SQL New Blogger Challenge: Looking back… and a new challenge!

A little over six months ago, I suggested the SQL New Blogger Challenge. I thought that maybe a few people would participate, but wow! The response was tremendous. When all was said and done, 40 people participated in the challenge, and that doesn’t include those experienced bloggers that lent their support. Many of those have continued to blog since then – congrats! I’ve created a shared collection on Feedly with the RSS feeds of everyone that participated. If you’re interested, you can view the list at http://feedly.com/eleightondick.

Personally, I stuck with the program for about six weeks before life got in the way. Finalizing details for SQLSaturday Iowa City was the task which first derailed me, but after I stopped, I found myself making excuses again – too busy, don’t know what to say, it’s been too long. And now it’s been five months since I’ve actively written. It really has been too long, and I intend to change that.

This week is the PASS Summit, and thousands of SQL professionals will be converging on Seattle to connect, share, and learn, to borrow PASS’s tagline. Learning is the easiest and most obvious of the three – we’ll have over 200 sessions this year to choose from on topics covering all areas of SQL Server. Connections are a vital part of Summit, as well, and it’s the part that keeps me coming back year after year. Sharing is equally vital, but it’s also the most uncommon. How many of us go back and share what we’ve learned with our work teams? How many of us will share with a wider audience?

This year, I invite you to join me in sharing. (Yup, this post starts a new round of the New Blogger Challenge!) Join me in posting during this year’s Summit, whether you’re on-site on watching sessions remotely via PASStv, and continue posting through the month of November. Like before, the rules will be simple:

1. Write – and publish – at least one post per week during the month of November.
2. Weekly posts should be published by 11:59 PM each Tuesday (November 3, 10, 17, and 24).
3. Posts must be published on some sort of public forum. This can be your own website, Tumblr, WordPress.com, Blogger, LinkedIn – anything, as long as it’s public.
4. Write on any topic you want.
5. Tweet your posts after they’re published using the hashtag #SQLNewBlogger.

I’ll try to do better this time at collecting the posts, and I’ll also add participating bloggers to my Feedly list.

The first round was a lot of fun. Let’s see if we can add even more new voices to the mix!

One final note: Special thanks to Steve Jones, who kept the momentum going on the Challenge even when I haven’t been able to, and to Andy Levy, who created weekly summaries for the last round. I appreciate your efforts!