Last year, I did a wrap up post of the year to see where I landed from where I wanted to be.  At the end of that post, I came up with a number of goals for the year.  Now’s the time to see how I did with those goals.

2012 Goals

1. Complete SQL Server MCM.  Done. Got this taken care of at this years PASS Summit.
2. Become a Microsoft Certified Trainer.  Didn’t happen – but also didn’t work on it.  This is one of my 2013 priorities.  More about this later.
3. More Community.  Success. I went to nine SQL Saturdays - SQLSaturday #145 – Nashville 2012, SQLSaturday #149 – Minnesota 2012, SQLSaturday #160 – Kalamazoo 2012, SQLSaturday #157 – San Diego 2012, SQLSaturday #159 – Kansas City 2012, SQLSaturday #119 – Chicago 2012, SQLSaturday #118 – Madison 2012, SQLSaturday #111 – Atlanta 2012, and SQLSaturday #104 – Colorado Springs 2012.  And I attended and presented two Spotlight sessions at the PASS Summit (on Xevents and Plan Cache)
4. Build Content.  Success.  I got out the books Expert Performance Indexing for SQL Server 2012 and SQL Server 2012 Practices.  I also pushed a e-book to Kindle for the blog series 31 Days of SSIS.  Beyond that, I wrote over 150 blog posts this year and complete a series on the Compatibility Views that maps them all to their replacement catalog views and dynamic management objects.  I also redesigned the blog in hopes of making it easier for people to access the stuff I’ve published.
5. Have free time.  Marginal success.  Over the last couple months, I’ve been winding down some of my work-aholism and spending more time with the family.  I need to do this in a more balance approach though and do it through out the year.

Additional 2012 Accomplishments

There are a few of other things that I did this past year that I’m kind of happy about:

• Retained my MVP award for SQL Server for the fourth year.
• Changed jobs and took on a database architect role at Pragmatic Works.
• Got approved for my next book on extended events.
• Attended MVP Sumit and Baremetal training on SQL Server 2012

2013 GOALS

1. Become a Microsoft Certified Trainer.  I need to become a better trainer as part of my presentation skills, this seems to be a good way to focus to move the ball in that direction.
2. Focused Community.  Over the last few years, I’ve been jumping around to pretty much any SQL Saturday that sparked my interest.  For the next year, I am planning to attend only SQL Saturday’s in the North America North Central region for PASS.  Since this is where I am a regional mentor, I’m hoping to connect more with the people in this region.
3. Build Web Content.  I’ve been talking for about two years now about starting to record videos of my demos for the blog.  This is something I want to do for 2013.  In fact, my goal is going to be to put up at least 50 videos by the end of the year.  What I would like is to be able to provide a link for every demo I ever do in a presentation so that people can see them after the fact in case they miss something or if the demo goes sideways for some reason.  It’s also a way for me to validate to people that sometimes… walking up in front of people actually breaks code in demos.
4. Better Networking.   I’m an introvert by nature.  If I don’t know someone, I have a really hard time talking to them.  I’ll never strike up a conversation with a complete stranger.  On top of that, when people do talk to me I’ll either have no idea what to talk about or might be distracted by something – and overall, just come off as a dick. I don’t like either of those two things – so this next year I’m hoping to develop habits to change that.
5. Better free and family time.  My kids and jet skis aren’t getting any younger.  I spend time with both, but next year – I’m going to be better than I’ve been before.  What’s the point of work if there isn’t things you enjoy because of it.
6. More Certifications.  With my change in positions, I need to expand out what I know more broadly to be effective.  I’m not sure what I want to become certified in alongside SQL Server, but this next year – I’m going to figure it out and start on the testing path.

Blog Statistics

Keeping with last year’s stats, here are some of the highlights from my blog this past year.  As is a bit obvious, the SSIS series that I completed last January had a huge impact over the entire year.  Expect to see another series on SSIS and a series or two around DBA topics; which I focus a bit more on these days.

Top 20 Posts per WordPress Stats

1. 31 Days of SSIS – The Introduction [8,834 views]
2. 31 Days of SSIS – Raw Files Are Awesome (1/31) [6,130 views]
3. The Side Effect of NOLOCK [5,316 views]
4. 31 Days of SSIS – Generating Row Numbers (23/31) [5,243 views]
5. 31 Days of SSIS in a PDF [4,065 views]
6. 31 Days of SSIS – Merge Join Is My Friend (8/31) [3,224 views]
7. Please, no TRIM()? [2,799 views]
8. 31 Days of SSIS – Environmental Variable(17/31) [2,699 views]
9. 31 Days of SSIS – SQL Server Configuration (18/31) [2,533 views]
10. 31 Days of SSIS – Controlling Your Flow In The Control Flow (21/31) [2,472 views]
11. 31 Days of SSIS – DTSConfig Configuration (19/31) [2,256 views]
12. 31 Days of SSIS – Using Breakpoints (2/31) [2,075 views]
13. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Value [2,033 views]
14. 31 Days of SSIS – Create XML Document (13/31) [1,996 views]
15. Index Black Ops Part 2 – Page IO Latch, Page Latch [1,898 views]
16. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Exist [1,809 views]
17. 31 Days of SSIS – Pivot Transformation (10/31) [1,692 views]
18. Index Those Foreign Keys [1,630 views]
19. 31 Days of SSIS – Data Flow Breakpoints?! (3/31) [1,553 views]
20. 31 Days of SSIS – 10 Things About Expressions (16/31) [1,553 views]

Top 5 Downloads

1. 31 Days of SSIS [6,533 downloads]
2. Index Black Ops Whitepaper [707 downloads]
3. Extended Events - Work Smarter, Not Harder (combined) [535 downloads]
4. 31 Days of SSIS Project [503 downloads]
5. Index Black Ops [488 downloads]