Tag: Presentations

My Full-Day Power BI Pre-Con for SQL Saturday 453 (Minnesota)

By Mark on July 27, 2015 • ( 3 Comments )

Greetings, friends! I am delighted to announce that I will be providing a full day pre-con on Power BI as part of SQL Saturday #453 in Minnesota in October. Woohoo! As you might guess, I am really excited about Power BI. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. It’s the old branding, but that’s fine for now. Hey, Microsoft, if you want to send me one with the new branding, I wear an XL. Thanks.

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You have a PowerBI.com account, right? Right? Get a FREE one here.

I love the way Microsoft has been enabling users with the self-service offerings over the past few years. With Power BI, they have not just created a new offering, they have established an ecosystem for growing the Data Culture in pretty much any organization. Below is the abstract for this pre-con that just barely scratches the surface of what is possible with this fantastic technology. With their plan to release updates to the PowerBI.com service on a weekly basis and Power BI Desktop on monthly basis, it will be even better come October. 🙂

Click, Click WOW: The Exciting World of Power BI

With Power BI, Microsoft makes working with data even easier… AGAIN. After years of enabling IT and Power Users, they have released a new set of capabilities that truly enables EVERYONE. The NEW Power BI includes a cloud service, PowerBI.com, as well as a FREE, standalone application that combines Power Query, Power Pivot, and Power View into a single environment completely independent of Excel called Power BI Desktop.

This Pre-Con will cover the entire Power BI user experience, from creating dashboards in the Service to using Power BI Desktop to create data models that help you get the answers you need.

Power BI Service

· What is Power BI?

o General offering overview

· Datasets

o Importing data from a number of sources, both on-premises and in the cloud

o Scheduling data refresh

· Reports

o Visualization overview

o Pinning Reports to a Dashboard

· Dashboards

o Putting it all together in Tiles

o Using natural language search to create new Tiles

o Sharing your Dashboard with others

· Configuration

o Setting up the Power BI Personal Gateway to access on-premises data

o Managing Groups for sharing and collaboration

Power BI Desktop

· Getting/Transforming Data (Power Query)

o Importing data from a number of sources, both on-premises and in the cloud

o Renaming, combining, splitting columns

o Changing formatting like Capitalization and removing unwanted spaces

o Creating new columns

o Replacing invalid values

o Brief introduction to the M language

· Designing Your Data Model (Power Pivot)

o Creating relationships between tables

o Using DAX to bring your model to life

o Modeling and DAX Best Practices

· Visualizing Data (Power View)

o Choosing from the vast array of visualizations

o Configuring visualizations for color, formatting, etc

o High-level data visualization best practices

Microsoft’s goal with Power BI has been, “Five minutes to WOW!” Imagine how many WOWs we can get in a full day pre-con!

My Remaining 2014 Presentation Schedule

By Mark on November 13, 2014 • ( 3 Comments )

Greetings. Since I do a fair amount of presenting, I like to keep people up to date on when and where I will present. Below are the presentations I have left in 2014.

SQL Saturday Winnipeg – November 22

In addition to serving on the committee that is organizing Winnipeg’s first SQL Saturday, I will be giving two presentations:

Analysis Services Terms and Concepts for the DBA

MDX Trek: First Contact

Minnesota BI User Group – December 2

I will be presenting a Case Study along with someone I worked with at a client. This is a make-up for September when a back spasm prevented me from delivering this presentation.

Case Study: Monitoring SSAS Usage with Extended Events

How do you measure the success of a Self Service Business Intelligence initiative? While the answer to that question has several components, a vital one is Adoption. Are people using the assets created for that initiative? Since Business Intelligence is using data to make better decisions, why not use data to help answer this question? At Capella University, we did just that.

This case study will describe how we used Analysis Services Extended Events to track the usage of Tabular Models that Capella built for Self Service BI users. We will demonstrate the following:

The business case for capturing asset usage

The particular goals Capella had in this case

How easy it is to get started with SSAS Extended Events (far easier than it looks)

The end-to-end solution created: from the event trace itself thru to the Power Pivot model created for analysis

Lessons learned (some learned the hard way)

We hope you will come away from this presentation with less trepidation around SSAS Extended Events as well as a foundation you can use for your own solution.

