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Jen Stirrup

  1. The Journey is the Reward: Speaking for SQLPass, where do you start?

    I'm heartened by the numbers of people who are expressing an interest in speaking at events. In particular, I understand that SQLPass had record numbers of people submitting to SQLPass Summit in Charlotte this year. For me, this is especially important because it suggest that more people are interested in speaking and sharing their SQL Server knowledge. It also shows that the community are supportive of a SQLPass Summit event in Charlotte. This energy shows the strength of the event itself, rather than being tied to a particular location i.e. Seattle. As much as I love Seattle, I have never been to Charlotte and I'm excited to be visiting a new part of the United States. In case you are wondering, I am Scottish :)

    I am not part of the session selection process for SQLPass so this blog is based on my insights from the community only.  How do you get experience so that you can speak for events, perhaps with the goal of speaking at the SQLPass Summit event, which is the pinnacle of every SQL Server guru's career?

    It can seem to be a vicious cycle: you can't speak because you don't have experience, and you don't get experience because you don't speak.

    This isn't true!

    There are plenty of opportunities to speak and here are some:

    Come and join me and give a webinar for the Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence Virtual Chapter. This is a great way to start and you will have the full support of myself and Julie Koesmarno, who helps with the Chapter as I do. We can help you to get started. The sessions last for about one hour, and we do 45 minutes talk, and then 15 minutes of questions.  Why not give it a go?

    Your local PASS Chapter - come and attend your local user Group, and see how you can get involved. Take a look at the PASS site for some thoughts

    Your workplace - why  not try a 'brown bag lunch' session, whereby you and your team all take turns to present on something? It is a safe environment to learn, and you might even enjoy it!

    If you didn't get a slot at SQLPass Summit this time - don't be disheartened. There is a Chinese proverb: The journey is the reward. Keep going, and who knows what will happen? You'll learn, and make friends as you go along. Submit again next year with more experience under your belt, and more knowledge of your subject. Good luck!

    A special note for UG leaders - make sure and support your new speakers. Mentor and encourage them. That person might be the next Brent Ozar or Kalen Delaney, so give them the opportunity to grow. We are all part of a community and we can help one another!

    Good luck everyone! Please email me at jen.stirrup@copperblueconsulting.com if you'd like to give a webinar. I'd love to schedule you in, and help you get started!

    Best,
    Jen x



  2. Big Data for the Business Intelligence Professional SQLPass Summit Preconference Day

    I'm delighted to announce that Allan Mitchell (blog ¦ twitter) and I are giving a Big Data for the Business Intelligence Professional preconference session at SQLPass Summit 2013 in Charlotte, NC.

    What will we be covering?

    What does Big Data mean for business intelligence professionals? Come see the “whats,” “hows,” and “whys” as this full-day pre-conference session demystifies Microsoft’s Big Data technology offerings. 
    Microsoft has partnered with HortonWorks to bring Big Data into the hands of business users via their favorite BI tools: Power View, PowerPivot, and Excel. This session will cover both on-premise and Azure-based technologies, examining the Microsoft distribution of Hadoop through a range of technologies such as HDInsight, Hive, and Azure through to Excel, PowerPivot, and Power View. 

    The first half of the session will be dedicated to the “what” and “how” of Hadoop, using HDInsight. With Hadoop comes a whole ecosystem of tools, and we’ll look at how to use them in a BI context to support users’ Big Data needs. We’ll also look in detail at MapReduce to parallelize complex Big Data queries across many servers. After you have Big Data, how are you going to serve it to business users to derive value for the enterprise? 

    The second half of the session will be dedicated to the “why” of Big Data. We’ll visualize Big Data in our favorite BI tools: Excel, PowerPivot, and Power View.

    Would you like to join us? 

    We'd love to see you there! Visit the PASS Summit 2013 website for the latest updates.  You can also take advantage of early registration, so book now to register at $800 off the final registration rate by June 30.

    What is SQLPass Summit? 

    It is the conference which is the pinnacle of the SQL Server world, featuring over 125 hand-picked sessions to help data professionals advance their careers and make the most of their Microsoft SQL Server implementations. The conference takes place on October 15th - 18th.

    Presentations across 6 tracks will cover everything from database administration best practices, new SQL Server features, and the latest database and application development techniques to what you need to know about building and managing effective BI solutions and being successful in the cloud.

