The Tribal Awards are underway! I wanted to give everyone a quick update on the progress of the awards and some of the nominations we’ve received. If you haven’t done so already, get your choices in at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TribalAwards

Article that saved my bacon in 2013

Nominations are thin on the ground for this one! We’re looking for specific articles, so far we’ve had entries for one from Thomas LaRock, Phil Factor, Jamie Thomson and the SQLCat team. If a technical article has gotten you out of a tricky situation this year, make sure you nominate it!

Blog of the Year

Paul Randal’s SQL Skills blog is in the lead for this category but he’s got lots of competition from the likes of the TSQL Princess, Scary DBA, SQL Authority, SQL Rockstar and others.

Person you’d most like to have a beer with.

We have received lots of nominations for this category! Paul Randal is once again a very popular entrant, along with other multiple entrants Steve Jones, Connor Cunningham, Brent Ozar, and Bob Ward. The top nominations get through and we have many people with one nomination each, so make sure your nomination so he or she gets through!

Those with one nomination so far include: Marco Russo, Jonathan Kehayias, Alex Grinberg, Stephan Wolfram, Phil Factor, Andre Kaman, Pinal Dave, Davide Mauri, Grant Fritchey, Itzik Ben Gan, Scott Gurthrie, Mladen Prajdic, Troy Hunt, Chris Webb, Gail Shaw, Kimberly Tripp, Bob Dorr, Rick Barlow, Thomas LaRock, Dandy Weyn, and Dave Ballantyne.

Best Presentation at any tech conference

We’ve seen evidence of great presenters as a people like Neil Hambly have been nominated for 2 different presentations! This category is wide open. People have done really well with including the talk, keep it up!

Presentations with one nomination include: Mich Bottel at SQLSaturday Sacramento, Mark Vaillancourt at PASSMN, Mike Hotek at SQLSaturday Dallas, Erin Stellato at PASS, Peter Larsen at SQL Rally Amsterdam, David Moutray at SQLSaturday San Diego, Scott Klein at UKWAUG and Kevin Klein at SQL Server Days.

Best Tech User Group

The Sacramento SSUG is running away with the nominations at the moment! The Atlanta MDF also has a respectable number of nominations going for it. For people nominating PASS groups, please choose a specific user group, such as current nominees PASSMN and PASSDC. There are a number of other nominated groups, including Cardiff SSUG, Southern New England SSUG, the Oregon PASS chapter, User Group Italian SQL Server, and Newcastle SSUG. Keep em coming guys.

Best new community voice

It’s great to see so many nominations in this category! Some of the current nominees stretch the term “new” as we’d like to recognize some new to writing or speaking in 2013, so as much as we love Grant, Paul R, and Steve, they may be a bit, ah, seasoned, for this particular award.

Rob Sewell and Ayman El-Ghazali have each garnered a couple of nominations, also Tribal SQL writers Mark S Rasmussen and Stephanie Locke. Also in this category are Koen Verbeek, Valentino Vranken, William Durkin, Slava Murygin and Chris Bell. We will be taking a look at all nominees in this category to make sure the truly new community members make it to the next round. This is great recognition for first-time speakers and authors so I hope we continue getting nominations!

Beyond the Call of Duty

I’m loving this category, it’s amazing to see such a variety of people who have been picked out as going above and beyond for others. I’m just going to list everyone who has been nominated so far:

David Klee, Mitch BOttel, Geoff Hiten, Gail Shaw, Sri Sridharan, Stephanie Lock, Allan Hirt, Christopher Bell, Thomas LaRock, Jeff Moden, Mark Pryce-Maher, Niko Neugebauer, Kev Riley, Dave Ballantyne, Dan Hess, Don Wert, Jonathan Kehayias, Ryan Adams, Alex Whittles, Tim Ford, Allen Kinsel, Karen Lopez, Mladen Prajdic, Marco Russo, TJay Belt, Brent Ozar, and Hugo Kornelis.

The playing field for this category is completely flat. Even if the person you’d like to nominate has already been listed, go and nominate, it’ll help get them to the next stage.

Best Free Script

This category has produced the least surprising results! Sp_Blitz, so_whoisactive, and pretty much anything by Ola Hallengren are the front runners by miles. If there’s anything you think is missing, get to nominating!

Most Authoritative Voice

We’ve had more nominations for this category than any others. Paul Randal, Paul White, Gail Shaw, and Jonathan K are leading the pack but there’s still plenty of time for others to come to the fore!

Best Outfit at a Tech Conference

So far, the nomination for Grant’s legs in a kilt is our favourite nomination. Other nominations include Andrea Allred and PASS, Gigi Bell and the Registration Tiara, and Jason Strate have also received nominations. Please tweet pictures if you’ve got them to @simple_talk, it’ll help and has the side benefit of hours of amusement!

SQL Karaoke Performer of the Year

I had hoped for more nominations in this category! Ed Watson’s Just a Gigolo is in the lead as the nominator included performer and song, though Jason Strate and “Anything by Kathi” are also bubbling near the top. I’ve found one video of Kathi singing at a conference, but links please people!

So, that’s it for us so far. Remember, there is a comment section at the end where you can provide supporting information and links if you didn’t have enough room earlier. We are taking this into account when looking at who is making it to the next round so please provide as much extra info as you like!

When you exit the survey, you’ll be redirected to a landing page with 6 different pieces of content you can download, including books, posters, and article bundles, pick up as many as you’d like!

Also, tweet your nominees @Simple_Talk using hashtag #TribalAwards, we’ll choose three tweeters next week to win $50 Amazon vouchers.

Thanks everyone for nominating! If you haven’t done so already, get your choices in at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TribalAwards