Minnesota SQL Server User Group (PASSMN) December Meeting – December 16

I will be participating in an Improv-style group presentation based on the format of the TV Show Whose Line is it Anyway? with other speakers from the Twin Cities.

Pragmatic Works Free Training Series – December 18

Analysis Services Terms and Concepts for the DBA

This is a make-up for September when a back spasm prevented me from delivering this presentation.

So, that’s it for the rest of 2014. Overall, it has been a pretty busy year as far as presenting goes. I hope to continue that in 2015.

Show Me The Data

By Mark on August 18, 2014

In the 1996 film, Jerry Maguire, sports agent Jerry, portrayed by Tom Cruise, is given a very clear demand by his sole remaining client, portrayed by Cuba Gooding Jr. (who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this role): SHOW ME THE MONEY. It does not take much time or effort to see that this is the essence of what businesses must do to survive. If they cannot show the money in some way, they will go away. The culture we have today, at least here in the United States, is very much driven by money: on Wall Street, on Main Street, in Politics, in the Legal system to an extent, in Journalism to an extent… That SHOW ME THE MONEY idea is everywhere. But we have been seeing a bit of a shift in HOW that money gets shown. It is not just about selling more widgets or getting higher ratings anymore. More and more organizations are realizing the untapped potential that is their DATA. Some have understood this for years. Facebook, for example, is in essence a data aggregator and reseller, using what we share, and the metadata around what we share, as a PRODUCT to sell. Have no illusions, my friends, we are NOT Facebook’s customers, we are the producers of their product: data. That data has been and will continue to be crucial to the strategic decisions of Facebook. They are not alone in relying heavily on data.

Think about how Netflix transformed how we watch movies (and TV). They rely immensely on data to drive their entire business model. They use data to drive how movies are displayed to their users. They don’t leave that up to people sitting in a board room playing politics over their own ideas. It is driven by data flowing through algorithms. And it WORKS. The rise of Netflix and the demise of Blockbuster can attest to that. Netflix prevailed, in my opinion, largely because they focused on staying ahead of their customers instead of trying to keep up with their competitors. How many companies spend so much time trying not to fall too far behind their competitors? Organizations that do this are, unconsciously, working to achieve mediocrity.

How often do people make decisions about their Business based on information they believe to be true? How often do we, as consumers, make purchases based on believing information provided to us by manufacturers or advertisers? On the whole, as consumers, we tend not use data all that well. Shouldn’t we demand more? Shouldn’t we demand to the people trying to sell us their products and their ideas: SHOW ME THE DATA? We can. We just have to choose to do so. And as business leaders, we need to rely less on that gut feel and intuition and more on the reality that is before us. We, as global citizens today, need to stop looking to the Media or the Internet for information that makes us feel good about the assumptions we have already made and like. We need to, instead, seek information on the reality of our situation. That reality, for organizations, is often sitting in storage arrays and hard drives as flat files and databases. In some cases, showing the money even just boils down to putting your data to work. I have worked on projects for clients that held large amounts of data on their clients in their industry. The solutions I helped create allowed these organizations to provide their clients’ own data back to them, along with helpful analysis, as a premium service. These organizations turned their DATA into a revenue stream. They stopped just storing their data and started using it.

There is a presentation I have given before titled Keeping the Business in Business Intelligence. In that presentation, I boil down what Business Intelligence is in four simple, yet impactful words: BETTER DECISIONS THROUGH EVIDENCE. When all is said and done, the real point behind any data-driven application or solution, particularly BI, is to make better decisions. As an example, organizations measure performance in order to DECIDE what activities to stop, continue, start, increase, decrease, etc. The word EVIDENCE there is key. Making better decisions is not just about Data. It is about the RIGHT data. It is about accurate, timely data. It is about data that has been deemed trustworthy. It is not really about getting more data, either. To me, the promise of Big Data is not that it lets us use ever larger, more diverse sources of data as a whole, but rather that those technologies help us comb through every more vast sets of data to find the bits that we need. It seems like a subtle difference, but I think it is an important one.

