Category Archives: PASS

Interviews with Microsoft Data Community Speakers and Leaders

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What is the key to advancing your career in the Microsoft data platform?  Here is some advice from some of the most successful people in the industry…

Every year we have some big community events that bring together community leaders from all over.  These are international user group and community leaders who write books and speak at conferences. we had our local Oregon SQL Saturday “SQL Train” which is a chartered train – some coaches that one of our speaker’s chartered to bring all of our speakers and attendees up to the PASS summit after Oregon SQL Saturday, and then the big PASS summit (the big conference up in Seattle). I had a chance to sit down with a number of our speakers, community leaders and attendees and just ask questions about what brought them there, and advice that they would give people in the industry about how to get the most value out of that experience …and this is what they said:

Well-run monthly user group meetings and big annual events local events like SQL Saturday don’t just happen by themselves. It takes a lot of planning, a lot of volunteers and a lot of coordination to make these events successful. Part of that effort are the annual leadership planning meetings that we have during the week of PASS summit. Here are some short clips from those meetings where several hundred local leaders from all over the world got together to share ideas, to exchange notes and to coordinate to be able to make these events successful. Leaders cross-pollinate, exchange ideas and they work together to make this a great community. Why? …because somebody did that for us when we were getting started and we want to give back to the community. So, get involved; join the leadership committees at your local user groups, volunteer at SQL Saturday. Volunteer to do a short speaking engagement. Just get up and talk to some of your peers. Get started by volunteering in the community so that you can be part of the ongoing great community we have around the Microsoft data platform.

Spontaneous Interviews at PASS Summit 2017

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Conversations with Julie Koesmarno, Olivier Matrat, Aaron Nelson, Seth Bauer and Robert Bruckner captured in video interviews below…

Continuing my video blog series of interviews from PASS Summit, I had the opportunity to catch-up with several Microsoft BI and Data Platform industry leaders amid the crowds and between sessions.  Stay tuned to this station for many more interviews and insider information about the Microsoft Business Intelligence and Data Platform.

I caught up with Julie Koesmarno in the Community Zone, a few days after travelling together on the SQL Train (aka “Oregon SQL Party Train to Seattle”) from Oregon SQL Saturday the weekend before Summit.  She’s been a non-stop community advocate for several years, and continues to speak at events all over.  Julie was an Business Intelligence consultant and user group leader in Australia and Southern California before joining Microsoft as technical evangelist.  You might recognize her from the executive demonstration during the opening keynote at PASS Summit last year.

Olivier Matrat, Principal Program Manager (that’s Microsoft job title code for “in charge of a lot of important stuff”), talks about how they are hard at work integrating several products in the “Power *” suite.  This is the first time I’d heard of all the “Power…” prefixed product names unofficially referred to as “Power Star”, but it makes perfect sense.  Olivier said that we can expect to see tighter integration between tools like Power BI, Flow and Power Apps with more embeddable features for developers and solution integrators.

Aaron Nelson, Data Platform MVP and hard-core PowerShell enthusiast, spoke about some new capabilities he presented in his session about PowerShell for Business Intelligence. The new REST API will let Power BI and report server admins orchestrate server migrations and task automation with PowerShell CmdLets.  He seized the opportunity to promote the PASS PowerShell virtual group that he helps manage, at SQLPS.IO.  I’ve promised Aaron a follow-up post to demonstrate how the REST API works with PowerShell and the new MSBuild integration, so please watch my blog for that in the next few days.

I chatted with Seth Bauer, BI consultant and Data Platform MVP, on the escalator in the Washington State Convention Center between sessions.  Seth has been on the front lines of the Power BI advisors community since the product launched.  He cites Q&A Natural Language and Explain the Difference as examples of the most compelling features.   He participates in PASS Summit for professional networking and to stay current with BI technologies.

Robert Bruckner is a Senior Architect on the Power BI team and long-time developer lead for Reporting Services.  He told me that there are many exciting capabilities on the horizon for Power BI and other integrated reporting technologies that are still under NDA.  He mentioned a recent announcement that the On-premises gateway will soon support single sign-on, delegation, load balancing and high-availability.  It is truly exciting to see such emphasis on enterprise-scale capabilities for these tools.

Interview with Pinal Dave at PASS Summit 2017

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While attending PASS Summit 2017 in Seattle, I had a chance to catch-up of several friends and industry experts, and I will be sharing these interviews in a series of posts.  On the 1st of November, Pinal Dave completed his 4200th post on SqlAuthority.com – a landmark by blogging once per day for eleven years.  Pinal shares this success story and humbly discusses his secrets about being the world-renound authority that we all know, along with some advice about tuning SQL Server.

Thank you, Pinal, for your time and all you do for the PASS community.

 

Modern Reporting with SSRS 2016 & 2017, and Report Tool Options – PASS Sessions

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It’s official.  The PASS Summit schedule was announced and I will be doing three sessions:  A full-day preconference, a regular session and a panel discussion with other industry professionals.  Come back to this post for follow-up information and selections of content from these sessions after the event.

The PASS Summit is my favorite event of the year and I always leave with so much valuable insight and information.  PASS is my annual battery recharge for the rest of the year.  It is a vibrant community of professionals and industry leaders who love to share and exchange learnings.  Not just an opportunity to attend sessions presented by top-notch experts and product owners from Microsoft but Summit presents many real opportunities to sit and talk, meet and socialize with these industry influencers.  My perspectives change and I go back to my clients, classrooms and projects with solutions and a fresh new approach.  I’ve been going to the PASS Summit for twelve years and every year is literally the best Summit ever.  In the industry, there is no better investment of time and energy compared with what you will gain by attending.  I look forward to meeting many of you at Summit.  Please introduce yourself and say ‘Hello’. Continue reading →

Modern Reporting with SQL Server 2016 and 2017 Reporting Services full day pre-conference session

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I am thrilled to be presenting a full-day preconference session before the PASS Summit, on October 31st.  Please join me for a deep tour of the new capabilities and BI platform integrations for SQL Server Reporting Services 2016 & 2017.  The session will also review the essential skills and tasks to setup and configure the report server and web portal, report design and modern report solution planning. Continue reading →