Way back in 2016, I began an annual ritual where I embarrass someone in our SQL Server family by declaring them my "Community Influencer of the Year." This does not come with any fancy trophies, huge cash prizes, or even a T-shirt; it's just my little way of saying thank you for standing out as a significant contributor to the community.
So far I have honored these fine folks:
This year, I want to recognize Jess Pomfret (@jpomfret). She was on my radar last year, but has really stepped it up since then. She has delivered sessions at DataGrillen, multiple SQLSaturday events in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, and her local user group. She has spoken on an array of topics, ranging from data compression and Desired State Configuration (DSC) to dbatools – even co-crafting an excellent dbatools video with Bert Wagner.
I know Jess is embarking on a new opportunity this year with a fellow colleague – I’d like to congratulate her on that move, thank her for all of her fantastic contributions over the past year, and hope we keep seeing her great work, both online and in person. Thank you Jess!
Honorable mention
There are so many people who make tireless contributions to our community — it's really not fair; I could easily put a dozen people in this list. But there is one other person I'd like to call out for their selflessness:
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Taryn Pratt, who has been thoroughlly documenting the solutions she’s helping drive at Stack Exchange, like upgrading from Windows Server 2012, moving to SQL Server 2017, and dealing with unique outages involving Availability Groups. Hopefully we can encourage her to present about some of the challenges she’s faced at this kind of scale because, if those solutions worked there, they can work anywhere. Taryn also maintains a data dump of the Stack Exchange database, which many people in the community use for testing, coursework, and demos.