Real-world Value of Twitter at Work

I’m really not eligible but I’ll share a story that I used during my SQL+Twitter talk at SQLSaturday (and also whenever I tell anyone about the value of Twitter).

For those who don’t know Paul Randal (@paulrandal on Twitter), I liken him as such: If the SQL World were the Star Wars Universe he and Kimberly Tripp (@kimberlyLTripp on Twitter) would sit on the Jedi Council. That being said they’re pretty important in the SQL world.

One fine day I got a call from a coworker whose server had run out of space because the transaction log file had grown too much (whoops). Rather than call me to fix the problem he did the thing all DBAs dread…he deleted the .LDF file and thought restarting SQL would rebuild a new one. Needless to say this pained me deeply. I tweeted my plight to the world (as I do whenever I’m working on something interesting) and Paul responded. Now the reason this was so exciting to me is for a few reasons: 1-This guy WROTE the code for DBCC CHECKDB and knows every nook and cranny of how the database engine works and how/why corruptions happen and how to fix them. If you’re interested in the technical bits of the story check out Paul’s blog post on it: http://www.sqlskills.com/BLOGS/PAUL/post/A-sad-tale-of-mis-steps-and-corruption-(from-today).aspx

Long story short, thanks to the relationships I’ve fostered with fellow SQL professionals I got world-class, one-on-one help (he and I emailed back/forth that afternoon while he walked me through what to look for, commands to run, etc.) and all for free. Simply put I cannot stress enough how much Twitter has enhanced my worklife and helped me to be a better DBA as now I have the power of so many sql resources at my fingertips almost instantly. Outside of SQL I also had another great experience the other day with Shay Levy (@shaylevy), Powershell guru extraordinaire. I don’t know PS well yet and he connected with me via Google voice chat and he helped review the script I was writing with me. Oh yeah, did I mention that Shay lives in Israel?!? Yeah, international help FTW!!!!

Lastly how can I forget my connection with you Colin? Another international connection forged from the fires of Twitter. Now thanks to our connecting via Twitter you and I are collaborating with yet another SQL Tweep on writing a Policy Based Management book. I really should just copy/paste this on to my blog and make it a post as I’ve apparently rambled on enough for this.

So there you have it kids! Do you have a positive story from Twitter you’d like to share? I’d love to hear about it so leave your comments/stories below.