As the Subject Matter Expert in the development of the new BI offering we are rolling out at Digineer, the consulting firm I work for and adore, I was able to fold these ideas and philosophy into the foundation of our point of view on BI. I am proud of the way I have been able to drive the overall story. I will be co-presenting with a colleague on Wednesday, August 27 at 11am CDT on the concepts laid out here and more examples from the real world (some Digineer clients, some not). The presentation will focus on how organizations like Netflix have been able to use data effectively in driving their strategy. It will NOT be a big long sales pitch. It will be very much about the concepts above and hopefully inspire people to make better use of an asset that has huge potential be transformative for their organizations. If you would like to join in the discussion, I would encourage you to follow the link, Imagine What You Can Do With Data, and register. I am confident you will take away some valuable ideas on how you can prepare yourself for the next time someone makes this demand of you: SHOW ME THE DATA.

My First Pre-Con: SQL Saturday 332–Minnesota

By Mark on July 21, 2014

It is with tremendous joy (and a little trepidation) that I announce that I will be doing my very first Pre-Con as part of SQL Saturday 332 in Minnesota in October. I have been presenting for several years now and feel that it is time to take this next big step. Since I love presenting so much, the idea of presenting for a whole day is just awesome. There is a also quite a bit more pressure in this scenario. But that is part of what makes this a great growth experience, stretching myself like I have never done before.

Over the past several months, I have done a lot of client work in Excel dealing with Power Pivot and Pivot Tables. I have also been doing a bit using Power View up in SharePoint, the vast majority of which carries to Excel 2013 as well. I have always been a fan of enabling users to do more with data and learn to be more self-sufficient. My experiences in Excel have reinforced the idea that Excel is a fantastic platform in the Self-Service BI movement. The past several months working with data in Excel have been some of the most fun in my career. So, when I needed a topic for a BI Pre-Con, the choice was easy.

You can find information on all the SQL Saturday 332 Minnesota Pre-cons here. It is an impressive line-up, to be sure. The abstract for mine is below.

Microsoft Excel: The Business Intelligence Platform For The Masses

From gathering and shaping source data through data modeling and visualizations, it is staggering how much you can accomplish in Excel. This Pre-Con will walk you through creating an interesting and powerful BI solution in Microsoft Excel 2013. Whether you are a business user or a technical developer, you will get good value from attending.

1. Power Query

• Using Power Query to gather source data from various sources both on-premise and in the cloud.

• Use various transformations on the Ribbon

• Travel back and forth through time via Query Steps

• The basics of Power Query Formula Language (M)

2. Modeling Data With Power Pivot

• Importing Data from various sources

• Linking Tables to data residing directly in Excel sheets

• The importance of Date Tables

• Best Practices

3. DAX 101

• Introduce DAX syntax beginning with Calculated Columns including the mighty Related function

• The basics of the Calculated Fields (Measures)

• Row context/filter context

• The power of the CALCULATE function

• More…

4. Power Pivot/DAX Design Patterns

• Solving real-word problems with Power Pivot

• Many to Many relationships

• Parent-Child Hierarchies

• Segmentation

• More…

5. Excel Pivot Tables/Charts

• Connecting Excel to data sources like SSAS Cubes, Tabular Models, and the internal Power Pivot model

• Pivot Table basics

• Filtering methods and Slicers

• Conditional formatting

• Pivot Charts

• More…

6. Power View

• The basic visualizations (Bars, Columns, Matrix, etc)

• Advanced visualizations (Multiples, Cards, Scatter/Bubble Charts, etc

• Filtering views or the entire report

• Design tips to take great advantage of Power View’s capabilities

I will be focusing on using Excel 2013 on my machine. There is so much to cover that trying to add in Power BI-specifics is just not in the cards. But I think that makes sense as SO many more people have Excel on their machines than are using Power BI right now. And SO few of those people are taking advantage of even a tiny subset of what Excel has to offer. A major goal of this Pre-Con is to help change that.

