Chris Webb's BI Blog: Events

SQLBits III - Registration Now Open!

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:53:57 GMT

Registration for SQLBits III, to be held at Hatfield in the UK on September 13th, is now open! SQLBits is the UK's finest SQL Server technical conference, and it's 100% free to attend too. Take a look at:
http://www.sqlbits.com
...to see what we've got lined up. We've had an amazing 63 session submissions this time (the BI track is the strongest yet, in my opinion) so we're asking everyone who registers to vote on the sessions they'd like to see. We're also running a competition to design a logo for the day too, and you can vote on the logos here:
http://www.sqlbits.com/LogoCompetition.aspx
There are also SQLBits groups on Facebook and LinkedIn if you'd like to keep in touch with other people who are going or share photos etc. And as I've said before, we'd still like to talk to any companies who are interested in sponsoring the event.

Incidentally, Hatfield is just north of London and right next to Luton airport, so it's very easy to get to if you're coming from Europe. Why not pop over on Easyjet, and let your significant other go shopping in London for the day while you enjoy the conference?

One other thing to mention is that we're having a training day at the same venue the day before, September 12th. There are a number of reasonably-priced one-day seminars on SQL Server related subjects to choose from:
http://www.sqlbits.com/information/TrainingDay.aspx
...including, as you can see, an introduction to SQL Server BI called 'Making the most of data through business intelligence' run by me and Allan Mitchell (SSIS MVP and one of the guys behind http://www.sqlis.com/). If you know a DBA, business analyst or manager who wants to learn more about BI then it's the ideal way to get them out of the office for the day - just tell them it's a trip to see Mitchell and Webb perform live.

Last night's BI evening event

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:52:01 GMT

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who attended last night's BI evening event at TVP, especially to Jes Kirkup of TAH (TAH also very kindly provided the beer and pizza during the break, which I'm very grateful for) and Jeremy Kashel of Adatis. I've asked them both to post their slides up on the web so once they've done that I'll post the links here.

I promise that it won't be quite so long before we have another event at TVP - I'll try to do a better job of alternating between central London and TVP because I know we get a completely different group of people at each venue.

UPDATE: You can get hold of Jeremy Kashel's slides on "PEL vs MDX" here -
http://blogs.adatis.co.uk/blogs/jeremykashel/archive/2008/07/18/bi-evening-slides-for-pel-vs-mdx.aspx

UPDATE #2: You can get hold of Jes Kirkup's slides, along with a detailed write up of what he presented, on his new blog:
http://jeskirkup.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!55BF48702D38E629!167.entry
http://jeskirkup.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!55BF48702D38E629!169.entry

Microsoft BI Conference 2008 session list now posted

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:09:27 GMT

You can see the session list for this year's BI Conference here:

http://www.msbiconference.com/pages/tracksandsessions.aspx

Looks good. Hmm, wish I could go to this and PASS, but I just can't justify the expense and the time...

PASS Camp Germany 2008

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:13:12 GMT

Are you looking for a public MDX course in Europe? I teach private MDX courses (I'm in the process of building a new website with all the details on, now I've left Solid Quality - drop me an email if you're interested in one in the meantime) but I'll also be teaching a 3-day public MDX course at PASS Camp Germany from the 2nd to the 4th of September this year:
http://www.sqlpasscamp.de/default.html

Although the website's in German my session will be in English, and although the event is aimed at the German market I'm sure anyone from anywhere will be more than welcome!

UPDATE: here are the details in English:
http://www.sqlpasscamp.de/mail/news1a.html

PASS 2008 Summit

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:30:22 GMT

A while ago I blogged about making the decision on whether to attend the Microsoft BI Conference or PASS. Well, the decision has been made for me: I forgot to submit a session abstract for the BI Conference but got my session accepted for PASS, so it's PASS I'm going to. You can see all the content on the BI track at PASS here:
http://summit2008.sqlpass.org/program-sessions.html#business
I've never been to one of the big PASS summits in the US before so it'll be quite exciting.

