You know what people say about what happens when you assume something, right? Don’t be an ass and make assumptions. One trend I’ve seen in recent years from some conference is that the conferences tend to prefer super advanced, internals, deep-dive sessions. While these sessions are very cool, and we all like to totally geek out about internals and the inter-workings of the query optimizer, and secret trace flags that make SQL Server return all query results as emojis. (Dear Conor, can you work on that one 
)
Anyway, while many of us in the SQL Server community have massive depth of knowledge about the product, and computer systems in general, it is important to realize that everyone attending SQL events is not an MCM, MVP, and MSCE. It’s great if you want to do a session on backup and restore, or how to install SQL Server (make sure to explain why you are doing each step). Topics like intro to T-SQL and Writing Your First Stored Procedure can be fantastic.
I’m not saying the whole event needs to have 100 level sessions, but making an effort to reach out to people who are just getting started could go a long way to broadening the reach of a professional association.
I saw that, and felt really bad when I had to bow out this year. In an event that has a lot of beginner DBAs and developers trying to play the role it was surprising to not see many sessions talking about indexing or similar subjects that so many people could use help understanding.
For the SQL Saturday Indianapolis, Hope Foley started a #SQLStarter track of all Level 100 sessions. They turned out to be our biggest attended sessions. We plan on doing it again this year. Myself personally, I always try to keep it 100.
You don’t need Conor – he’s busy. Just set the Options for Results pane to the WingDings font and boom – all your smiley faces, buildings, clocks and other images return in the results pane. 🙂 (You’re welcome)
As technology advances quickly, and more people are asked to know a little bit about a lot of topics, the demand for introductory topics will grow.