New Stars Of Data #5 – March 12th!

In case you forgotten, New Stars of Data is back! Bounce bounce bounce.

Super excited as this is the program that helped get me started with my speaking (along with nudges from several #sqlfamily in the community). The event is the 5th in the series and is tomorrow (May, 12, 2023). The event is free, but make sure to register here: https://www.meetup.com/datagrillen/events/291222930/.

In case you are unfamiliar with New Stars of Data, let me give you the quick summary: Ben Weissman and William Durkin from DataGrillen saw a huge gap in the community for getting new MS Data platform speakers up and running and helping to ensure the person’s success. (Ok, that’s actually an assumption on my part, but that’s my take on it.) Rather than just offer speakers a space to get noticed, they designed a program that partners the speaker with a mentor to help with every step of the way. Sometimes multiple people (both Ben and Gabi Münster helped me with mine). They help with topic selection, abstract, presentation development, and even practice run-throughs. There is also a free library for anyone to use to help improve your speaking skills. They remove the barrier of “I know this subject really well, but I don’t want to suck in a public forum”. Afterwards, the videos are available on YouTube (after the volunteers do all their wizardry to get it uploaded). So really what you end up with is a free event on current topics with great speakers.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I will also mention it continuously, attending these events (and/or watching the videos on YouTube) helps diversity in out community. By default, underrepresented people have a harder time finding mentors for stuff like this, which makes these programs super important. If that’s a topic that interests you – than make sure you support events like these.

While I’ve been in the sql community for many many years, I have to admit it was super exciting to meet a lot of the people for the first time last year at PASS DCS who directly and indirectly helped me during my New Stars of Data Event. As well as the many friendships that have developed since. It’s not always possible to meet those that have made such an impact in your life, but if you get the chance, it’s pretty awesome.

The event is tomorrow and it is on CET time (or maybe it’s GMT, I forget), but don’t let that stop you if you are in a different time zone! I plan to catch a few sessions as I am getting ready in the morning and during the remainder of the event. I’ll circle back around and catch the ones that are too early for me on YouTube. The session lineup looks really great, and I’m chuffed to see all the new and upcoming people. Really relevant topics on things like Power BI, Azure, Machine Learning, and other SQL/Data topics. Get your TRAIN on and join us if you can!!!!