Connection

• Your registration covers automatically both PODS and SIGMOD.  PODS runs Monday-Wednesday, SIGMOD runs Tuesday-Thursday, so they overlap two days. If you want to attend any workshops, you need to register separately for them, or to crash in. 
• Do not skip Monday.  This is the PODS-only day, and starts at 9am with the PODS invited talk. The rest of the day is  filled with what PODS considered the most interesting papers (which may or may not be that interesting).
• Each day on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday there is a SIGMOD keynote talk (a plenary talk).  As a general rule, the level of interest in these talks has a high variance, and depends on your personal preferences.  A small number of the keynote talks I remember were truly remarkable, some are, unfortunately, a waste of time. 
• Otherwise, at each time on Tuesday and Wednesday you typically need to choose between three Sigmod sessions and one PODS sessions. This is tough, and you need to plan in advance. As a last resort, it's OK to move from one room to the other in the middle of the session. Probability theory applies: at some times there are three parallel talks that are super interesting (no solution here), at other times everything is boring and you can take a break. If you don't know what talk to attend between a set of interesting talks, look at the authors and their affiliations. That may help you decide.
• You should also consider visiting the demo sessions. They are a great way to see a lot of research projects within a short amount of time and talk one-on-one with the main researchers.
• Socialize !! This is the most important benefit of attending a conference.  Stop a database big shot during the coffee break, introduce yourself and give him/her your elevator pitch.  Repeat.  It doesn't matter if you are 1st year or 7th year, you can still prepare an elevator pitch (SHORT !!).  It's risk free: if you screw up with  one big shot, she/he won't  remember you;  they only remember you if they liked you. If you start talking with someone interesting during coffee break,  it's ok to skip the first talk in the session in order to continue your interesting/productive conversation.
• DO find time to have fun somehow.