them, pranks on them and doing things. It's just, that's the spice of life, you know? It's when you have adult children and later, no, I asked them actually sat down with my adult kids and my oldest is 30, my youngest is almost 23, and had the conversation, it was like, how did I damage you like mentally, spiritually, whatever? How did I cause damage to your life? And my observations of that were, which I thought was fantastic is one, they didn't laugh it off like, oh, dad, you didn't damage us. No, they all thoughtfully considered, then they all had multiple answers and none of them overlapped. So then I know, I did my job as a parent, but no, find people that have like a similar style, that have the voice, have that tone, you know, that you prefer, but then reach out and connect with them. That's always the hardest, it's scary reaching out to somebody that you don't know. If somebody watching this, listening to us, if you have questions about collaboration, feel free to ping me. If you've got anything around data, sequel, reach out to Ed. I mean, we're gonna answer those emails. We're gonna answer those LinkedIn messages. I always answer them and the fun thing is every once in a while, I'll eventually turn that into some article, like, hey, this is a really interesting topic. Here's the quick answer, but if you wait a few days, I will have the long answer for you and it'll be fun and we'll enjoy it. And by the way, my kids are four and six, so I'm in a totally different universe of parenting right now. Like there's still a potty humor and whoopie cushions around the house and stuff and Legos everywhere and all that good stuff. It's the priceless fun time, but at the same time, it's the like I have to be very patient time too because if I lose my patience, everything goes to heck very quickly. Well, you'll hear from them later in life on that, yes. I'm sure I will and hopefully the words aren't too scathing. Well, Ed, really appreciate getting to know you and maybe seeing you at the upcoming MVP summit if that all happens, if we get selected and that all happens. I don't think I'll be in person. Again, the in-person thing is challenging and more than a handful of events a year, but I'll be there. You'll hear from me, see me. I'll be around, I promise. I won't know you as much as I can. Well, Ed, and for folks that want to reach out and connect with you, what are the best ways to reach you? Where are you most active in social? You can hit me up on LinkedIn. You can still find me on Twitter. I'm on Facebook. They're not really professional stuff in Facebook. It's all personal. So you know, Dolphin, Cat, there's huge communities. There's tons going on out there. I follow it on there too, but I find that there's a little bit less. I personally don't see as much activity there. You can email me too. I happily give out my email address to people which I know is at risk of getting spam, but spam filters are good. They'll deal with it. It's fine. But really, I encourage people to reach out to me, however they feel like I'm a meetup as well, because we organize the capillary SQL Server user group. I join a lot of other meetups as well. So I mean, and if you want me at an event, if you have a local user group or an event that needs a speaker, I'm always amazed at how many groups out there I've never heard of before. And they're like, hey, I have a group. Do you want to speak? I'm like, I've never heard of you before and I'm really excited by that. Like I want to go to your meetings and learn more and see more. So, you know, feel free to invite me or ask anything just by me. No, I'm there. Awesome. Well, Ed, really appreciate your time and we'll talk soon. That was great talking. Thanks. Take care. Go.