Quick notes from the MagicPASS meeting:
- Kendal Van Dyke still the king when it comes to explaining what’s going on with community, SQL, and even Windows 8 (if only he still blogged!)
- Dinner was macaroni and cheese with ham, salad, and chocolate cookies. No same old pizza here!
- Jose Chincilla (@SQLJoe) presented PowerPivot + Power View = Self Service BI Revolution.
- Thought he did a good job of talking about why self service is happening and needed, and can’t be avoided for the long term
- Technology is definitely better and playing to business users
- For all that, not sure it’s easy enough, yet. Powerful, sure, but is it approachable? Hard to be both.
- Jose does great graphics, have to see the one in his deck about how problems flow downhill
- Jose is also heading up SQLSaturday #168 in Tampa, #168, with pre-cons by Jose and Mark Tabladillo.
- Closed out with a quick raffle and a free copy of the Windows 2012 book from MS for everyone.
Good stuff, good meeting, I think the only thing that might make it better is some directed networking. Good conversations during the dinner break, but it’s tables for four. Might be nice to do a round robin hand shake/introductions (though to be fair, it’s a small crowd).
