SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services
I will be presenting at the next Toronto Code Camp on Saturday, April 25th. The topic of discussion will be SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services. For more information go to http://www.torontocodecamp.net/.
The Mars Lander
I recently watched a show on PBS about the Mars Lander and noticed interesting similarities between what that science team does and what business metrics are all about. Business intelligence (BI) is a hot topic these days but I find that few customers really know what BI is about. Many install reporting solutions without any thought to why they’re doing it or what they’ll do with the information once they get it. They also don’t know the difference between information and noise. I’m particularly interested in noise because the internet is full of it and it’s negatively affecting my search experience. More on noise another day, I want to talk about the Mars Lander!
They Had A Goal
That’s a simple but profound statement. The Mars team knew they were in search of a specific thing. They wanted to find out about the possibility of life on Mars. Notice they didn’t want to find life on Mars, although that would have been a nifty thing. They just wanted to know if Mars was able at some time to support life.
What is life? This likely has different meanings depending on who you ask. Let’s keep an open mind and not limit this to humans. In fact living organisms span a broad range of creatures: two legged, finned, winged, air breathing, and many others. There’s a vast taxonomy and classification system that describes life as we know it. But we don’t know anything about life on Mars. What we do know are common traits as to what life needs in order to survive on this plant. Things like water, soil ph levels, temperature ranges and so on. So these are things that the Mars team decided to look for some 228 million kilometers away from Earth.
Have a goal in mind when you venture out on your voyage of discovery.
I have more to talk about concerning the Mars Lander and I hope you’ll visit again to read what I have to say.
SQL MVP Award for 2009
I've been recognized by Microsoft for my SQL Server technical expertise and contributions to the Business Intelligence community. This means that I am a SQL Server MVP for 2009. I speak frequently on data, data warehousing, obtaining actionable information from databases, key performance indicators, aligning data to corporate strategy and so on. I’m working on a couple of seminar projects at the moment and I hope to see you at one of them.
Tech Days
Techdays is a mini Tech Ed conference that is touring Canada.
The presentations were taken directly from the huge Tech Ed events for IT Pros and Developers so you know the content is top rate. Tech Ed always sells out so if you couldn’t make that event you might want to look at Techdays. It’s very inexpensive and you get a bunch of software and goodies as part of the registration price.
I will be speaking about SQL Server 2008 and hope to see you there!
More information can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/canada/techdays/default.aspx
Run As Radio Interview
I did an interview for the folks at RunAsRadio a few weeks ago. Our discussion revolved around Business Intelligence (BI) and some general guidelines to keep in mind when starting a BI project. The single most important factor is to have a strategy in place for the company. It’s surprising how many companies implement solutions to problems without first of all determining what vision is in place for the company and then creating tactical initiatives to realize that vision. The interview can be found at http://www.runasradio.com/. It’s episode 51 and it will go into the archives after a week so look for the interview there if you don't see it on the front page of the site.
Healthcare KPI Workshop
I’ve been very busy lately. Currently my efforts concern analytics in healthcare. We’ve been using SQL Server Analysis Services as the engine to drive financial reporting and clinical analytics at several hospitals in the GTA. We're consolidating data from sources like Meditech, Winrecs and others into a consolidated, high availability, reporting environment. In addition to that, I’m building a KPI Workshop (Key Performance Indicator) for healthcare that will teach hospital administrators how to create and use KPIs to manage processes and personnel, improve the customer experience and manage costs. We plan on extending the workshop into other areas like retail and mining as well.
SQL 2008 Product Launch
Val Matison (that's me) will participate at the SQL 2008 product launch as an expert in the "Ask the Experts Area" at the Toronto Launch on February 27. I focus on Business Intellgince solutions but feel free to ask me anything about SQL Server 2008. I will make sure your question is addressed.
SQL Server SSIS Presentation
Val Matison will be presenting a session on documenting SQL Server Integration Services ETL packages at the next Toronto Code Camp, March 1, 2008.
Documenting ETL is awkward at best. SSIS supports some task level text elements but that’s the extent of it. How do non-SQL Users view ETL? What can be done within the packages to facilitate documenting the ETL process? This discussion will look at leveraging XML both in SSIS and SQL Server to create documentation that is stored in SQL Server and can be accessed via reporting services.
More information on the session is available here:
http://www.torontocodecamp.net/Sessions/tabid/55/CodecampId/1/SessionId/10/Default.aspx
