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SQLTeach Toronto Wrap Up

After recovering from a serious lack of sleep from presenting at SQLTeach :), I wanted to jot down a couple of thoughts about the conference.

1) Jean-Rene Roy puts on an amazing conference. The DevTeach conference has been around since 2003, and this was the first year it was in Toronto.

2) The quality and experience of the speakers is of the highest quality, and since the conference is fairly small, attendees get a great experience with often individualized advice and attention.

3) I despise scaled evaluations. The scale used at this conference was as such: bad, average, good, excellent. While my presentations were rated fairly well, the problem is that this system promotes subjectivity under the guide of objectivity. Who is to say what a "good" versus an "excellent" presentation is? Are you a glass half empty or a glass half full type of person?

4) The conference contained a whole Agile track. I was fortunate enough to spend some time with these speakers learning about this exotic new land of acronyms. I am interested in looking more into how these concepts are applicable to developing Business Intelligence applications.

5) Who knew that talking for 2.5 hours straight would make me lose my voice? :)

Overall, I had a great time. I met some great people, both speakers and attendees. As always, I learned a lot, and hopefully I imparted some wisdom as well. Looking forward to the Montreal conference later this year!
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Comments

Anonymous said…
I can't believe you left out #6 on that list: Making the *best* comment at the hotel bar on Thursday night!
;)

D
May 27, 2008 at 7:22 AM
Jessica M. Moss said…
Thanks for the props, D'Arcy, but I just said what anyone in my shoes would have said. ;)

Jessica
May 28, 2008 at 1:35 AM
ShopGeek said…
That's what I get for wanting sleep more than beer - someone will have to give me the story in Montreal!
June 1, 2008 at 6:52 PM
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