Committing 2011 To The Archives

Here it comes, another of those "year in review, goals for next year" blog posts.  I've never actually been much for setting goals, looking back, making New Year's resolutions, any of that stuff.  This year's different, for a couple of reasons.  By establishing some goals and publishing them here publicly, I'm more likely to commit to meeting them.  The book that I'm currently reading says that "The person who fails the most usually wins", so by that logic, if I list a bunch of goals here and fail to meet them, I'm doing well.

Before we get to 2012, I'm going to take a minute to pat myself on the back for a few things that I accomplished in 2011:

• built a fully automated source-control process to protect database objects
• reduced production database size by 350GB through aggressive data compression and index tuning
• real-time auditing and notification of database permissions changes
• eliminated 2 hours from monthly production outage by replacing full database backups with snapshots
• revived this blog!
• joined Twitter, after years of refusing to see the value
• attended first SQLSaturday event 
• attended first PASSMN meeting

Four of those accomplishments relate to the larger SQL community, also referred to as #SQLFamily, where I've discovered a large group of great people.  I'm looking forward to building some relationships within the community, and to meeting some of these folks in person.

As we move into 2012, some specific things that I want to focus on are:

• continuing my involvement in local PASSMN activities
• attend the PASS Summit
• continue improving this blog and my writing skills
• establish an ongoing developer training and mentoring program at work
• push to eliminate all SQL 2000 and SQL 2005 systems from our environment
• read and review 4 non-fiction books
• obtain the SQL 2008 developer and admin IT Pro certifications

There are other goals on the list, but they are specific to my employer and not appropriate for sharing here.  Should be enough to keep me busy without being overwhelming.

Farewell 2011, here's to a good 2012 for me and the rest of you!