  3. PowerPivot error: unable to upgrade the Data Model in this workbook

    Upon opening a PowerPivot in Excel 2013 workbook, I get the following message:

    unable to upgrade the Data Model in this workbook. The error occurred while upgrading PowerPivot workbook. The data model has reverted to the previous version

    The PowerPivot model was created in Excel 2013. The machine is 64-bit and the model was created here and hasn't been moved.
    It was working fine yesterday, and the only real change was the addition of a password in order to secure the file.

    The error message in details is here:

    ============================
    Error Message:
    ============================

    Element not found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8002802B (TYPE_E_ELEMENTNOTFOUND))

    ============================
    Call Stack:
    ============================

       at Microsoft.Office.PowerPivot.ExcelAddIn.INativeEntryPoint.BeginUpgradeASPPModel(String workbookName)
       at Microsoft.Office.PowerPivot.ExcelAddIn.InProcServer.LoadSandboxAfterConnection(String errorCache)

    ============================

    Resolution

    I resolved this issue by:
    running the 'PowerPivot in Sharepoint 2013 Configuration'.
    I also removed the password from the file. To move it around, I will have to use other methods of encrypting the file.  For customer data, I use diskGenie iStorage portable encrypted hard drives and USBs, rather than the plethora of USBs I tend to pick up for free from events.

    After running the Wizard and removing the password, I could open up the PowerPivot model just fine.

    Hope that helps.

  4. Announcing DiTBits at SQLBits

    We are pleased to announce our inaugural DiTBiTs Cheese and Wine event at SQLBits XI on Friday 3rd May at 5pm in Room 1. The DiTBits site is here, and this is a cross-post.

    Our topic is as follows: Networking in IT. Can more diverse networks provide better networks?
    Is business networking useful in our careers?
    How much has networking helped you in your career?
    How can you build good social media profiles – or are these even necessary?

    Attendees can enjoy Cheese and Wine refreshments whilst during the Panel discussion and interaction. Then, we’ll have a Flashmob Speed Networking at the end, just to tie things together before everyone shoots off for the party – so bring your business cards!

    We are pleased to welcome our following panellists:

    Denise McInerney is joining us from the United States, so please be sure to give Denise a hearty SQLBits welcome! Denise McInerney is a DBA-turned-Data-Analyst. She lives in Silicon Valley where she is employed by the software company Intuit. Denise founded the PASS Women in Technology chapter and currently serves as a member of the PASS Board of Directors. She is a Microsoft MVP.

    Mark Broadbent is well known within the UK and across the world as a dedicated PASS ‘Outstanding Volunteer’ award winner and UK Regional Mentor. He is a SQL Server specialist and speaker focusing on HADR & upgrade solutions and in 2011 was awarded Microsoft’s Community Contributor award and in 2012 received the PASS Outstanding Volunteer award. He is the proud host of the first UK SQLSaturday, and is hosting another SQLSaturday event in Cambridge later this year.

    Stephanie Locke works primarily in the BI space as a Senior Analyst responsible for delivering high profile projects and educating & mentoring others.  She coordinates the local user group for SQL Server and tries to help grow the community.

    The host for the inaugural DiTBits event is Jen Stirrup, a SQL Server MVP who best-known for her work in Business Intelligence and Data Visualisation. She is the current holder of the SQLPassion Award, presented by PASS at Summit 2012, for her work in helping the European SQL Server community. Jen has presented at TechEd North America, TechEd Europe, SQLPass and SQLBits and is the proud host of SQLSaturday Edinburgh.
    If you have any questions, please get in touch with Jen.Stirrup@copperblueconsulting.com or feel free to browse around our site.
    Who are DiTBIts? Take a look here.

  5. PASSBAC keynote: The Microsoft data story, and the next chapters

    I attended the keynote from the PASS Business Analytics Conference in Chicago, April 2013. For those of you who missed it, here is some of the content of the keynote.
    The take away point is that Business Intelligence must be simple. It is important to make it fun, and we are drowning in data. Not being able to read and understand data, is like being disadvantaged in today's world. We have to move beyond what we now think about Business Intelligence. We have to get inside our data. 

