Wally McClure - Database Geek of the Week
This week, Wally McClure is the Database Geek of the Week on www.simple-talk.com. You can see the full interview here. Wally has just completed a new book on ADO.NET 2.0. You can see the cover (though not order it just yet) here.
I have known Wally for a number of years, and while of course his technical expertise stands out (he is of course a Microsoft MVP and an ASP Insider), what distinguishes Wally from lots of other geeks is the way he makes you feel welcome in a group. Ani DiFranco has a song that I enjoy named Little Plastic Castles. Some of the lyrics are:
they say goldfish have no memory
i guess their lives are much like mine
the little plastic castle
is a surprise every time
This is, unfortunately, true for me as well. I have a terrible memory, and even when I demonstrably should remember someone's face and name, I do not. Often, in business and in my personal life, that inability to tie names with faces makes people think perhaps I am distant or unapproachable.
At an MVP Summit I attended, Wally greeted me warmly when I arrived. Of course, I knew that I should know who Wally was, and of course, I did not. However, Wally's warm welcome that day caused me to completely link the name with the face, and a later event (described in the article) cemented my friendship. Wally explains in the interview how we first met, and once reminded I felt even more like a complete dork, as we had a lengthy conversation at an earlier event, and I probably even still have his business card from that long ago conversation!