Well, I’m home having spent a week at SQLBits 2022 at the eXcel Conference Centre in London. And it was frickin ace! If you were a fellow ‘Bits attendee I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a superbly run event. But if you’ve never been then let me tell you why you absolutely should go.
Value for Money
Let’s get the boring one out of the way first. This conference is insanely good value. At £1000 for an early bird ticket (rising to £1600 once tickets hit full price) to get 5 full days of content is very, very good. That’s not just training either. You get breakfast, lunch and snacks provided each and every day and if you stay involved with the social events in the evening you get evening meals and even some free drinks too (heck, you even GET social events!).
When I first started attending SQLBits, I had to go through a process of writing up a business case – previous employers have asked me to include details of each and every session I planned to attend and why that would deliver value for the business. Part of the problem with this approach is that the full itinerary is only released after the early bird ticket price ends, so they were paying a premium to allow me to complete this admin. Honestly, if you’re working with the Microsoft Data Platform, be that specialising in one specific area, or like me, if you work with the full stack, you will find value at the conference. In fact quite often its been the sessions I didn’t plan to attend that gave me the most value.
Let’s compare that with other conferences… I once asked to go the Gartner Data & Analytics Summit, a 3 day event, and even though the session abstracts were really pertinent to me at the time I couldn’t get the business case signed off. If I have a look today, if I were to sign up on the early bird price for this year’s Gartner event, it would cost around £2800.
I understand in some organisations that there may still be some admin to complete, but my advice, skip the detailed justification of every last session – get your tickets early and approach the conference experience as a whole as the thing that will deliver value.
Quality of Content
Again, if you’re working with the Microsoft Data Platform, you’re not going to find a better collection of speakers all at the same event. There’s a mixture of people who work for Microsoft directly with the products the conference covers as well as the cream of the crop of industry experts. In fact even some of the non-speaking attendees are amongst people I’d consider to be near the top of the pile when it comes to this field. These people had travelled from all over the world to be there.
Not only was the quality of content great, but the quality of the delivery too. The conference was set up with fantastic facilities, and whilst I was there in person, the feedback I’ve seen from people who attended remotely has been really positive too.
Diversity of Content
It’s no secret that I’m a huge Power BI fan and if I wanted to, I think I could have easily filled my 5 days with wall to wall Power BI goodness – there were sessions on DAX, performance trouble shooting, visualisation, security and even requirements gathering. The thing is, my day job is not just Power BI and so I also spent a lot of time looking at Azure Data Factory techniques, Lakehouse architectures and I even took in some Purview sessions. Sometimes I had to make the tough decision to miss a session as it clashed with another, and there were many other topics available that I didn’t end up covering at all… I really should have gone to more DevOps sessions.
Particularly noticeable this year were the number of non-technical talks. I went to sessions on how to be a good mentor, how to make sure you’re giving everyone in your team a voice and also attended some very raw and emotional sessions on mental health topics (huge kudos to those brave speakers who were prepared to bear all and be vulnerable on the stage).
Even if you’re there as a tech head, there are so many other great opportunities for you to use this conference to grow in other ways.
The People
If you were to survey all attendees at ‘Bits and ask them the best thing about the conference, I’d be really surprised if this didn’t come out as the top answer… so this will probably be a bit cliched, but honestly, the data community rocks!
I’ve had so much fun talking (and dancing!) with so many people! Some of those people were folks I already knew. Some were folks I’d had lots of interaction with over the internet and was meeting in real life for the first time. Some might be considered data “celebrities” – those people whose work you follow and admire… and sometimes, whilst it might feel a little intimidating approaching those folks, it turns out they’re real people too and are all super friendly. And then I met a load of totally new folks too, be it an introduction at the full day training or a random interaction during a session or round the bar at one of the social events.
I have to admit, my first few ‘Bits attendances (this year was my 4th one) I was more of a “sit at the back, head down, take notes” kind of person (even though I’m normally quite out going) – I also understand some people are natural introverts and the socialising aspect may not be for them. Maybe there’s also an aspect of being locked down over the past few years that made things feel even more special this year, but I’m so happy that I finally embraced the networking element of the conference.
Conclusion
So yes, if it’s not already obvious, I’m a huge SQLBits fan. If you fancy dipping your toe in the ‘Bits water you can actually attend the Saturday for free – this was my first experience, when I attended the conference in Liverpool in 2016. But really, for any serious data professional working within the Microsoft eco-system, this is THE event you should be trying to attend. And any business that takes the personal and professional development of its employees seriously should do everything they can to support their people being able to attend too.
So, see you at SQL Bits 2023, right?
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