Getting Started with Power BI - Part 2

Power BI has been described as a “self-service” BI platform. While that may bring to mind an image of easy-peasy, plug-and-play, there are a few things most organizations will want to address before turning users loose with Power BI. In this conversation, Brandon Michals helps us take a look at three areas of consideration: your company, your people, and your data. Spending the time to think through and take the appropriate action in each of these areas will go a long way towards helping your organization achieve a successful Power BI implementation.

3 Takeaways

  1. Asking “what action can I take with this data” can help ensure you present the most helpful data to your users.
  2. When adopting Power BI, users must learn both a new tool AND a new way to look at data.
  3. Data Governance is not an IT process—it is a people process.

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Our Guest

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Brandon Michals

Brandon Michals is the founder of Infinext, a company aligned to help organizations manage their data, with a focus on data integration and implementation of business intelligence solutions. His career started out as a small detour while waiting for his bar exam results, and he’s been running from the law ever since.

As a developer for the past two decades, he brings experience in working with data from a range of business sectors, including logistics, retail, real estate, and human services. His passion lies in helping clients to overcome data-related challenges and equipping them to be better at the work they do every day. He writes about his experiences in the data world at infinext.com.

When you’re thinking about implementing Power BI, you really want to have an objective view of what your organization’s data culture is.

Brandon Michals

Meet the Hosts

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Carlos Chacon

With more than 10 years of working with SQL Server, Carlos helps businesses ensure their SQL Server environments meet their users’ expectations. He can provide insights on performance, migrations, and disaster recovery. He is also active in the SQL Server community and regularly speaks at user group meetings and conferences. He helps support the free database monitoring tool found at databasehealth.com and provides training through SQL Trail events.

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Eugene Meidinger

Eugene works as an independent BI consultant and Pluralsight author, specializing in Power BI and the Azure Data Platform. He has been working with data for over 8 years and speaks regularly at user groups and conferences. He also helps run the GroupBy online conference.

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Kevin Feasel

Kevin is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and proprietor of Catallaxy Services, LLC, where he specializes in T-SQL development, machine learning, and pulling rabbits out of hats on demand. He is the lead contributor to Curated SQL, president of the Triangle Area SQL Server Users Group, and author of the books PolyBase Revealed (Apress, 2020) and Finding Ghosts in Your Data: Anomaly Detection Techniques with Examples in Python (Apress, 2022). A resident of Durham, North Carolina, he can be found cycling the trails along the triangle whenever the weather's nice enough.

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