I wrote a thread on twitter. Steve Jones had some good comments and started some conversations over at SSC and linked to my thread. I’ll probably get there at some point. I’m going to try and write this one slowly. But since my twitter thread was used to introduce the posts there, I figured I should finally clarify those flying thoughts into one (hopefully more cogent) post. Yes. I know this is one more post among many with many thoughts. I put it here because I’m not looking to pile on or drive hits, just clarify my own thoughts for myself and for anyone who cares to listen.

I want to declare a few things up-front that will be vital to understand some history behind my tweet thread and my post:

1. I love the “People of PASS” This includes the current and past volunteers who serve on the board, the HQ staff who work their tails off (and even recently took a cut in pay to do so) to put on an event that I’m sad to leave each time I leave, the myriad volunteers who put the event on (full disclosure: I’ve been one of those), the User Group leaders & SQL Saturday Organizers (full disclosure: I’m both), the speakers (I’ve done that a few times too), heck even the WSCC staff who I can still picture always there serving the summit when it is there. I love the people in this organization. A lot.
2. PASS was instrumental in instilling a passion in me early. Were it not for PASS in the “pre-social media days” and before Steve and Andy gave us SQL Saturday (and then donated that to PASS – I was there the day the key was transferred speaking at that SQL Saturday) – I may not have been as involved in the community.
3. SQL Family is #SQLFamily in large part because of PASS. We are the vibrant community we are because of PASS. But not actually because of “PASS” – it’s because of the People of PASS. The early BoD. The early contributors. They gave us such a wonderful community (no it’s not without flaws. There are plenty posting the flaws in the community, and we ought to want to work on resolving those.)
4. I harbor no ill-will. This post and my twitter thread – they aren’t born from any anger towards the people of PASS or even the organization. But more a “dawning” that’s been tugging at me for a few years.
5. I Wasn’t Going to Post this. But I opened my mouth on twitter. I feel like this is a tough time to be posting the thoughts that my mind is driving towards. An organization is in peril, and there’s a company full of dedicated people who have stapled their existence to the organization’s existence. This is a potentially/likely sad moment and a lot of folks are piling on and throwing some fuel on this fire – I even sense some schadenfreude. I’m actually sad that my conclusions are my conclusions here. I have this lump in my chest and I have since I started my thread and then a week later when I added to it. I sort of feel like an old friend is suffering a terminal illness. Not nearly the same degree of sad. I’ve seen that and lived through it – the lump is much larger there. But it’s an analogue of that. Because, I love PASS and what it stands for.

Don’t Bury The Lede…

I type and speak too fast. So I mutilate the point with words too often. I’ll state my “where I’m at” here briefly and then spend some time explaining:

PASS as we’ve known it appears to be “dying”, it likely has been for a bit now. While this saddens me, I am not sure if this is ultimately a bad outcome.

The Problem

The problem with PASS is well stated in many spots. There are a number of factors and my next section will sort of explain why I’ve reached the lede above. But the main point I have is –

• PASS has strived to be more than just the things we all list off for as long as I remember. But the mold is set. Primarily PASS is the Summit. There is a bit of an identity crisis here as PASS has contemplated lots of ways to diversify, they have come back to the fact that to many they are the Summit. Full stop. Many SQL Saturday attendees don’t even equate PASS with SQL Saturday. They just equate SQL Saturday with a user group (and sort of forget it’s part of PASS) and a day of free training and social time. But each time some new effort is discussed, it nearly turns into the reality that the budget is primarily about the Summit. The things that PASS is other than the Summit all are signs pointing towards the Summit and engagement opportunities to remind folks of the Summit and try and get registrations. That’s not bad per se – but it’s the reality.
• Microsoft is perhaps a part of the problem also. PASS, ostensibly is supposed to be a group that helps collectively give feedback to Microsoft and get the word out about things to help the community. But in reality, I don’t see that value – it may happen, but it doesn’t seem to hit the public spaces as much as maybe each organization would like. In some respects, PASS almost feels more like a megaphone that Microsoft can use their founding/donation influence with to tell the users what to focus on and what to invest in. I love Azure, and help many clients move there to PaaS and IaaS – but it feels like the influence from Microsoft is more “Please talk more about this. We’d like to see more people use this.” than “Let’s make our product better, PASS let’s let this “Professional Association of SQL Server (Data Platform) Users” speak to us in a unified voice so we can improve and change. That just doesn’t seem to be the case. Yes there are focus groups at PASS. Yes there is AMAZING Microsoft involvement. But this feels more like influencing to get sales in the areas that they are focused on than feedback.
• In a time without social media and nimble organization of in-person and online events, a large “mother ship” was vital and necessary to make sure that the communities met and organize places and ways for us to all reach out to each other and do the social thing while learning and growing. I can’t help but wonder if, with the diversity of technologies in the data platform space, the diversity of interest and skills, and the ease of organizing locally and the rise of great online and physical events organically is spelling the end of the big mother ship approach. In fact, there may even be existential conflicts between the two approaches. If the mothership requires a healthy attendance to a big national event, well organized and run local/regional/online events rip into that funding base. Which means that it becomes a cycle – less (full price) attendees = less budget = cuts to event experience = less attendees next time = less budget again = more cuts = how long can this cycle continue?
• PASS HQ needs the Summit. This is hard. So many great people who love our community and have poured into our event, going insane leading up to it and during it – working hard. These people are great. And I feel terrible thinking “PASS is dying, and it’s probably right” because I care for those people at C&C. But I fear for them – there’s no diversification for them. And really none for PASS – and I think the critical point has been passed already, and likely were it not for CoVid, this moment was single-digit years away anyway. But this business model, in this social media and “easier to self-start” age – this model doesn’t scale.
• PASS has loyalty – but it’s not to what used to be the acronym and is no longer an acronym. I think it’s to the history of what PASS means to people and the nostalgia of the Summit. This means that “annual fees” or “certification ideas” or other “pay for ____ ” options are likely to fizzle out. I think they’ve typecast themselves long enough as “The Summit (and some other cool things that are related to it)” so that any other attempts to monetize this group in this age of democratic access to content and learning will likely flop. In the past, I’ve seen surveys and folks ask about a “Certification” – but I actually blame Microosft for that just not working out. Microsoft has shown a level of callousness to certs and “premium” certs to such a degree that this is the exact wrong community to try and market those to. Even if they were better certs (without all the XML questions 😉 ), I think the ship has sailed there.