My PASS Summit 2014 Submission Feedback

By Mark on July 3, 2014

Speakers have been asking PASS for feedback regarding their Summit submissions for a few years. This year, following a bit of a heated “discussion,” PASS announced that session feedback would be available upon request. I, like so many other speakers had done, applaud this decision. PASS did make it clear that the both the quantity and the quality of the feedback varies widely.

I am a big proponent of learning from the experiences of others. As such, in the hopes that someone can learn something from the feedback I got, I hereby share what I received. I want to thank the reviewers who took the time to make these comments.

Analysis Services Terms and Concepts For The DBA (REGULAR SESSION – NOT SELECTED)

ABSTRACT

Despite some overlapping concepts, the worlds of the Relational engine and Analysis Services really are quite different. With more and more organizations realizing the power of Analytics, there is a good chance a BI initiative will come your way at some point.

This session is intended for the DBA that wants/needs to learn more about SQL Server Analysis Services. The goal is to provide a meaningful base of knowledge that will allow you to effectively participate in discussions of Analysis Services in your organization.

Through both slides and demos, you will learn:

— The differences between SSAS Multidimensional and SSAS Tabular

— Key terms like Measures, Dimensions, and Hierarchies

— Storage options such as MOLAP, HOLAP, ROLAP, and Direct Query

— Monitoring with Extended Events

— Overviews of MDX, DAX, and XMLA

— And more

Come take a few steps into the exciting world of Business Intelligence with SQL Server Analysis Services.

FEEDBACK

Seems this may be a 100 level session

Good topic, sounds more like a 100-level session to me.

No need of prerequisites to be SQL Server Administrator. should also focus on OLAP DW part and schema concept, slice and dice part of SSAS OLAP cube if someone wants to show the power of BI Analytics using SQL server analysis services.

Thanks,

Excellent and useful topic!

DANGER: The Art and Science of Presenting (REGULAR SESSION – NOT SELECTED)

ABSTRACT

Over the past decade, we have learned a lot about the chemistry of the brain and why humans react the way we do to events in our environment. The idea of Emotional Intelligence – EQ – is a compelling concept that applies this knowledge in a set of learn-able, improvable skills for leading others. Although EQ is often applied to corporate leadership, this session will explain the basics of EQ and demonstrate how you can use it to make your presentations better in the following areas:

• Crafting better slide decks

• Preparing yourself for presenting

• Delivering your content

• Dealing with the unexpected

Understanding and practicing the concepts of EQ can make your presentations a better experience for everyone in the room – including you.

NOTE

This session was chosen as an Alternate last year and I ended up presenting. It was greatly successful (narrowly missed being in the Top Ten sessions) so I submitted it again, noting to the committee why I was doing so. That should provide some additional context to some of the feedback.

FEEDBACK

Excellent topic. Excellent consistency across session name, abstract, topic and goals. Perhaps, given the topic, some real examples should have been added. Reference to PASS is 2013 should have been avoided.

While the abstract and topic are great I’m not sure that we would want to see a repeat session from last year.

Delivered too recently at the past Summit. Very targeted audience.

The abstract goes too much into EQ and feels disconnected from the title.

Keeping the "Business" in Business Intelligence (REGULAR SESSION – NOT SELECTED)

ABSTRACT

It is no accident the term “Business Intelligence” starts with “Business.” Any Business Intelligence initiative should, likewise, start with the needs of the Business. For many years, BI was seen as a technology project. This is one reason why so many BI initiatives fail. Rather than a Technology Project, BI is a Business Program. It must grow and evolve as the Business grows and evolves.

In this session, we will discuss the following:

— Why BI is a worthwhile investment (using case study examples)

— What criteria to use in determining the success of a BI initiative

— Several reasons why BI initiatives fail

— Critical Success Factors for BI

So much of the success for BI happens before the requirements are even gathered. Come learn how you can set yourself up for success with Business Intelligence.

FEEDBACK

Could be an interesting approach to a rather dry topic

The abstract is clear about what will be discussed as for failures of BI projects. If it has real examples, maybe you can get some demo to demonstrate. You can demo the results in chart, as time and effort, even the results.

Thanks for the abstract.

Power Query: Data Chemistry for The Masses (REGULAR SESSION – SELECTED)

ABSTRACT

ETL Developers have being doing chemistry with data for years in tools like SQL Server Integration Services. These tools require training, experience, and time that few business users have. But in the age of self-service BI, those business users need a way to shape data to support their analysis.

This session will show how Power Query can be easily used to take advantage of data’s properties to drive the change we need to support our goals.

We will discuss/demonstrate:

— The simple process of accessing a wide variety of data sources

— The ease with which simple transformations can be achieved using the Power Query Ribbon

— Power Query’s fantastic ability to travel through time to see every step taken with the data

— The foundations of the Power Query Formula Language, informally known as "M"

— Using "M" to take Power Query WAY beyond what the Ribbon has to offer.

Come learn about what may well be the most exciting member of the Power BI family.

FEEDBACK

seems like too much to cover in 75

MDX Trek: First Contact (REGULAR SESSION – NOT SELECTED)

ABSTRACT

As with so many aspects of life, a solid foundation makes a huge difference. This Star Trek themed introduction to MDX leads you on a voyage through the terms and concepts necessary for a solid foundation for learning this fascinating language. Terms covered include:

— Measures and Measure Groups

— Attributes and Dimensions

— Hierarchies

— Members

— Tuples

— Sets

This session also shows how you can think about the cube space in a way that is very easy to understand. The word "cube" suggests a 3 dimensional object. That way of thinking is fraught with confusion. Forget about the Rubik’s Cube. It doesn’t help.

With that foundation, we then dive into MDX syntax and fundamentals including:

— Query Axes

— Slicer Axis

— Tuples and Sets

— Hierarchy Navigation Functions

— Crossjoin

— Functions allowing us to travel through time

Come join us for a fun voyage through the cube space and boldly go where no MDX presentation has gone before.

FEEDBACK

Is the topic about MDX or DAX? Just got a little bit confused. The abstract states what will be discussed and what the analogy comes from. About the level, it may be better to be at level 100 since it is an introduction of MDX.

Getting Started with SSAS Extended Events (LIGHTNING TALK – SELECTED)

ABSTRACT

With SQL Server Profiler on its way to retirement, our friends on the relational database side of the house have already been taking great advantage of the power of Extended Events (XE). There is a lot of great info out there for using XE against the database engine. For Analysis Services, there is a lot less.

This Lightning Talk will demonstrate how easy it is to get started very quickly with SSAS XE once you have some basic information.

We will demonstrate:

— Creating an SSAS Extended Events Trace which outputs to a .xel file

— Make sure your trace is running via the DISCOVER_TRACES rowset

— Importing the contents of that .xel file into a SQL Server db engine table for analysis

— Deleting the SSAS Extended Events trace

FEEDBACK

Good topic and the abstract explains exactly what the attendee can expect from the session

Great abstract with details on what will be presented and what to expect to learn!

Thanks for the abstract,It’s good to have someone talk on the power of Extended Events (XEvents) part.

Reporting Services Pagination Triple Play (LIGHTNING TALK – NOT SELECTED)

ABSTRACT

The ability to have some control over the pagination of Reporting Services reports has been around a while. But it never hurts to review the fundamentals.

This demonstration will cover:

— Basic pagination in Reporting Services using Rectangles (Love these)

— Adding a page name that carries to Excel exports

— Adding a basic Table of Contents to your multi-page report using Bookmarks

— Adding a more dynamic, data driven Table of Contents to your report using Bookmarks and expressions

Come on out to this ballgame where we hit on SSRS pagination with a report about three of the most famous infielders in the history of Baseball.

FEEDBACK

Great abstract

Excellent topic that people always ask about in classes

100 demo!

Level appropriate to content

lots to cover in 10 minutes

My Takeaways

Given that there seems to be a wide range in terms of quality and quantity provided to speakers, I have to say that I feel I made out pretty well here. I am pretty happy with both the quantity and quality here.

I am a little puzzled about the confusion over whether my MDX session is on MDX or DAX. And I think MDX is complex enough that any session on it is at least a 200 level, particularly given that almost everyone learns TSQL first and must “unlearn” some things in order to grasp MDX.

