T-SQL Tuesday #96: Folks Who Have Made a Difference

Last week while reviewing some of my old posts, I realized I had written 99 of them. For my 100th post, I asked for suggestions from the Twitterverse. There were some really great responses, including some that focused on the journey to 100: what I learned, who helped and influenced me along the way, etc. I was going to go in another direction, but this really dovetails nicely with the T-SQL Tuesday topic for November 2017.

For T-SQL Tuesday #96, Ewald Cress‏ (b|t) says "give a shout-out to people (well-known or otherwise) who have made a meaningful contribution to your life in the world of data.". That's a great idea! So here we go, in somewhat chronological order:

• Joe Kohlman: he taught me SQL and how to write queries (and at a pretty damn high level) while I was a community college student.
• Coworkers at my first two jobs: they encouraged and supported my growth as a software developer.
• Gail Shaw (aka GilaMonster): she answers anything and everything in the SQLServerCentral.com forums, including many of my questions.
• Shawn McGehee: he's the chapter leader for OPASS.
• Paul Randal: he spoke about wait stats and the SQLOS at one of the OPASS meetings.
• Jes Borland: she convinced me to join Twitter after attending one of her sessions at PASS Summit 2015.
• Idera Software: each month Idera coordinates a #SqlChat on Twitter. It's a great discussion about current topics related to SQL Server.
• Kalen Delaney: I learned a ton about SQL Server from her books In-Memory OLTP and SQL Server Concurrency.
• Andy Warren: he brought me into the fold as a volunteer with the SQLSaturday Orlando organizers group.

Blogging

As for my trek to 100 blog posts, there is plenty of overlap with my career path as a data professional. Many have helped along the way, and I'm thankful to all for their contributions:

• Steve Jones: Steve re-tweeted many of my blog articles when I first got started blogging. (Use the #SQLNewBlogger hash tag.)
• Kevin Kline: not long after I started blogging, I stumbled upon Kevin's Advice to Aspiring Tech Bloggers article. It's a great read when you're first starting out.
• Brent Ozar: Once upon a time, Brent tweeted about one of my posts. To this day, it's gotten more hits than any of my other posts by far. Brent has also included a few of my posts in his "Weekly Links" newsletter. Thanks, Brent!
• Erland Sommarskog: If there was a Mount Rushmore of T-SQL error handling gurus, Erland would surely be on it. I was extremely flattered when he linked to one of my articles in his epic series on Error and Transaction Handling in SQL Server as well as crediting me for the solution I presented.
• Redgate Software: Database Weekly is a great source for articles about SQL Server. Thank you for sharing my blog posts with your audience! If you don't already get it, be sure to check out their Weekly Roundup newsletter.
• A round of thanks to everyone that has proofread any of my articles: Stuart R Ainsworth, Elizabeth Block, Jesse Seymour, Matt Dyor, Steph Locke, Andy Yun, Drew Furgiuele, Andrew Pruski, and Andy Mallon. I'm thinking there are some others from Slack that I've left out.
• Chrissy LaMaire, Rob Sewell, and Aaron Nelson: you may know them as the dbatools people, but they also started the Slack SQL Community. There's a lot of great community members and discussions there, including a #Blogging channel, where I bounce around ideas with other bloggers.
• Curated SQL: This is a web site/project by Kevin Feasel, who regularly promotes my articles on his site, as well as on Twitter. Thank you, Kevin!