What If There Were No PASS?

I’ve done this thought exercise a bit. What would the larger SQL Server Community miss out on if PASS were to be gone tomorrow?

• There would be no PASS Summit.

That’s it. That’s a lot. But that’s really it. The PASS Summit – as we know it – would stop. That sucks. That makes me terribly sad. Yet, at the same time, there’s a part of me that is sort of wondering if it makes sense to move on from the PASS Summit. I had not planned on submitting to speak this year either way, and I knew I’d not be an MVP (I voluntarily gave it up and asked them to not consider me for renewal, so in a week or so I’m done, 9 years was probably 9 years more than I deserved I figured…) and I would have let someone else use the chapter leader comp (that’s the only reason we are a PASS affiliated chapter. Sad to say, but that’s 100% the truth. That’s not right).

That’s enough to be concerned for. I enjoy that week of #SQLFamily get together and the conversations and hallway times. In truth, though – the same content, the same togetherness, the same “fringe benefits” can be had at a number of other national events, and a number of regional events and international events (Think SQLBits.).

… But What About …

• Microsoft getting the word out about new features? I don’t think they’ll have trouble there – they already do this well enough. Plus the MVPs are good at that. You can see the jockeying to be “FIRST!” to post something after the MVP Summit. There are two kinds of questions when new stuff is described to the MVP community. One is “Tell me more about this/how will it be licensed/etc.” and the other is “WHEN CAN I POST ABOUT THIS?!?!” and you even see it with the “NDA” tweets as folks sort of unofficially “claim dibs” on talking about what they are learning about right then at the Summit… Big Microsoft will still get the word out about features, I promise.
• SQL Saturdays? PASS didn’t give birth to these. They were handed the franchise and the regional folks do 98% of the lifting for them, and 100% of the fundraising for them. Regional events will 100% go on with or without PASS. I’ve bene in quite a few chats with folks who have said “What if we had a SQL Rally like event again?” And the couple times I’ve heard this, the thought wasn’t PASS trying to run it or own it – but folks in the region doing a combination paid and free event. In fact, I wonder if without a PASS these may end up happening more – since you really can’t get a big national event without a big organization with the budget and infrastructure PASS has/had.
• User Groups – Sadly enough, I imagine I’m not the only person who runs a User Group and keeps it affiliated with PASS just for the chapter leader comp. I’ve put my own money and time in before we had sponsors and even after sponsors at times – for that one thing. There is really no other benefit to the local user groups/meetups to be affiliated or not, in my opinion. I’ve thought this for a long time. Most members never go to Summit because of work/budget/time/there are enough regional and local events – so they don’t really even know what “PASS is” to them anyway.
• SQL Community/Togetherness. I really don’t think PASS has a monopoly here. Live streams, Slack, Google Hangouts during pandemic, study groups, local meetups, folks getting together for dinner – all of that is happening and will continue. The big thing we miss is “Data Camp” – but then it can still be there in parts.
• Various Online Events. These are already happening. A LOT. And with some great content. There are streamers in the space starting. There was just a deep dive internals conference.