    The keynote was opened by Bill Graziano ( twitter ¦ website ) who underlined the importance for a need amongst Business Analytics professionals for knowledge and support. PASS is helping to formulate a community of Data Professionals. If you're a Business Analytics  professional, you can be a part of the shaping of this community and be a part in it. If this interests you, could can take a look at joining up a Virtual Chapter and receive monthly webcasts, for example. This can help you to stay connected once PASSBAC is finished.
    Next, we had Dell appearing. They have over 15 years of IM software experience. 
    Dell has over 15 years of IM software experience, after their purchase of @Quest, for example. Dell constantly monitor their own brand in social media. For example, they have 6 years experience in watching their brand online, and anticipating with customers from a support and brand engagement perspective. They made the following observations in the social media market:

    Dell's Observations
    Data Type Proliferation
    Vendor Proliferation
    Data-Location proliferation
    IT and LOB challenges
    Snap into existing environments

    Given these observations, they then moved to address these points in the market:

    Analysis of social media needed to be:
    Data-Type Agnostic
    Vendor Agnostic
    Data-Location Agnostic
    Open
    Capability needs to be at the tools layer

    The takeaway point from the Dell part of the keynote is: Make the hard things simple to allow for more collaboration, exploration, analysis and communication
    The final part of the keynote was presented by Amir Netz, who is a Distinguished Technical Fellow at Microsoft. The few times I've been lucky enough to speak with Amir in person, I've found him to be a very approachable and fun guy, and this came across clearly in the keynote, which was probably the most engaging I've seen (and I see a lot!) Netz was accompanied by Kamil Hathi who knows his stuff inside out and is a 'go to' expert for Analysis Services. I was really excited about this keynote since, whilst individually they are both excellent speakers, the idea of a joint presentation sounded fun and informative. They started off by emphasising how 'simple' attracts people. The strategy is to go back to Excel, thereby capturing the simplicity once again.  
    How can we make the spreadsheet really interesting again? Well, we can add in lots of unstructured data! To do this, we can use Hadoop, which is a file system, essentially a shoebox of unstructured data. A lot of data, all different kinds! Using Hadoop, you can easily transform the unstructured data. Structure on extraction, rather than a structured data model before extraction. Therefore, you're not imposing a structure on data that the ETL meets via the load; you're structuring the data once it is in Hadoop.

    The team then did a great demo of PowerView using data from a dataset of music and songs. We learned that Mariah Carey has had more weeks in the charts than luminaries such as Elvis, the Beatles and U2.
    This showed the power of the interaction of the data. In Amir's example, the kids had fun learning about their music idols. This was easily demonstrated in the keynote audience, who were cheerfully shouting out band names. We heard all sorts of names being shouted out: Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Madonna and even Milli Vanilli!

    Power View is all about sharing information, and having fun with the data. 
    Business Intelligence is elective - nobody forces an organisation to use Business Intelligence. It is about time management, and how much time people spend on Business Intelligence.
    However, business intelligence can be fun can help you to get the ROI because it means that people will use it, and learn from it. Fun is important, and success is infectious.
    It has to be more than fun, but it is a good starting place.  We can use it to start more investigations, and then lead to deeper questions.
    The team then did a deeper exploration using Power View for sentiment analysis with Twitter data. Sentiment used as a means of prediction of outcomes. If you'd like to know more about this, I've written a two part MSDN article on the topic.

    The most exciting part was the announcement of Codename Geoflow, which allows you to do location sensitive content to your data. In other words, it allows you to create 3D data visualisations based on maps. You have to see it to believe it, and if you're looking for #Geoflow information, here you are http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2013/04/11/day-2-pass-business-analytics-conference-new-3d-mapping-analytics-tool-for-excel.aspx … #PASSBAC #SQLBits #SQLPass #SQLFAQ
    Amir did a great demo to show the changes in the 'music chart songs' data over time and over place. It is a wonderful story, brought to life by #Geoflow. it also looked great on the huge 81 inch touchscreen, and its a great way to drive visualisations of data. At the PASS BA Conference, we will be lucky enough to have the Microsoft Experience lounge, where we can go and try all of this gadgetry out! Like Amir says, it has to be fun too.

    We don't just think about business. Business Intelligence could also be called basic intelligence, but to achieve it, we need to get inside our data and let people work with it in familiar tools. 
    This is the Microsoft story, and I'm excited to see the next chapter for our business users.


  6. Up and coming PASS BA Sessions, and Data Visualisation and Microsoft Workshops

    If you're here looking for precon notes, I will be posting these up in the next few weeks after I've finished my precons at SQLSaturday Denmark, Databasedays Switzerland and SQLBits in Nottingham, UK. So please keep checking back, or email me at jen.stirrup@copperblueconsulting.com 

    I'm delighted and proud to be presenting at the PASS Business Analytics Conference this week, in Chicago, Illinios, on 11th and 12th April. 

