I didn’t announce this before it happened because I didn’t want to “jinx” myself, but I am happy to say that it’s finally happened. I have delivered my very first SQL Saturday pre-con. WooHoo!
It’s a session that I’ve been working on for a few months now. The title is, From Zero to Dashboard Hero, and it’s aim is to get folks started with Power BI. One of the great things about Power BI is that it’s so easy to use. However, it also has a downside, it’s so easy to use. The proverbial double edge sword. This is the same thing that I saw happening with SQL Server back in the nineties. It was so easy to use out of the box that businesses were standing up all kinds of instances and shoving data in as fast as they could, without regard for underlying architecture/hardware or good database design. Those folks got themselves into some very deep holes that some very expensive consultants eventually had to get them out of. I’m seeing the same trend with Power BI and I wanted to educate users before they found themselves at the bottom of a very big hole.
I started doing research on what training was available. I found Microsoft’s Dashboard in a Day course that is offered for free and decided I needed to attend to see how Microsoft was “educating” people. What I found was, disappointing. It was mostly marketing material and the “lab” was basically turning attendees loose with an eighty plus page manual with little to no background in design. Don’t get me wrong, it you know nothing about Power BI and want a free class, this is a viable option. I just think users should have more. What’s the saying, “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time.”
I had a basic idea of what I wanted to teach and how I wanted to teach it, but I had never put an ALL DAY session together before. I’d created content for several 45-75 minute sessions, but never a session for 300+ minutes – EEK! As it turns out, it wasn’t as daunting as I thought it would be thanks to some very good friends.
One of those friends is Michael Johnson (Blog | Twitter). He was kind enough to let me “steal” ideas from his very similar session that he delivered at SQLBits this year. He had some things in his session that I never would have thought about including in my content. He also approached some topics very differently than I was thinking about. Another friend that helped spur some ideas is Ginger Grant (Blog | Twitter). Only a couple of weeks before I delivered my pre-con I was chatting with her about my content and she was asking all kinds of questions about my content that really got me thinking. Thanks to her questions, I reworked some of my content to what I think made it more understandable.
The last friend that helped me out with this was Wayne Sheffield (Blog | Twitter). Now, I first met Wayne in 2013 at SQL Saturday DC. I was late arriving at the volunteer/speaker dinner (I was volunteering, NOT speaking!). I was drenched from head to toe (I had taken the Metro from my hotel and had to walk the last few blocks in the rain), freezing and very hungry. Most of the speakers had already finished their dinner, but Wayne was kind enough to alert the wait staff to my dilemma. They brought towels out for me to dry myself, a fresh salad and a warm dinner. Then I had a great conversation with Wayne. I can’t remember exactly what we talked about, but I do remember his kindness.
Because of his kindness, when I first considered speaking at a SQL Saturday, I knew it had to be SQL Saturday Richmond. I submitted my very first session there and was accepted back in 2017. I think it only fitting that since he was the one who gave me my first break as a speaker for SQL Saturday three years ago, that he be the one to give me my first break with a pre-con. I submitted my pre-con details and a few weeks later I found out my session had been selected. I nearly fell out of my chair when I found out. I then proceeded to panic, but I digress.
It’s been an amazing journey to get to this point in my career and I certainly couldn’t have done it without the help and support of my #SQLFamily.
My pre-con went off without a hitch, other than losing my voice towards the end of the day (thanks to allergy season being in full swing), I got great feedback from the attendees and I can’t wait to do it again!