Where does that leave my thoughts?

PASS means a lot to me. The people of PASS mean way more. I can’t help but ponder, though, if there’s a sunk cost fallacy going on. Part of me wants to register for the virtual summit even though I know I won’t likely attend many sessions. Because of what PASS has meant to me. But then I think about sunk cost fallacy. It’s almost as though I’d be giving the money to try and help an organization that used to mean all of the things above – and was the primary or only source of many of these things – stay afloat. But the reality of the situation in 2020 is, these things are being done and most of these.

The reality of the situation is – I don’t think we need to have someone fund a SQL Saturday website. That will happen. We don’t need one org to host online events – that is already happening. We don’t need to be told what to focus on by Microsoft from a side “user association” – Microsoft will get the word out – and if PASS were doing a tremendous job here, they’d maybe have a bigger stake in the org because of the ROI demanding it.

I think, maybe, PASS as I once knew it is a relic of the times we needed one big voice and big org to reach folks with email lists and without social networks. Back when “SQL Server” was “Just SQL Server” (mostly) and the acronym was still a thing. The Data Platform is very wide. No one company can effectively sell services into all areas of the Data Platform well (Go read Essentialism or The One Thing). No one membership organization can easily serve the diverse needs of the wide data platform. And a bigger organization actually stands in the way, a bit, of a democratized “build what you need” model that is happening alongside the organization anyway. Because of PASS’ one big revenue source, they will forever be trying to do what they can to drive that source. And that has in the past likely impacted other ways to monetize the organization, and it may be too late now.

I think PASS as we knew it is likely not a thing for the future. And, big sigh, I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. 🙁

What Should Happen to “PASS”?

I honestly don’t really know. I think the Summit is a great event. But I wonder if attendance has been continually dripping off, and if it will continue doing so as more and more competition continues to emerge. I also think we’re going to be looking at “Weird travel” next year and some knee jerk fear from a large event. I think the small and regional event model works nicer for the “Community aspect” also – I’ve spoken at one Microsoft Ignite – and I never want to go to Ignite again. Too many people for my taste. Too annoying and sardine-like – with or without a pandemic around.

So if the attendance keeps dripping off, that means the investment has to also since it’s the biggest revenue source and biggest expense source. At some point, C&C has to realize that PASS as the one big thing isn’t smart business and they’ll need to diversify which means that their touch decreases as well.

So I don’t know. Does it become “Just” a competition to SQL Intersection or SQL Connections? Does it become “just” and advocacy vehicle to collect and share feedback with Microsoft? Does it become a smaller Summit event holder? Does it shut down?

One doesn’t simply just shut down a big organization that is the largest provider of the budget for a company the size of PASS HQ. This would be like my company having just one customer and if that customer started using us less and less I said the answer is “Shut the company down!” but I keep racking my brain trying to think strategically for PASS and say “What can they do to increase their revenue?” And I come up short. Because, as a side effect of the spirit of volunteerism they influenced, there’s not a lot that we need a “big organization” with a big budget to do.

Focus on become a truly volunteer organization and still help MSFT meet the goals that were worthy of their co-founding. But the focus over time shifts from a big national event to bigger, better regional events. With enough money raised to support those events and maybe help keep the national organization going…

One Idea?

I don’t know what should happen to PASS at this point. I’d love to see the spirit of volunteerism continue, I’d love to see organic growth of events. I think I’d even love for their to be a PASS Summit – but not at this cost. Not with attendance potentially sliding (is it?)

I think we as a Microsoft Data Platform community are that point where we’d be okay without the PASS Summit. And we’d be okay without PASS. We’d miss the Summit more – but I think we’d end up with 4-6 REALLY BIG regional events in the United States on par with SQL Bits, and we’d get our “Data camp” experience – with less attendees – meaning less expenses – meaning less risk to continue – funded and organized locally. I’d be fine if there were a group of folks who love the SQL Community and this spirit loosely at the helm of this helping to make sure the local folks have the resources (not financial resources) they need, helping to share website experience, lessons learned, tricks to success, etc. Sort of a small federal head of these regional things. We can even call it PASS and have them carry Microsoft’s water and let Microsoft take the keynotes and speak their product lifecycles to the masses at these regional events. This group could help run GroupBy and make it bigger and give it a wider audience. And it can be done with a lot less budget because the big regional events would be funded by sponsorships that go straight to those events and donation, and the free Saturday would be funded by a few days of paid learning, maybe some pre-cons.

You get that going, and I probably wouldn’t even miss “Big PASS” as we know it today. Because we’d get the benefit. With a lot less cost and even require more volunteers – which brings us back to the spirit of volunteerism.

Anyway. That’s just one idea… I love the people of PASS. And I’m sad that I can swallow hard and say “I don’t think we need the PASS as we know it today.”