    I love SQLPass Summit, and it is one of the highlights of my year. The Business Analytics conference is happening for the first time, and I can't wait to meet the new #SQLFamily - or should that be #PASSBAFamily - that I will meet! I'm already making arrangements to meet fellow BA and Twitterati 'in person', which is one of my personal favourite things to do! See you there!
    I'm pleased and proud to be presenting a preconference training in the Denmark in April 19th at the Microsoft Offices in Hellerup, Denmark, and a workshop in Pfaffikon, Switzerland.

    With respect to Denmark, in case you're not familiar, SQLSaturday events are often accompanied by one-day, very reasonably priced community training days.  This means that attendees get a deep-dive training day on a specialised subject on the Friday Preconference training day, as well as being able to attend the range  of sessions on the main SQLSaturday event.

    The precon I'm delivering is an in-depth day, which is aimed at Business Intelligence specialists who focus on front-end reporting. We will be looking at some of the 'new toys' in the SQL Server 2012 toolbox, as well as having a fresh look at old favourites such as SQL Server Reporting Services.

    Our data source is the Tabular Model.  I'm seeing more traction of the Tabular model at customer sites, but not everyone has had the chance to play with it yet. Therefore, I thought it worthwhile to use the Tabular model as a data source, in order to expose its usefulness to a wider audience. 
     
    To register for the Denmark event, please click here. 
     
    I'm holding a Data Visualisation workshop in Switzerland on 17th April.  
    If you want to conduct advanced, business-oriented Business Intelligence analysis in SQL Server 2012, then it is essential to understand data visualisation. This session is aimed at developers who want to make informed data visualisation decisions about reporting, with supporting cognitive psychology theory where relevant.
    The takeaways will focus on:
     
    • Introduction: Finding patterns in the data.
    • Further Data Visualisations: learn about visualisations that are perhaps not so well-known. This includes Stephen Few's bullet charts and Tufte's Sparklines in SSRS.
    • Multivariate data: We will cover the complexities of displaying multivariate data since is potentially more complex by visualisations. For example, we will look at Tufte's "small multiples" in Power View and in Reporting Services.
    • Putting it all together: Considerations for Dashboards. This workshop aims to deliver a breadth of data visualisation knowledge, underpinned by cognitive psychology theory to provide deeper understanding.
    To register for DatabaseDays, please go to http://www.databasedays.com/:
     
     
    Last but not least, I'm holding a preconference training day at SQLBits in Nottingham, United Kingdom, on Thursday 2nd May. SQLBits is one of my favourite events, and I'm very glad to be going back to my roots after having been far travelled this year so far!
     
    If you'd like to register for the SQLBits precon, the Training Day link is here. I hope to see you there! 


  7. Power View error: There are no addresses available for this application


    Whilst doing a demo, I noted that running Power View on SharePoint gave the following error message:

    Microsoft.SharePoint.SPEndpointAddressNotFoundException: There are no addresses available for this application.

    There are two steps to resolving this issue:

    1. Using the Central Admin on Sharepoint, check the services running on the server.

    Go to Central Admin > Application Management > Manage Services on Server

    Check if your services have stopped, particularly the 'SQL Server Reporting Services Service'. Also, take a look at the 'Managed Metadata' or 'User Profile' services. 

    2. Once you've reviewed the services, you might need to do perform an IISReset command

    I hope that helps!



  8. My 10 years with SharePoint from the SQL Server perspective; the story so far.

    I've been working with SharePoint since SharePoint Server 2003. It's been ten years since my boss, on his last day working beside me as a consultant for Dimension Data, ran past me saying "I've made you SharePoint administrator, you'll love it" as he ran out of the door. I yelled back "What's SharePoint?" and he gave me a cheeky grin and said "you'll thank me, you'll love it." I never saw him again.

    Over the ten years now, there have been times where I have wanted to do anything except thank him for inheriting SharePoint. There are other times where I've been the sole voice, evangelising its usage within an organisation. Ultimately, yes, I do want to thank him!


    I'm amazed by how SharePoint has evolved over the years. The central tenet is the same; sharing information, regardless of the format. I'm glad that there is a move towards collaborative sharing, working and business intelligence.

    If there is anything I could change about SharePoint, it would be the following things:

    • I'd make sure that every SharePoint project included the business users and business sponsors, and not just technical resources. I'd want a diverse team, right at the top of my list.
    • I'd clarify the licensing. 
    • I'd make it super-easy to jazz up a SharePoint website. If you want some really fancy SharePoint website, you have to know things like CSS. I'm not a web designer so I'm not going to go there.
    • SharePoint has a broad skill set of skills in setting it up; it's an architecture project, not just a Business Intelligence project. I'd like that message to get across. 

