So I must confess that my blogging efforts to date have been on the impersonal side – perhaps even a bit sterile. I really admire bloggers who post daily and weekly, and seem to have interesting things to say about common and simple things. In the coming year, I’d like to change my approach to blogging about SQL Server, BI, Reporting and all things related. I’d like my blog to be more conversational and to read more like a journal and less like a textbook. I had a chance to watch the recorded session from this year’s global PASS Summit on blogging. A panel of some of the more prolific SQL Server MVP bloggers talked about their approach. Folks like Buck Woody, Bent Ozar, Adam Mechanic and Rob Farley talked about the importance of sharing your personality while maintaining a balance between professional and personal information. I’ve been writing technical books for over ten years and my blogging efforts have been in the same literary pattern as my books… if the content wasn’t complete and ready for print, it didn’t make it to the blog. So, I’ll apologize up front for my future ramblings and incomplete thoughts as I make an attempt to become a more frequent and perhaps a less formal blogger.
With SQL Server Denali on the horizon for late 2011 or early 2012, I’m looking forward to some new book projects. I won’t make any announcements until anything is official. There are significant new developments in the works for the Microsoft business intelligence platform and improvements to the relational platform and tool suite. The first public CTP was released in November but didn’t include a lot of new features. The next Community Technical Preview that contains the cool stuff should be available to TAP program participants sometime in Q1 – which should be plenty to blog about. Until then, I’ll continue to develop material around data visualization guidance and standards for the Microsoft BI platform.