My session is called "Creating an SSIS, SSAS and SSRS Monitoring Solution with SSIS, SSAS and SSRS" - basically how to build a BI solution that allows you to capture and analyse the performance and usage of your BI solution using your favourite Microsoft BI tools. It's a topic that people have tackled bits of in the past but I want to be a bit more ambitious and demo a full, end-to-end solution. If anyone has any thoughts or tips to offer on what I should be showing then please leave a comment!

Meanwhile I see that the Microsoft BI Conference still hasn't published its agenda. To me this is poor marketing - how can you make a decision to attend a conference without seeing the agenda? It's like going into a restaurant without seeing the menu.

SQLBits III Call for Speakers

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:25:22 GMT

Yes, it's time for yet another SQLBits! SQLBits III (aka SQLBits Cubed) will be taking place on Saturday September 13th at the de Havilland Conference Centre in Hatfield, and we are looking for sponsors and speakers.

If your company is interested in sponsoring SQLBits, please drop an email to Tony Rogerson at tonyrogerson@torver.net and he'll send you a sponsor pack. With over 300 SQL Server professionals attending the last two conferences, if you've got a SQL Server-related product or service to sell then SQLBits sponsorship is a great way of reaching your target audience. Remember, it's only through sponsorship that we can keep SQLBits going as a free event!

If you're interested in speaking on any SQL Server related topic (and that includes BI - SSAS, SSRS, SSIS, or PerformancePoint), then you can submit a session on the SQLBits site here:
http://www.sqlbits.com/information/sessionsubmission.aspx

The session submission deadline is July 4th. We actively encourage new speakers, so if you've never presented a session at a conference before but it's something you think you'd like to do, then why not give it a try? If you've got any questions, drop Allan Mitchell an email on allan.mitchell@konesans.com

PASS Europe and Webdashboard

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:26:27 GMT

I just got back from Germany after attending the PASS Europe conference. It was good fun as always and the standard of presentations was extremely high. Thanks are due to André Kamman and everyone else who organised it for making it such a success. Hopefully we'll have another one next year? Bill Graziano has a picture (the one on the right) of me, Marco Russo, Allan Mitchell and various others here:
http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/billg/archive/2008/04/16/Pictures-from-PASS-Europe.aspx

Both Marco Russo and I were impressed by Webdashboard, who were exhibiting:
http://www.webdashboard.com/
You'll probably follow the link and think it's nothing special. In technical terms it isn't, it's a web-based dashboard that displays data from Analysis Services; it's simple to use, quick to set up and runs pretty quickly. How do they expect to compete with PerformancePoint then, you ask? Well, have you seen just how much PerformancePoint costs? It may be cheap compared to other non-MS BI solutions, but in the MS BI world it's very expensive. Webdashboard is just €95 per end user and for companies on a tight budget who don't need a complex dashboard tool I think it makes for a compelling alternative.

DeveloperDay Scotland

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:58:08 GMT

Those community conferences keep coming: it's DeveloperDay Scotland next, on May 10th. You can see the agenda here:

http://developerdayscotland.com/main/Agenda/tabid/68/Default.aspx

I'm not speaking (unfortunately - to my shame I've never been to Scotland) but SQLBits is sponsoring a track and Tony Rogerson, Martin Bell and Allan Mitchell will be there. Also speaking is Gary Short who, when I was in my first IT job with no coding experience beyond BBC Basic and Turbo Pascal, took the time to teach me VB6. I owe him a few beers...

SQLBits Registration Open

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:45:29 GMT

Registrations have opened for the SQLBits conference in Birmingham (UK) on March 1st. If you want to come you need to sign up here:

http://www.sqlserverfaq.com/sqlbits/

At the time of writing, after just under 24 hours, we've got 256 registrations confirmed already which I think is pretty impressive. If you don't want to miss out you need to sign up quickly! For more information about the event see the main SQLBits website

http://www.sqlbits.com

You can see the agenda here:

http://www.sqlbits.com/information/MainAgenda.aspx

See you there, hopefully...

2nd Microsoft BI Conference dates announced

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:02:44 GMT

Via Ben Tamblyn, the dates for the second Microsoft BI Conference have been announced. It's going to take place in Seattle October 6th-8th:

http://www.microsoftbiconference.com/

It's taking place just over a month before PASS 2008 (which is being held in the same venue) so for someone like me there's a bit of a dilemma over which to attend. I went to the BI Conference last year and enjoyed myself but it was a bit light on tehcnical content (will this be fixed this year?); PASS is likely to be a lot more techy but will probably be missing some of the BI-type content that I'm interested in such as PerformancePoint stuff. I'm sure a lot of the content, especially from MS speakers, will be duplicated across the two events though. Hmm, decisions, decisions...

"Get Ready for SQL Server 2008" Virtual Event

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:44:09 GMT

SQL Server magazine is hosting a free online event called "Get Ready for SQL Server 2008". No prizes for guessing what the content is...

You can register for it here:

http://events.unisfair.com/rt/sql~jan08/?code=solidqsig

No SSAS content, but sessions on SSRS and SSIS which look interesting.

SQLBits II Sessions

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:33:38 GMT

The list of 38 proposed sessions for SQLBits II in March has just been posted up here:

http://www.sqlbits.com/information/PublicSessions.aspx

On the BI side there are some interesting SSIS sessions proposed and I'd really like to see Sutha's session on Microsoft MDM because that's something I've not had a chance to check out yet. If you're planning to attend then please register on the SQLBits site and vote for the sessions you'd like to see.

SQLBits II: The SQL

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:16:21 GMT

Since the first SQLBits was such a success, we're doing it again - this time in Birmingham (that's the UK one, obviously, not the one in America) on the 1st of March 2008 at the Lakeside Conference Centre. Put the date in your diary! For more information see: http://www.sqlbits.com/

If you came to the last one then you can expect the same thing again only bigger and better, and of course it remains free to attend. If you didn't come to the last one and you're wondering whether to believe the hype, then here are some comments plucked from the blogosphere that will hopefully sway you:
http://blog.benhall.me.uk/2007/10/sqlbits-post-conference.html
http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/andras/archive/2007/10/08/37975.aspx
http://geekswithblogs.net/twickers/archive/2007/10/07/115914.aspx

Registrations aren't open yet but at this point we're looking for sponsors (http://www.sqlbits.com/information/Sponsorship.aspx) and speakers (http://www.sqlbits.com/information/SessionSubmission.aspx). If you've got a SQL Server-related product or service to promote (and that includes you, Microsoft BI vendors and consultancies) then there will be no better opportunity to meet potential customers. And if you're dying to impart your hard-won technical knowledge to your peers and want to take your first steps on the conference circuit, again SQLBits is the place to be; in particular for the BI track I'd be happy to hear from anyone new willing to speak about SSAS, SSRS, SSIS, PerformancePoint or MDM.

SQLBits

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 21:42:43 GMT

Today was the SQLBits conference in Reading and it went really well. We had 321 attendees, some great sessions, loads of freebies (on top of which everyone got a £30 book voucher, as well as the free evening event) and everyone seemed to be having a good time. Thanks are due to Care Parr of Microsoft for her help organising it, Tony, Simon and Martin for doing the majority of the leg work, and the sponsors. I think all the slide decks will be up on www.sqlbits.com early next week and there might be some photos posted there soon too.

Hopefully the bigger event we've got planned for June/July next year will be equally successful...

BI Virtual Conference

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:31:15 GMT

Looks like there's going to be a 'BI Virtual Conference' on Octobr the 4th:

http://events.unisfair.com/index.jsp?eid=212&seid=28&code=tnflash

Justa marketing exercise for PerformancePoint of course, but some of the presentations might be interesting.

PASS Europe 2008

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:39:09 GMT

After a year off, it looks like there's going to be a European PASS conference in 2008:

http://www.european-pass-conference.com/

I'll do my best to be there. Thanks for he tip Markus!

SQLCAT sessions at PASS

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:50:22 GMT

Conferences, conferences, conferences... so many to choose from, and most people (me included) can only attend one a year. I spent my money on attending the BI conference in Seattle and so decided not to go to PASS; naturally when Mosha announced his MDX session I was kicking myself and considering splurging a few grand just to see him, although it's a good thing I didn't. But if you're on your way to PASS and looking for some good content then I've been asked to direct your attention to the presentations the SQLCAT team are doing:

http://lists.sqlmag.com/t?ctl=64E29:CC236C780D31BEA00C1E26C7EE2DC5A9

https://www.sqlpass.org/summit/Lists/2007%20Summit%20Sessions/SQL%20CAT%20Sessions.aspx

Eric Jacobsen, in particular, is well worth catching if you're interested in SSAS.

SQLBits and the next BI Evening

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 23:16:03 GMT

I've been meaning to blog about these two events for a while but somehow not got round to doing so...

Anyway, first date for your diary is the evening of September 26th when the next BI evening will be held in London, at the offices of IM Group. Registration isn't open yet (I'll update this post when it is) but there will be two speakers:

Suranjan Som of IM Group:

Data Mining in practice – the Microsoft Way

Data Mining has come a long way from being a black art to a contemporary tool that allows businesses to unearth the hidden potential in their data. Come and join us for a whirlwind that looks how one can leverage data mining to address business problems using the new features in SQL 2005/2008.

Mark Hill of Edenbrook:

What’s new in the SQL2008 relational engine for BI?

How does Katmai change how we do MS BI projects, Mark Hill takes a look at the planned improvements such as CDC and UPSERT and what impact they will have followed by couple of demos on how these new features can be used.

Even more exciting, on Saturday October 6th is the first SQLBits community day at Microsoft in Reading. It's a free one-day event concentrating on all things SQL Server, kind of a SQL version of Developer Day, and you can find out more here:

http://www.sqlbits.com/

Again, registration isn't open yet but we are looking for speakers and sponsors so please get in touch through the site if you're interested in doing either. For my sins I'm helping organise the BI/DW track, so hopefully I'll see you there!

PASS Germany Bootcamp

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 05:59:03 GMT

Just heard from Markus Fischer that PASS Germany are planning another (German-language) bootcamp. Details here:

http://www.fits-consulting.de/blog/PermaLink,guid,832818c8-69ca-48fd-8c7d-b28099b99c32.aspx

There are two tracks, a DBA one and a Reporting Services one.

Speaking at the NxtGenUG

Mon, 21 May 2007 09:57:15 GMT

Just thought I'd mention that I'm speaking at the NxtGenUG (Next Generation User Group) meeting at Oxford on June 19th, on the topic of "Business Intelligence with SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services":

http://www.nxtgenug.net/ViewEvent.aspx?EventID=61

Microsoft BI Conference Thoughts

Sat, 12 May 2007 00:02:47 GMT

The first Microsoft BI Conference has just finished, so how did it go? Hmm, well, let's say it's a typical Microsoft version 1.0. There were a lot of good features, several things which could have been much much better but overall everyone was very enthusiastic for the future. I certainly enjoyed myself a lot and will be coming back next year.

First of all, let's talk about the positives. There were 2800 people there so this was a fairly big conference, much bigger than I (and I suspect the organisers) were expecting. Almost everyone who is anyone in the world of Microsoft BI was there and that made it a great opportunity for networking and gossiping. I finally had the chance to meet a whole bunch of people who I've only ever had contact with via email plus many others who read this blog and just wanted to say hello. The only downside to this was that I spent so much time hanging out and talking to people that I didn't get a chance to look round all the exhibition stands and didn't, for example, get to see many of the third party tools (eg Panorama) in the kind of detail I'd been wanting to. The facilities were very good and last night's party at the Experience Music Project was lots of fun too; there'll be at least one picture from that event I'll be posting up next week. In terms of content there were a couple of excellent sessions of the kind you could only have at a dedicated BI conference, and I learned a lot from them.

The negatives? I got the distinct impression that the organisers had initially expected to run a business-focused conference and then found that the majority of people attending were technical. The agenda was published way too late and there were way too many breakout sessions that were simply an excuse for other customers and consultancy firms to blather on about how successful their project had been. Many of the technical breakout sessions were uninspiring walk-throughs, there seemed to be a lot of repeated content for example on PerformancePoint, and there were a few sessions that had been given at conferences before over the last year or so and where the content was already familiar. I heard a lot of people complaining they wanted a much greater level of technical detail and at the same time I came across a lot of people in technical sessions who were out of their depth; perhaps the tracks should have been more clearly defined and the content of each session thought through better? For me, though, the chalk talks made it all worthwhile, although it was a pity that the chalk talk theatres didn't have enough space and that they were so noisy. I found most of the keynotes pretty dull, with Steve Ballmer shaming all of the other keynote speakers with a masterclass in how to hold an audience's attention.

Other bloggers who covered the conference in much greater depth than I have done are Patrice Truong and Mike Diehl.

(UPDATE: Patrick Husting and Vidas Matelis also have blogged about the conference)

(UPDATE 2: More thoughts from Marco Russo and Thomas Ivarsson)

(UPDATE 3: Here are what Jesse Orosz and Peter Koller thought)

Chalk Talk at the BI Conference

Thu, 03 May 2007 12:41:20 GMT

I've managed to sneak onto the schedule of the BI Conference next week after all: I'll be doing a chalk talk on "Writing MDX for KPIs" on Wednesday afternoon in the 4:00-5:15 slot. Of course this leaves me very little time to prepare so I guess I'll be working on the plane; I need to make sure I don't say anything controversial (or worse, wrong) because you never know who might be in the audience...

This also means I'd better not overdo it on the Tuesday night meet-up I blogged about a while ago. We've got quite a few people coming now, and if you'd like to join us then just turn up at the registration desk in the conference centre at 6pm.

Last Night's SQL Event in London

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 10:34:34 GMT

Just a quick note to say thanks to everyone who turned up to the combined SQL Server and SQL BI events in London last night. We had some great presentations from Reed Jacobson, Allan Mitchell and David Francis, beer, pizza, freebies... what more could you want? Thanks are also due to Simon Sabin and Tony Rogerson for doing the organising, Conchango for providing the rooms and Red-Gate for sponsorship. We're thinking about doing another one in June, also in London (we'll probably end up alternating between London and TVP) so if you'd like to present then let me know. Simon was also doing some experiments with Live Meeting so maybe we can start broadcasting these events to the world...

Office User Group

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:13:39 GMT

Just found out about an event run by the UK Office User Group on 'Integration, Collaboration and Visualisation' next Friday at Microsoft in Reading, which unfortunately I won't be able to attend but which looks pretty interesting:

http://www.officeusergroup.co.uk/ (click on Events)

Microsoft BI Conference Session List Published

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 09:46:36 GMT

UPDATE: How does meeting up at 6pm by the registration booth at the conference centre sound to everyone? If you can't make it then, I'm sure we can catch up later at the party. We've got quite a few people joining us (apart from those below) so it should be a good evening... assuming I'm not suffering from jet lag too badly!

At last, they've published the session list for the BI Conference:

https://www.msbic2007.com/public/sessions.aspx

I've already registered but I was a bit worried having done so without knowing what the content was going to be like. Luckily it looks pretty good (even if my session got turned down :-(, but at least it means I won't be stressing about it for the next few weeks), with the majority of speakers being from Microsoft - including Mosha speaking on... Integration Services!

Anyway, if you see me walking around stop me and say hello; I'll also be hanging around on the Solid Quality stand at some point, probably Thursday afternoon. Does anyone fancy going out on the Tuesday night for a few drinks after the welcome reception? Leave a comment or drop me an email and maybe we can sort something out.

It's BI Evening time again...

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 19:10:07 GMT

Yes folks, in conjunction with the UK SQL Server Community I'm proud to announce another BI Evening on the 26th of April and - by popular demand - it's going to be in central London. We've got a star-studded line-up of speakers too: David Francis talking about PerformancePoint Monitoring and Analytics; the legendary Allan Mitchell on dimension and fact table ETL methods with SSIS; and all the way from the US of A (though not just for this event, he was coming here anyway) Reed Jacobson on PerformancePoint Planning and Budgeting. You'll detect a bit of a PerformancePoint theme going on here...

Anyway, here's the link to register:

http://www.sqlserverfaq.com/?eid=95

Spaces are limited so you'd better hurry. There's also a non-BI SQL Server event going on at the same time, and since both are being sponsored by those nice people at Red-Gate software I'm told there will be all sorts of goodies to give away.

Microsoft BI Conference site is live

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 21:19:55 GMT

See

http://www.microsoftbiconference.com/default.aspx

...for more information the conference including how to submit abstracts for presentations and nominations for awards. Hmm, now I need to think of a presentation I could give. Perhaps something like 'Performance tuning MDX Queries'; anyone got any suggestions?

Microsoft BI Conference in May

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 22:18:43 GMT

Now I, and probably a lot of you, have know this was in the pipeline for months... I heard it was meant to be officially announced in November but heard nothing, but now someone from Microsoft has blogged about it I thought I'd link to them:

http://blogs.msdn.com/btamblyn/archive/2006/12/31/microsoft-business-intelligence-conference.aspx

So, a BI conference at last! See you May 9th-11th in Seattle. I wonder if I can get myself in as a speaker?

Last Night's BI Event

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 14:25:03 GMT

Just a quick note to say thanks to everyone who presented at and attended last night's BI event. As ever it was good to see people in the flesh that I'd not met before (eg Charlie Maitland) as well as all the usual suspects...

I'll try to get hold of the presentations and make them available for download, probably on http://sqlserverfaq.com/. In the meantime, David Parker's presentation can be downloaded here:

http://www.bvisual.net/downloads/VisualizingInformationwithMicrosoftVisio2007.zip

It's 6Mb though!

DDD4

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 18:02:38 GMT

Just thought I'd mention that I'll be speaking at Developer Developer Developer 4 a week on Saturday:

http://www.developerday.co.uk/ddd/agendaddd4.asp

...which I'm really looking forward to (must polish up my demos beforehand though). If you're going to be there too, please say hello!

I've also been asked to pass on the following message from the organisers to anyone who's going:

For DDD4 we are organising Grok Talk and Park Bench lunch time activities at which we hope to encourage delegates to participate. You can help!

The Grok Talks are open to anyone, a wiki has been setup where people can put down their name and the talk and/or suggest topics for the Park Bench. If you are attending DDD4 we would like to invite you to submit a Grok Talk. As we have had a low response so far we would appreciate it if you could blog about this opportunity or mention it to anyone you know who might be interested. As a reward on the day a MSDN subscription will be given for the best Grok Talk.

Wiki link - http://www.thehughpage.com/DDD4LunchTime

DDD link - http://www.developerday.co.uk/ddd/default.asp

Oh, and don't forget about next week's BI evening in Reading:

http://sqlserverfaq.com/?eid=83

Another BI Evening - Call for Presenters

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 21:25:41 GMT

Following on from the successful BI Evening at TVP earlier this year I'm in the early stages of planning another; Tony Rogerson has managed to wangle a room on the night of November 29th and I'm now looking for people who'd like to present. I've contacted a few people but I thought I'd post an open invitation here: if you're free that night, can make it to TVP and have something interesting and BI-related to talk about then please get in touch! Contact details can be found at http://www.crossjoin.co.uk/contact.html.

Last Night's BI Event

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 06:34:38 GMT

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who turned up to last night's BI evening at Microsoft UK, and that I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. All the stars of the UK MS BI world were out - it was a veritable Royal Variety Show of BI - and I can see that Jamie Thomson has already managed to blog about it:

http://blogs.conchango.com/jamiethomson/archive/2006/06/22/4116.aspx

Thanks are due to Tony Rogerson for organising the whole thing, and my co-presenters Mark Hill and Simon Sabin.

I particularly enjoyed Mark's talk about building multi-terabyte cubes and picked up some good tips for performance tuning from him. The slides from all three presentations should be up on http://www.sqlserverfaq.com soon so rather than paraphrase what he had to say I'll be able to point you to the source soon. Hopefully he'll start blogging regularly now too.

With a bit of luck we'll have a follow-up event before Xmas. As I said last night, if you'd like to present then please get in touch...

