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Connect

We encourage data professionals to carry on collaborating and sharing knowledge beyond our event.

As well as providing five days of incredible education, our number one aim is that knowledge sharing, collaboration and communication continues well beyond the five days of SQLBits. We want to encourage delegates to continue to connect with other data professionals, becoming part of a thriving and supportive community.

To that end, Community Corner came into being in 2015. Set on the expo floor, it provides a physical space at the heart of the event that showcases all the ways those working in the data community can connect and collaborate with other data professionals, from joining an in-person user group to becoming a mentor. You can find more about how we’ll be highlighting each of these opportunities a little further down the page and how to get involved.

This is a topic we talk about regularly in our emails, so make sure to sign up to our mailing list for regular updates if you’re interested.

Mentoring

There are a number of mentoring opportunities in the data community, and we’ll share those we know about here.

DATA:Scotland is committed to helping grow and nurture the data community through supporting and elevating our next generation of speakers. We want to make that first step into sharing your knowledge with the community as smooth as possible. If you are selected as a new speaker we offer to match you with an experienced speaker to help shape your session and mentor you in the lead up to the event. If you are interested in learning more reach out to the DATA:Scotland team at theteam@datascotland.org
If you would like to add a mentoring opportunity to this page, please drop us an email on contactus@sqlbits.com.

Speaking

Interested in sharing your knowledge and experiences and finding out more about how to get into public speaking? We’ll be running sessions on public speaking skills.

You might also like to visit New Stars of Data, an event to help find and promote new speakers in the Microsoft Data Platform arena.

(Alternatively, if you’re already an established speaker and want to speak at SQLBits, visit our speaker guidance here.)

6 Tips for Building Confidence as a Public Speaker...from SQLBits 2022

User groups

From making the day-to-day responsibilities of a role in data management a little bit easier to building a network of peers to call on for guidance and career progression, being part of tech user groups offers a whole lot of bang for its buck. We’ll be highlighting the work of both virtual and local user groups and how you can get involved.

In the meantime, why not take a look at our blog on the subject below?

Rie-Discover the Power of User Groups

Events

Whilst SQLBits of course remains the mecca of all data platform events (not that we’re biased!), there are a wealth of other excellent events out there to help educate and connect data professionals. We’ll be shining a spotlight on a few during SQLBits week.

Here’s a list of just some of the other events:

Networking

We’re masters of the ‘networking so good you don’t even know it’s happening’ experience here at SQLBits – take our evening events, expo hall design and runs for example. But no doubt networking is a slightly-formidable-at-times art, and one that if you want to build your network, you need to master. We’ll be offering opportunities to conquer those nerves and up your networking game.

Networking - the SQLBits way

Non-technical skills and advice

Blogging, Vlogging and Podcasting

Keen to join the ranks of the data influencers but not sure how to get started? We’ll be providing opportunities to meet and chat with some of the industry’s best.

Last year we hosted chats with...

 

Careers in Data

We know how great a choice a career in data is, and part of our remit is to help more people see the opportunities and benefits a career in data presents, as well as supporting those newly into the industry. More details of our initiatives here will be announced soon. In the meantime, take a look at these resources: