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Joshua D. Drake
December 19, 2017
It is with great pleasure that we announce the preliminary program for PGConf Local: Austin!
We have received a plethora of positive feedback from the local Postgres and Data communities and we are proud to host a second PGConf event held in Austin in 2017.
Training Opportunity:
- Postgres Performance and Maintenance by Joshua D. Drake
- Event Sourcing with a Postgres Event Store by Scott Bellware
- Using GIS in PostgreSQL by Lloyd Albin
- Trees/Hierarchical Data in the SQL Database by Ryan Murphy
- Amazon Aurora with PostgreSQL compatibility by James Finnerty
- Deep Dive into the RDS PostgreSQL Universe by Grant McAlister
- Open Source Communities as Biological Ecosystems by Debra Cerda
- The Power of Postgres Replication by Joshua D. Drake
- Multi-cloud deployment of PostgreSQL in minutes. by Stephen Holt
PGConf Local: Austin is made possible by the wonderful team of volunteers including the Austin PostgreSQL User Group and our sponsors:
Platinum: Compose.IO, OpenSCG, 2ndQuadrant, and Microsoft
Joshua D. Drake
November 09, 2017
Andreas Scherbaum recently tweeted, “Speakers: it is NOT OK to even consider drinking alcohol during a talk! No matter how complicated your talk topic is.” The tweet has caused an interesting debate on Twitter and Facebook. It also caused me to run a poll via @amplifypostgres on the matter.
At the time of this writing almost 70% of the votes on the poll either don’t care or don’t think it is unprofessional for a presenter to drink alcohol while presenting.
One of the counter arguments to presenters consuming alcohol during presentations is that when you are presenting you are representing the conference. The conference wants you to be professional and create an environment that represents that during your talk. Fair enough, but why is it unprofessional?
This sequence of events has me wondering: what is professionalism in reference to presenting at Postgres Conferences? It is certainly not appropriate to be intoxicated while presenting at a professional conference, but that isn’t the question. The question is: why is it inappropriate for an adult to make a legal choice to take a nip or sip beer (or wine) during a presentation? Why is that more unprofessional than not wearing a tie or button up shirt, or wearing shorts or a kilt?
Professionalism is subjective.
“In my opinion, my obligations to the audience are:
- I must care about the content.
- I must deliver what I say I will deliver.
- I must be honest with the audience about my level of experience in the subject.
- I must be honest about my opinions on the subject.
- I must be a genuine version of me, minus the swearing.”
I fail at “minus the swearing” but the rest are spot on and should be our focus.
If you do not want presenters to consume alcohol during their presentations, then add it to your Code of Conduct. If it’s not in your Code of Conduct, then let adults take responsibility for themselves and present the best content possible for our community, in whatever way necessary.
Rock on and @amplifypostgres!
Disclaimer: I am writing this opinion as a frequent presenter, not as the Co-Chair of the most electrifying Postgres Conference in the world.
Joshua D. Drake
October 27, 2017
Join the PostgreSQL community in Philadelphia on July 13th and 14th 2017 for two days of fantastic PostgreSQL content. July 13th will contain trainings and July 14th will be breakout sessions. The call for papers and sponsors is also open! When submitting papers to PGConf US events, please review the presentation guidelines.
PGConf US Local events are designed to bring comprehensive educational content and networking opportunities to the "local" PostgreSQL community where the event is being held. They are perfect opportunities to show support for PostgreSQL, find leads and build relationships with other professionals and companies using and support PostgreSQL.
Joshua D. Drake
May 08, 2017