Given that the Keeping the “Business” in Business Intelligence is about concepts and ideas, and not technology, I am not sure how I could add demo to it that would not be contrived in an attempt just to say there was some demo.

Overall, I am pretty happy with this feedback and glad PASS made the decision to make it available.

Thanks.

Presenting at PASS Summit 2014

By Mark on June 26, 2014

I am beyond delighted to announce that I will be presenting at PASS Summit 2014 in Seattle in November. I submitted a total of seven sessions (five regular sessions and two lightning talks). I ended up with one of each: one regular session and one lighting talk. This is a huge honor for me and a great step up from last year, for which I had one alternate session (which ended up getting promoted over the Summer, much to my joy).

Regular Session

Power Query: Data Chemistry for the Masses

This session will show how Power Query can be easily used to take advantage of data’s properties to drive the change we need to support our goals.

We will discuss/demonstrate:
— The simple process of accessing a wide variety of data sources
— The ease with which simple transformations can be achieved using the Power Query Ribbon
— Power Query’s fantastic ability to travel through time to see every step taken with the data
— The foundations of the Power Query Formula Language, informally know as “M”
— Using “M” to take Power Query WAY beyond what the Ribbon has to offer.

Come learn about what may well be the most exciting member of the Power BI family.

Lightning Talk

Getting Started With SSAS Extended Events

This Lightning Talk will demonstrate how easy it is to get started very quickly with SSAS XE once you have some basic information.

We will demonstrate:
— Creating an SSAS Extended Events Trace which outputs to a .xel file
— Make sure your trace is running via the DISCOVER_TRACES rowset
— Importing the contents of that .xel file into a SQL Server db engine table for analysis
— Deleting the SSAS Extended Events trace

A Note To My Fellow Speakers

I wanted to take a moment to shout out to my fellow Summit Speakers, especially those for whom this will be your first time speaking at Summit. With the announcement today about speaker selection, there were quite a few Congrats going around the Twitterverse. That was good to see. As a speaker myself, I know how gratifying it is when people are excited for you at a time like this.

There was also a fair bit of negativity today. We in the SQL Community are a passionate bunch. We care deeply about what goes on and can be vocal when we think something isn’t the way we feel it should be. We are all humans as far as I am aware; humans are emotional creatures. So, sometimes, passions will get the best of us and we may not communicate it in the best way as a result. I think there was a fair amount of that today. There will always be people that are disappointed with certain choices made by PASS or any other organization. Sometimes that disappointment is justified in a real way, and not just via the perception of a few. Sometimes it is hard to see it as anything other than lashing out with disappointment. PASS, like any other organization, is not perfect. One thing we need to remember, though, is that while the process may be imperfect, there are a lot of people working very hard to do the best they can. I think some people forgot that today. Even if there are some legitimate concerns about the perception created by certain choices, I think we need to be careful not to jump too quickly into an accusatory posture. There are constructive ways to air concerns and there are destructive ways. Today, there was a little too much of the latter.

I beg you, fellow speakers, not to let that negativity dampen your excitement or pride over having a session accepted to such an incredible event as PASS Summit. I join with you in being just pumped about getting to speak again. Congratulations and I will see you in November!

Upcoming Presentations Spring 2014

By Mark on March 18, 2014

It has been a while since I posted a list of upcoming presentations. In fact, some have come and gone without a blog post.

Recent Past:

SQL Saturday #241 Cleveland, OH – February 8, 2014

MDX Trek: First Contact

DANGER: The Art and Science of Presenting

West Michigan SQL Server User Group – February 27, 2014

MDX Trek: First Contact

* I ended up having to cancel this one at the last minute. I am really bummed about that and will discuss lessons learned in a separate post. 😦

Pragmatic Works Free Webinar Series – March 11, 2014

MDX Trek: First Contact

On the Horizon:

SQL Saturday #287 Madison, WI – March 29, 2014

DANGER: The Art and Science of Presenting

PASS BI/DW Virtual Chapter – April 2, 2014

MDX Trek: First Contact

Montreal BI User Group – April 16, 2014

MDX Trek: First Contact

SQL Saturday #291 Chicago, IL – April 26, 2014

MDX Trek: First Contact

DANGER: The Art and Science of Presenting

Minnesota SQL Server User Group (PASSMN) – May 20, 2014

Power Query: The Data Chemist’s Laboratory

This is what I have on my schedule so far. I have to say that I am really happy about how often I have been able to speak at events and user groups over the past few years. It is an important part of my career development and I just love doing it.

