Data Heroes Assemble!
I have been an active part of many communities over my 30+ year career. I started out attending The Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group meetings in the late 80’s (yes we had meetups way back then).
Over the years I went from an attendee asking lots of naive, newbie questions to presenting at events, then helping organize events, and then onto the board of directors and eventually becoming president of the group. And I did this with the Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG) as well.
To say I benefited from participating in those, and other, database and data communities, is an understatement.
I benefited not only in my career but also personally.
Career
From a career perspective, I learned a massive amount that I could use in my job. Some very practical tips and tricks to build better systems for my employers and clients. The time spent at user group meetups and conferences more than paid for itself in the value returned. It allowed me to grow in my career to higher level jobs, and better pay.
I also built a HUGE network of contacts that were experts in their field. I was often able to email (or even now tweet) them questions and get immediate answers to solve problems I could not solve on my own, saving my time and therefore money.
Some of those experts were/are my mentors.
Some of those experts helped me find my next gig.
Some of those experts have now followed me to Snowflake and are helping our customers on a daily basis.
I can confidently say that my active participation in these communities led to my role as Chief Technical Evangelist at Snowflake. #LoveMyJob
Personal
I made friends all over the world! Not only did I gain a network of like minded professionals who worked in the same field as I did, many of them became friends. There are a fairly large number of folks that I have been friends with now for several decades (some of you no doubt reading this now!).
That has meant that as I have been traveling the world in my role here at Snowflake (and even before as an independent consultant), I find friendly faces in nearly every city, state, or country I visit. When you are traveling a lot for work, and away from your family, it is nice to be able to grab coffee, lunch, or dinner with someone who has known you for years just to chat about life. In our ever more digitally connected world, face to face is still the best. 🙂
That is the power of a good community!
Data Heroes
At Snowflake, we call our community advocates and leaders, Data Heroes.
Data Heroes are recognized as Snowflake experts. They get the opportunity to meet with Snowflake product and engineering teams, receive early invitations to Snowflake events, and are welcomed to speak about their experiences with Snowflake at user group meetups, conferences, and other online events. As a Data Hero, you’ll help and educate other users by sharing knowledge, tips, and best practices–online and in real life.
You even get your own custom, Data Hero trading card and other cool Snowflake swag!
You can become one of the leaders in the new world of The Data Cloud. You might even become a SuperHero! See how to get started today.
Join us for Group By Data Heroes
This coming week on July 15, 2020, we will have our very first Data Heroes learning event that we call Group By. It is a FREE event hosted by myself and our community team with sessions from our expert Data Heroes and Super Data Heroes.
With an opening session from the Co-Founder of Snowflake, Benoit Dageville, the original #DataHero!
This will be a LIVE, interactive event that you will not want to miss so sign up today to reserve your spot and join the Snowflake Community.
See you there!
Kent
The Data Warrior
