And the Band Played On

The PASS Data Community Summit is happening this week in Seattle. This conference and the PASS organization have been a part of my career for over a decade. Like so many other things, the in person summit was canceled in 2020. They tried to pivot to an online conference, but it wasn’t very successful. In fact the event company that had been running the conference for as long I have been attending went out of business in 2020 – for a few reasons, but the conference was probably the most visible one. Last year Redgate Software picked up the mantle and hosted a free online conference and it was very well done. After missing out on the camaraderie and networking in 2020 the remote Data Community Summit in 2021 hit all of the right notes. I participated heavily from the comfort of my own home. There were keynote speeches from well known experts in our #SQLFamily and from insiders at Microsoft, lots of geeky jokes from people in the comments, and technical sessions on new features of SQL Server. The 2022 incarnation of the conference is a hybrid (partially remote) event and sadly I won’t be attending.

An in person conference with people who I have known for years that all grok the same things I do about databases and working with data – that is beyond tempting. I’ll let you in a little secret about PASS Summit – it isn’t about the session content. I do try to attend a few sessions on topics I’m interested in and I have also presented sessions, but the real reason I go is to have conversations with people in the hallways, connect over dinner at the Crab Pot, play Crash Pandas at the Pass Summit game night, and run the 5k #sqlrun down to the wharf. My last two jobs have been from connections I have made by being involved in PASS and I have more more friends than I can count.

OK, now let’s talk about the elephant sized virus in the room. According to the World Health Organization 10,000 people died of Covid in the last week. This is significantly less than the worst week of the 2022 (75,000 deaths worldwide during a week in February). Which means things are getting better; the Director of WHO even said that the “end is in sight,” but we are still in a pandemic.

We have come a long way, and this is definitely cause for optimism, but we continue to call on all governments, communities and individuals to remain vigilant.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, opening remarks at the media briefing – 9 November 2022

Everything we do during this pandemic has become a risk calculation. It feels like a lot of people have decided that the risk of Covid is small enough to return to doing the “normal” things we used to do – like attend a conference with thousands of other people from around the globe. I know some people will be wearing masks and some people at the conference are posting their covid test results each day, but with the prevailing attitude in the United States and in a group this large and diverse the number of people taking precautions is probably going to be small. If more than one in ten people wear a mask I will be surprised. When the conference was announced last spring the website stated “to ensure everyone’s safety at the event, all attendees will be required to comply with all current health and safety provisions.” As far as I know there are no longer any Covid safety provisions they will need to comply with to hold the conference.

I don’t begrudge anyone making the choice to attend in person. In this weird time we live in everyone has to decide what level of risk they are willing to accept. Where I come down on it – I don’t want to put myself, and maybe more importantly, other people at risk by attending a large gathering. I wish I felt differently about this and I wish things actually were “back to normal,” but I can’t pretend they are. I know several people who are attending the Summit this year and I will get to live vicariously through their posts on social media. There have been a lot of pictures and posts shared already and the conference doesn’t get into full swing until Wednesday.

This year’s PASS Data Community Summit is more than a conference – it’s a homecoming.

Pass Data Community website