Updated MDX Trek: First Contact Downloads

By Mark on March 13, 2014

Greetings. After delivering my MDX Trek: First Contact presentation as part of the Pragmatic Works Free Training series on 3/11, I got some great feedback from an attendee. He pointed out that my single zip file download on my home page for the presentation only contained the SQL Server 2008 R2 version and that I may want to include upgrade instructions for people that have SQL 2012. That was a great point. I have neglected to do much with that download, even after I started delivering this presentation in the SQL Server 2012 tools some time ago. While the MDX syntax is the same, the project would have to be upgraded to be opened in SQL Server Data Tools as the existing zip was in BI Studio. This would require some extra steps and create more work for the target audience (which includes people just getting started with SSAS).

So, to rectify this situation, the home page for my MDX Trek: First Contact presentation now has separate downloads for SQL 2008 R2 and SQL 2012. You can got there now by clicking on the image below. I should have done this a long time ago and apologize for being so late.

Thanks.

Upcoming Presentations: SQL Saturday #241 Cleveland

By Mark on January 27, 2014

It is with great joy that I announce that I will be presenting at SQL Saturday in Cleveland on February 8th. I have driven through Cleveland before, but never stopped for long. So, this will be my first real visit. Although, if it helps, I used to love to play as the Cleveland Browns in Tecmo Bowl back in my Nintendo days. I will be giving two sessions.

MDX Trek: First Contact

Cube space; the final frontier. In this Star Trek themed introduction to MDX, we will discuss the fundamentals of cube structure and vocabulary, including tuples, members, sets, hierarchies, and more. We will introduce and demonstrate the basic syntax of MDX with queries that include navigating hierarchies and even some time-based expressions. This session will give you the tools you need to write simple, yet meaningful, MDX queries in your own environment.

Session Level: Intermediate

I love this MDX session. I have given it many times over the past few years. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. It turns out that my view of the Cube space is a bit revolutionary. I have heard that writing MDX was like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube in your head. When I first started dealing with MDX, I understood what that meant. But I soon found that it need not be that hard. In this session, before diving into code, I explain my model of looking at the Cube space that is much easier to deal with and understand. The Star Trek theme also keeps this really fun.

DANGER: The Art and Science of Presenting

Is there a great difference in the brain chemistry of someone fleeing a hungry mountain lion and someone presenting to a group of colleagues in a corporate board room? The answer is: NO. Over the past decade, a lot has been learned about the chemistry of the brain and why humans react the way we do to events in our environment. The concept of EQ (Emotional Intelligence) is a compelling and growing concept that applies this knowledge in a set of learnable, improvable skills for leading human beings. While EQ is often applied to corporate leadership, the parallels to presenting are fantastic. This session will explain the basics of EQ and demonstrate how you can apply it to make your presentations better in the following areas:

* Crafting better slide decks
* Preparing yourself for presenting
* Delivering your content
* Dealing with the unexpected

Understanding and practicing the concepts of EQ can make your presentations a better experience for everyone in the room–including you.

Session Level: Beginner

In this session, which I gave at the PASS Summit in Charlotte, I introduce the concepts and skills of Emotional Intelligence as they relate to presenting. This, too, has been incredibly well received and the feedback has been spectacular. Presenting is definitely a strength of mine and this session shows some of the mechanics behind my philosophy. This session can not only help you with presentations and their delivery, but also lays a great foundation for leadership and working with other humans.

I am also excited to announce that Digineer, the consulting firm I work for and adore, is a Gold Sponsor for this SQL Saturday. As such, I will also be giving a shorter presentation during lunch. This presentation, “Keeping The Business In Business Intelligence” lays out our philosophy around BI. While this session will touch a bit on Digineer and who we are, it will also be grounded in solid content for achieving success in Business Intelligence initiatives.

