What is DB2′s Got Talent, and Why Should You Care?

Well, I’m out. 5th place or lower overall, so no need for more votes. Thanks for your support, and I still recommend everyone listen to the shows – great information there.

I have to admit that I didn’t listen to all of last year’s DB2′s Got Talent shows as they were occurring. I didn’t go back and listen until I was getting ready to participate myself this year. I guess I expected them to be boring or messy presentations on topics I was already familiar with. The thing that has really amazed me this year is that despite being nervous and focusing on what I have to do, I still have come out of each of the finals shows with some awesome tip or trick that I can’t wait to actually put into use.

In show #74, Elder taught me some neat things about db2top. I’ve tried it in collector mode before, but now I want to go back and try the -A option, and also the option to write data out to csv – both things I was not previously aware of.

In show #73, Younhang’s use of DBMS_WAITONE was really exciting to me – I was looking for the functionality of a sleep command just a few weeks ago, and now I have it.

In show #72, Brian taught me something about reorgs -which I would have thought highly unlikely – I know reorgs pretty well, but I’m excited to work with his method for estimating the space that index reorgs will take.

I’m participated in the contest because I ultimately want to present at IDUG. But it’s also intimidating as heck to actually think about a full hour in that kind of forum, even for someone like me who has very little fear of public speaking. A few years ago, I was shocked to learn that more Americans are afraid of public speaking than going to the dentist – give me a room full of strangers and a topic I don’t know well any day over the dentist! I was on a speech team in high school and did a bit of debate too – though I wasn’t wildly successful, I wasn’t a complete failure, either.

My career goal at this point is to be a db2 guru. One part of that is knowing DB2 really well, and I would say that I do know some aspects really well. I can talk reorgs and some aspects of indexing and physical performance and backups/restores and security with you all day long. I do some informal training of other DBAs in my current job, and it’s one of my favorite parts of my job. That’s the other part of being a guru – sharing your knowledge effectively. And to do that, I need to present at conferences. Maybe write a book – I’ve always been tempted to, but have heard it’s a lot of work outside of one’s normal job.

I still hope to go to IDUG this year if I can get my company to pay for it.

Listen to replays of past shows here: http://www.dbisoftware.com/blog/db2nightshow.php

Please consider voting for my friend, Brian Fairchild. We worked together several years ago, and he is a great DBA.

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