new year 2023

Another year passed, again in an incredible speed and there is a lot I actually did but never blogged here. In fact, in the last months, I’ve neglected my blog a bit, for many reasons. One reason was that I had some sicknesses during the year and as I don’t like to make them public, only few people of the #sqlfamily actually learned one or more of them. However, I don’t want to look back on those lows, but rather on my happy experiences I’ve had and just to sum them up for a looking back.

Speaking

I’ve had some speakings this year, and I don’t want to reiterate them here again, because I’ve listed them already on my speaking page. But I will say here, that I am very passionate about speaking, for both technical and non-technical sessions. I always enjoy them a lot, just because I get to meet new people and always learn a lot, whether just by preparation or by questions people ask me.

Meeting people

What I first and foremost reminisce about, looking back to 2022, is meeting new people! I’ve met many new people and want just to name a few that just cross my mind. All names I am going to name are in no particular order: At the really awesome in-person conference in Lingen, Germany, Data Grillen in May, I had the chance to meet many people I’ve met online only before, for example Ben Weissman (@bweissman@dataplatform.social) and William Durkin (@williamd@dataplatform.social), the organizers of Data Grillen (huge thanks again for organizing this great conference!). I also enjoyed a lot to meet attendees like my friends Nikola Illic (@DataMozart@dataplatform.social) and Tom Martens (@tommartens68@techhub.social), both of which I’ve never met physically before and organized the DATA BASH conference with in last September. With Mathias Thierbach (@mthierba@dataplatform.social), I’ve gained another friend during our car sharing trip from Düsseldorf to Lingen and back. I also like to remember meeting and having interesting discussions with Randolph West (@randolph@appdot.net), Steve Jones, Reitse Eskens (@2meterdba@mastodon.nl), Daniel Hutmacher (@dhmacher@dataplatform.social), Rob Sewell (@robsewell@tech.lgbt), Sander Stad (@sander@dataplatform.social), Benni De Jagere, Mikey Bronowski, Cecilia Judmann, Craig Porteous (@Cporteous@techhub.social), Olivier Van Steenlandt (@oliviervs@dataplatform.social), Jess Pomfret (@Jpomfret@tech.lgbt), Alpa Buddhabhatti, Meagan Longoria (@Mmarie@techhub.social), Johan Ludvig Brattås (@SQLClause@dataplatform.social), and more. Ben Weissman indirectly introduced me to Benni de Jagere when he - just as the conference started -, to asked us to stand up for a hight comparison as there was a running gag about it on Twitter. I am not going to resolve this mystery here - so that others, who haven’t met us just yet, may enjoy their bets 😜. I surely forgot to list some more people I’ve met at Data Grillen, apologies for this!

Changes

On November 1st 2022, I got the honor to be awarded by Microsoft the as the second Microsoft MVP for Data Platform in Switzerland, for the first time. Once again, I thank Chrissy LeMaire (@cl@tech.lgbt) for her nomination to be MVP.

In the last few weeks, I’ve made some changes. One is my presence on Twitter, as I am trying to move on from Twitter to Mastodon. My main Mastodon handle is now @kaysauter@tech.lgbt as I feel that I’m in a inclusive community here which I, even though I am a white straight cis man, very much appreciate. I also recommend Daniel Hutmacher’s Mastodon Server dataplatform.social, nevertheless. If you’re moving as well, I really can recommend information by Chrissy LeMaire on Github on which she describes some helpful information, tools and more. On my main page of this blog, I’ve therefore added my Mastodon account, and I’ve also added my Discord-Account via which you are also able to contact me because I’ve started to be much more active on Discord recently.

New on my blog is the possibility to subscribe to my posts as an email newsletter. You still have the possibility to use RSS of course, but if you prefer, you can also use the email based newsletter (hosted by tinyletter).

Data TGIF, the Azure User Group that I’ve founded and am still leading, grew to two more organizing members to help me out to host the online sessions from time to time. Deepthi Goguri (@dbanuggets@techhub.social), is still part of the team, new are Ioannis Theocharis (who was actually helping me out a few times, even before being a leader) and Mathias Thierbach. I am excited to be part of a such great team! Data TGIF also got a fixed Friday now which used to be just a Friday that I could be present on because I used to be at University of Applied Sciences for Business Administration Zurich on many Fridays. So since about June last year, the events are now always on the third Friday of the month and starting at 17:00 Central European (Summer) Time.

Future

Last year, I wasn’t able to write as much posts as I actually wanted to, for many reasons. One reason was that I was very busy in organizing DATA BASH throughout the year. We want to repeat DATA BASH again this year and we will publish an announcement for this soon. Anyhoo, I really want to write more posts again this year and of course, I want to speak again, three engagements are already planned, one being SQLBits in Newport, Wales, UK, in March 2023, another in-person conference that I am really looking forward for. Of course, I hope to get more speaking engagements this year, possibly even some others to be in-person. After all, I really hope that the COVID-19 pandemic is finally ending sometime soon in 2023.

The year 2023 will bring some changes, for example that I want to focus on some new topics, get at least one certification and more that I won’t reveal just yet. But I can reveal that I am considering to fresh up the blog design a bit this year, however that is going to take some time. I am also considering a new logo for it (if you have any suggestions, you may contact me!).

I wish everyone, a great and happy year 2023!


Heading Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash