SharePoint Saturday-Twin Cities has to be my favorite conference to speak at.  The group that runs it is always professional and they really demonstrate how to run a SharePoint Saturday.  I used them as a resource when I started planning SharePoint Saturday – Omaha.  The lessons I learned from attending SPSTC and from their leaders helped make SPSOmaha a success.

So, what will I be speaking about this time?  My presentation is, “Microsoft BI: From the desktop and beyond…”.  I’m really excited about this presentation because I am really excited about the Microsoft BI platform.  When I first saw a demo of PowerPivot, PowerQuery, PowerMap and PowerView, I saw the possibilities that this could mean for BI at my company.  No longer would my users have to wait 6 months to get a BI report.  The people that knew the data could be the same ones analysing the data.  My users could create rich dashboards and reports on their own, limited only by their imaginations.

But, do you know what the best thing that turned me on about this platform?  We already owned it – we just didn’t know it!  In fact, I’m sure there were users already using PowerPivot on their desktops without even realizing that they could extend their expertise to the team or enterprise.  The more I thought about it, I realized that anyone who had an Enterprise license of SharePoint had access to the same great technology, and maybe didn’t even know about it.  So that’s what prompted me to start creating this presentation.  I read a lot.  I attended many BI presentations, both in person and online.  Then, I got access to the PowerBI preview.  There it was – a website that I could test and demo what I was so excited about.

If you are going to SPSTC and want to learn more about the Microsoft BI platform, come to my session at 3pm.