Well SQLBits was a brilliant event. There was a record attendance, an extra track and an early morning session to fit in all the sessions and I got a chance to speak in a lightning session.

The details of the conference are all over the place with other bloggers so I will not repeat their content but refer you to: John Sansom (Blog | Twitter) and Aaron Bertrand (Blog | Twitter) are the first two that I remember blogging a round up of the event. I am sure there are links from there to others and don't forget to check back to the SQLBits site to get the session videos and slide-decks in the near future.

I really liked the idea of the early track on the Saturday (Community) Day. Not least because it spread out the registration process and I think eased any queuing that has occurred at previous events. from what I understand the events were well enough attended to make them viable at future events. I hope they stay.

On the Friday I was in the exhibition hall and the lightning talks session was announced. With SQL in the City in the not too distant future I had spent as much time watching how people present as following what they were presenting so I was interested to see a differently paced presentation. I happened to be walking through the hotel behind Allan Mitchel (Web | Twitter) and he casually turned around and said to me "You'll do one won't you?". Well that was a shock! I had nothing prepared, I hadn't even got anything at home unprepared as I had never spoken before. Well, I figured in my head that if I could access my blog I could use something there for content and then I'd have to wing it from start to finish.

In the session I got my laptop onto the Wi-Fi and loaded up 5 browser windows, one each for the blog articles I did on LogParser. I typed up a contact details page in an Open Office document as quickly as I could and looked up just as the 2nd presentation, from Alex Whittles (Blog | Twitter) with an abstract from his full session on spatial data, was just coming to an end. Allan looked over to me and it was me next.

I fumbled about getting my netbook linked to the projector - I had never done it before - I started off mentioning that I was doing this as preparation for the SQL in the City event and apologised for the poor preparation and then launched into talking the room  through my blog series. I closed the talk by answering a couple of questions and then forgot totally to show my contact details page!

I still have no idea about the timings - I think we were meant to aim for 10 minutes but what I managed is anyone's guess. Some people commented afterwards that they will be able to use LogParser in their work processes so its good to know that it was useful to some people.

I am hoping to see the feedback for the session as a whole and see if there is anything that I can relate to but for a first time I am pleased to have got through without any proper disaster. My next move is to get at least half of the SQL in the City presentation written and inflict it on a user group or two. Then apparently my handlers (Red Gate) want me to do a conference call/webinar event of the whole talk.

Anyway, in essence, talking isn't as bad as you might imagine and I am looking forward to this new part of my work with SQL Server, just so long as I get more time to prepare in the future!

* - Mr Flibble appears in this blog courtesy of Dominick Reed (Twitter | Facebook )