A Year of Tuesdays: T-SQL Tuesday Meta-Roundup

Just over a year ago I kicked off T-SQL Tuesday, “a recurring, revolving blog party.” The idea was simple:

Each month a blog will host the party, and about a week before the second Tuesday of the month a theme will be posted. Any blogger that wishes to participate is invited to write a post on the chosen topic. The event is called “T-SQL Tuesday”, but any post that is related to both SQL Server and the theme is fair game. So feel free to post about SSIS, SSRS, Java integration, or whatever other technologies you’re working with in conjunction with SQL Server. Even if your post includes no T-SQL we still want to see it. 

I was a bit concerned that people wouldn’t get it, and thought that the event would either die out after a few months or that I would have to host myself on a regular basis. But after a couple of months both of these concerns turned out to be unfounded. Everyone quickly caught on and I was pleasantly surprised by how well the event was accepted by the various bloggers in our community.

We’ve now had 12 T-SQL Tuesday events, each with seemingly more participants than the last, and a number of people are already lined up to host throughout the first half of 2011. As a matter of fact, I don’t know whether the event will make it back to my own blog any time in the next year–and that’s a very good thing!

The number of posts the event has generated over the past year is staggering; I won’t count them all, but I’d estimate somewhere in the range of 300-350. In my humble opinion, T-SQL Tuesday has been a complete success. And it’s incredibly interesting to go back and see the broad number of topics, and the many different takes that various participants have had.

The 12 events we’ve had to date were:

1. December, 2009: Date and Time Tricks (invitation, roundup)
2. January, 2010: A Puzzling Situation (invitation, roundup)
3. February, 2010: Relationships (invitation, roundup)
4. March, 2010: IO, IO, It’s Off To Disk We Go (invitation, roundup)
5. April, 2010: Reporting (invitation, roundup)
6. May, 2010: What About BLOB? (invitation, roundup)
7. June, 2010: Summertime in the SQL (invitation, roundup)
8. July, 2010: Gettin’ Schooled (invitation, roundup)
9. August, 2010: Beach Time (invitation, roundup)
10. September, 2010: Indexes (invitation, roundup)
11. October, 2010: Misconceptions in SQL Server (invitation, roundup)
12. November, 2010: Why Are DBA Skills Necessary? (invitation, roundup)

… And coming up this month is event number 13, hosted by Steve Jones at SQL Server Central.

I receive a number of messages each month asking who is hosting the next event and what the topic will be. My answer is always the same: “wait and see!” But I’m going to break that tradition here and now. Here are the confirmed hosts for the first half of 2011:

1. January, 2011: Jen McCown
2. February, 2011: Kalen Delaney
3. March, 2011: Jes Borland
4. April, 2011: Matt Velic
5. May, 2011: Bob Pusateri
6. June, 2011: Allen Kinsel
7. July, 2011: Stuart Ainsworth

Reading this and haven’t participated yet? Why not?!? Don’t have a blog? Create one on WordPress.com and jump in. Participating in T-SQL Tuesday is a great way to build in-links and start getting some traction to your work. It’s fun, it’s educational, and it’s quite fulfilling.

Want to see your name on the list of future hosts? The rules are simple: Participate in at least two T-SQL Tuesday events, and keep your blog active — at least one post a month. Then drop me a line. Anyone and everyone can play, and we encourage new bloggers to join in the fun.

Thank you to all of the hosts and participants over the past year! Looking forward to continuing the upward trend in 2011.

Enjoy!