SQL Saturday has been a hugely successful program. I have participated in as many SQL Saturdays as I could over the past several years. You can read about many of my experiences in previous posts on this blog. I have to say that SQL Saturdays have been a hugely important part of my growth in working with SQL Server and related tools. The idea of members of the SQL Community (dubbed SQLFamily with good reason) sharing their expertise with others at free events is just exciting and inspiring. I am proud to be a part of these events. I also consider it part of my own personal mission to help encourage new speakers. If you have questions about speaking (or blogging), please come chat with me. I love helping people get started. The more people we have sharing their knowledge and passion, the stronger a community we are.

PASS Summit 2013 Recap of Madness and Mayhem

By Mark on October 23, 2013

Greetings! Another PASS Summit has come and gone. This was my third Summit and I have to say that I am truly hooked on this spectacular event. I had the privilege to be a bit more involved this year than in years past. I love when I can give some of my time and energy to help out an organization that has been hugely important for me in my career with SQL Server.

I spent much of Tuesday in meetings related to the PASS organization. There was the Regional Mentors meeting, the Chapter Leader meeting, and a chance to sit down with the Canadian Chapter Leaders. As a PASS Regional Mentor for Canada, that was great since I don’t often get the chance to see them in person.

Since it was already confirmed on Twitter, I would like to say that I will be working with SQL MVP and Winnipeg SQL Server User Group chapter leader, Mike DeFehr (Blog|Twitter), on planning a SQL Saturday in his fine city. I am hoping I will get to go as well. I have never been involved in running a SQL Saturday and I thought helping Mike would be a great way to fulfill my role as a Regional Mentor and also give me the experience to better help others with their event planning in the future.

PASS invited me to be on the Blogger Core and have a seat at the Bloggers table for the keynotes this year. While it can be challenging to keep up with meaningful things to post while live blogging, I really enjoy it. I always get a lot out of it. You can read those posts at PASS Summit Keynote Live Blog – Day 1 and PASS Summit Keynote Live Blog – Day 2 respectively.

When PASS invited me to serve on the Blogger Core, they also indicated I would have access to an Interview room. I had never interviewed anyone before, but it seemed like a great opportunity to capitalize on connections I had made at PASS BA Conference, Tech Ed North America, and past PASS events. I decided, with the fast pace of change occurring in Business Intelligence both at Microsoft and in the industry as a whole, that I should try to sit down with prominent Microsoft personnel to talk about their work and the future of Microsoft BI. Being a lowly blogger from Minneapolis, I didn’t expect to get very far, but I had to try. I was astonished at the access I was given. Listed in chronological order of when the interviews took place, I sat down with:

Matt Masson (Blog|Twitter), Senior Program Manager for SQL Server Integration Services
Kamal Hathi, Director of Program Management for Microsoft Business Intelligence
Kasper de Jonge (Blog|Twitter), Program Manager for SQL Server Analysis Services

I know! Right? For real.

Transcribing the audio from these interviews is taking a little time. Each interview will get its own blog post. I hope to have the first one released next week. I have to express my great appreciation to Matt, Kamal, and Kasper for giving of their valuable time to chat with me. I also need to say thanks to Microsoft’s Cindy Gross (Blog|Twitter) for helping with my connection to Kamal Hathi.

I also had the honor of wearing a SPEAKER ribbon on my Summit badge this year. It was my first time speaking at PASS Summit; a career milestone to be sure. I am happy to report my presentation, DANGER: The Art and Science of Presenting, went extremely well. And, despite presenting right after Dr. David DeWitt’s brilliant keynote and being on the other end of the Convention Center, there were very few empty chairs in my room. The feedback I have received so far is all very positive. Thanks to all who chose my session when there were so many great options to choose from.

While I ended up having to miss the public Q&A Session with the PASS Board of Directors, I do have some notes from the private Blogger Q&A with the executive committee. I will prep that for another post.

If you ever get the chance to go to PASS Summit, grab onto it with both hands. There’s nothing like connecting, sharing, and learning with a few thousand of your closest friends to get you jazzed about what you do.