Microsoft SQL Server MVP

I've been renewed as a Microsoft SQL Server MVP for 2010!

Techdays Halifax

I will be presenting at the next Techdays in Halifax on Monday, November 2. The topic of discussion will be "Using Microsoft Dashboards, Scorecards, and Analytics to Monitor the Health of your IT Infrastructure". For more information go to http://www.techdays.ca/.

I will be talking about an application built around SSIS, SSAS and then integrated and delivered via Sharepoint. There's a lot of content in this presentation and there are lots of demos.

Techdays Toronto

I will be presenting at the next Techdays in Toronto on Tuesday, September 29th. The topic of discussion will be "Using Microsoft Dashboards, Scorecards, and Analytics to Monitor the Health of your IT Infrastructure". For more information go to http://www.techdays.ca/.

On another note, I have to mention that I am using Windows 7 now. What a great operating system. It has a great UI and it's fast.

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