PASS Germany BI Bootcamp

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 06:09:55 GMT

Markus Fischer has asked me to mention that PASS Germany are running a (German language) BI Bootcamp this September. More details here:

http://www.fits-consulting.de/blog/PermaLink,guid,178092d7-1711-4390-8674-d5d84d955e0a.aspx

UK SQL Server BI User Group - June 22nd

Tue, 16 May 2006 08:28:10 GMT

I was talking to Tony Rogerson of the UK SQL Server Community a while back, and mentioned the fact that it would be cool if some kind of Microsoft BI user group could be set up in the UK. Obliging chap that he is he's now gone ahead and booked TVP for the evening of June 22nd for me to do what I want with. The agenda isn't confirmed, but I'll be presenting something Analysis Services-y and there'll be at least one other person speaking too. You can go ahead and register for the evening here:

http://www.sqlserverfaq.com/

(click on the link in the Events box on the right-hand side)

UPDATE: the agenda is now confirmed. I'll be doing a session on "What's new in AS2005 MDX"; Mark Hill will be talking about his experiences building multi-terabyte cubes; and Simon Sabin (who I've not actually met but am looking forward to meeting) will be talking about SSIS SP1. If you're involved in BI and live anywhere near Reading then make sure you're there!

Who's going to PASS Europe next week?

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 22:29:11 GMT

I'll be there... if you'd like to meet up for a drink or a meal one evening then drop me a line. I'd also like to try to record a podcast while I'm there too, just me talking to anyone who thinks they've got anything interesting to say about Analysis Services or BI in general, so if there are any volunteers then please make yourself known!

While we're on the subject of podcasts, I need to let off some steam - I've had two attempts at recording one with Mosha and on both occasions managed to not record the very interesting conversations we've had. Arggh! Does anyone know a good tool for recording Skype conversations that isn't Powergramo (I'm obviously not alone in having problems with it)?

My session at the PASS European Conference 2006

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:50:01 GMT

I mentioned the 2006 PASS European Conference a few months ago, but I thought I'd publicise the fact that I've been confirmed as a speaker (I don't know whether that will sell any more tickets, or indeed keep people away):

http://www.sqlpass.org/events/Europe/2006/Sessions.cfm

I'll be covering my new pet subject of MDX Scripting.

Nice to see Thomas Pagel and Markus Sprenger confirmed too; I'm sure there will be plenty of other good speakers appearing on that list in the near future. If anyone reading this is planning to attend, let me know and we can get a party together for dinner and drinks on the Thursday night.

PASS 2006 European Conference

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 14:42:54 GMT

I got an email today advertising the PASS 2006 European Conference in Barcelona next February. I went to (and spoke at) the last one in Munich and found it very useful - certainly the level of technical detail was way ahead of your average conference, especially as far as Analysis Services went, and I'd recommend it. I'm going to submit an abstract for a presentation too; I guess it will be on something like 'Introduction to MDX Scripting'.

Three AS2005/BI Events in the UK

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 10:58:35 GMT

Courtesy of http://www.sqlserverfaq.com/ I've found out about three upcoming AS2005/BI events in the UK - click on the Events tab to see details. Although the first date clashes with me frantically trying to meet a book deadline and I'm on holiday for the second, I'm tempted to turn up for the third. Anyone else going?

PASS European Conference

Mon, 23 May 2005 13:38:53 GMT

Like several other SQL Server bloggers out there (eg Christian Wade, Marco Russo, Steve McHugh to name a few) I was at the PASS European conference in Munich the other week. It was the first PASS conference I've been to and I had a really good time. The standard of the presentations was very high - in-depth content rather than the high-level introductory stuff that is the norm when a product like SQL2005 is in beta - and meeting people and being able to discuss shared problems was very valuable too. The entry on Marco Russo's blog about many-to-many dimensions is a case in point: if we hadn't had that conversation I might not have found out that chaining m:m dimensions together was in fact going to be supported.

Unfortunately my training budget won't stretch to a trip to the much bigger US PASS conference in September, but a look at the session schedule makes me think it will be even better than the European version. I can recommend Christian Wade's SQL CLR presentation and the series on Project Real from Len Wyatt & team; even though he's doing a different presentation from the one he did in Munich I'm sure Kurt Allebach will be worth seeing too.