I’m a Speaker Mentor!

I’m honored to be part of an effort started by Alex Yates of DLM Consultants called Speaking Mentors. From the Home page: We are a bunch of experienced speakers who freely and without caveats offer our time to support first time speakers to deliver their first few sessions at tech meetups and/or conferences. If you would …
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Writing about Apache Storm Stirs Up a Storm

A storm is coming… I’ve been spending some time learning other data integration and analytics open-source-y stuff. Perhaps you’ve noticed recent blog posts like: Apache Storm Stream Processing in Azure HDInsight Achievement Unlocked: Certified in Implementing Predictive Analytics with Spark in Azure HDInsight Achievement Unlocked: Completed Processing Big Data in Hadoop with Azure HDInsight If …
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I Need Some Updates

As I type, 2017 is drawing to a close. For many, this time of year is a time of reflection on the past year and planning for the coming year. I recently saw this Windows message in the corner of my screen and realized, “You’re right, Windows. I do need some updates.” I’m not big …
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Website Ch-ch-changes…

Inspired by Frank La Vigne’s (blog | @Tableteer) snappy update to the Data Driven home page, I decided to spruce up a couple / three of my websites including this one, andyleonard.blog. I added the sidebar shown on the right of the site. It contains a more-readily-available search box and links to other websites I maintain – …
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Lessons Learned About Community Leadership

It’s been an honor and a privilege to serve in technical community leadership at the local (Richmond Virginia) and regional level. It’s not the same as managing geeks, but there are similarities. I’ve considered serving on a national level but not taken that plunge. Over the years I’ve learned some lessons that I thought I’d …
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