    Since SharePoint is delivered as a website, that makes it look deceptively easy.  Don't be fooled. It's sharing information, so the information assets need to be secured and controlled as with other information stores.  Over my ten years, I've struggled with security, identity delegation, and authentication. If you're thinking "well, that's easy" then you're blessed that you didn't see the earlier kerfuffle in trying to sort it out! So, I was very glad to see that Kay Unkroth and an amazing team of Technical Reviewers have put together a white paper entitled Microsoft BI Authentication and Identity Delegation

    I come at SharePoint from a SQL Server angle; in other words, from the data up.   I recommend this white paper since there is a lot here about connecting to various data sources, and the SQL Server expert will find this very useful. There's also references to custom user references. For the SQL Server Business Intelligence reader, there's a lot of information about enabling personal, team and enterprise Business Intelligence from the architecture perspective, and this will prove useful to you for your SharePoint 2013 projects.

    I strongly recommend that you read this paper. Sometimes I think people assume Business Intelligence is just about pretty pictures (sigh). However, to make the reports, dashboards and so on happen in SharePoint, you're not waving a magic wand. Magic needs to happen under the hood. Unkroth's white paper will help to demystify the complexities for you. I really wish we'd had all this information earlier.

    I've spent many nights working with SharePoint to make things happen for my Business Intelligence customers. However, it does seem to me that the thinking at Microsoft is becoming more 'joined up' and I'm glad to see a diverse range of technical authors who have helped to make this paper happen.

    I love what I've seen SharePoint do for customers over the years, and I look forward to working with it for the next ten.

  9. Business Intelligence and Power View: a Subtle Change or an Inflection Point?

    Can organisations be brave enough use their data to get along the 'inflection point'? If so, how can they do it? Can Power View help?

    Andrew Grove wrote a book Only the Paranoid Survive, which discusses how Intel survived change after change in the computing industry. Grove had a very interesting idea: businesses are affected by six forces, both internal and external:

    - existing competition
    - complementary businesses
    - customers
    - potential customers
    - possibility of alternative ways of achieving the same end
    - suppliers

    Grove proposed that, if these forces stayed equivalent, that the company will steer a steady course.

    However, what happens if any of the forces increase or decrease in terms of their pressure? Can this change turn into an inflection point? An inflection point is illustrated below, courtesy of Wolfram Mathworld.  


    In other words, the inflection point is where the curvature of a line goes from negative to positive.

    Translated into business terms, this can be considered as part of a maturity process, whereby the immature company goes through a turbulent 'adolescence', to reach maturity.

    If you've been part of this process, you'll recognise the signs. Team members who do not like change, for example, and are resistant to new ideas. Perhaps you see that your organisation is offering new products and services from the business perspective, but IT is simply not keeping up with the changes foisted on them. That's when silly mistakes can happen; for example, server failure since 'everybody' was too busy trying to paste over the cracks but didn't look at the fundamental issues because they were chasing their tails.

    From a Business Intelligence perspective, I think it can be important to understand that Business Intelligence problems can actually be Change Management problems; they have to be understood as exposing less visible failures in the system. In other words, it isn't the SSRS report that's wrong; it's the failure of the processes that produce the report in the first place, so it no longer answers the 'business question'.
      
    Essentially, the business has changed but isn't served any longer, by the supporting players.

    How does the enterprise get upwards and onwards? There are whole books written on this issue, but one way to look at it is to move people away from 'gut feel' towards data-based analysis. This can be extremely hard to do.  For some people, they will simply never listen to what the data is showing them. Perhaps they may even recognise that they aren't producing the 'supporting act' data in the first place, to move the business forward.

    One way to engage people in data is to give them access to it, and Power View in Excel 2013 is an accessible way of doing just that. There is a lot of value in letting people 'see' the answers for themselves. There is danger too; they will soon see the 'failures' in the data - where it is poor, wrong, or just plain missing.

    It's an adventure with data. It's up to the organisations themselves to see if can be brave enough use their data to get along the 'inflection point'. It might just be a subtle change for them; or it could open up the opportunity to allow people to see their data. 

    Power View is more than just pretty pictures because it can really mean engagement with the data, and encourage exploration to an Excel-oriented audience who didn't have the opportunity to visualise and play with their data in this way before.

    Don't be fooled because it is in Excel - it can help your business users to ask new questions of their data. It's a change of thinking about data, putting it into the hands of business users who can change the organisation. Perhaps they will help organisations to move along the 'inflection point' towards maturity.

    That's the real power of Power View.


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