PASS BAC PREVIEW SERIES: SQL Professionals and the World of Self-service BI and Big Data

Are you excited about the upcoming PASS Business Analytics Conference? You should be! This conference will offer a wide range of sessions about Microsoft's End to End Business Intelligence (including Self-Service BI), Analytics, Big Data, Architecture, Reporting, Information Delivery, Data Management, and Visualization solutions. Whether you are an implementer, a planner, or a decision maker there is something here for you!

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What makes this conference different? Why should you put in the effort to attend this conference in particular? We are seeing a paradigm shift focused on shorter time to decision, more data available than ever before, and the need for self-service BI. There are exciting technology solutions being presented to deal with these needs and new architectural skills are needed to implement them properly. Self-Service BI and Big Data are very different in many ways but also responding to the same problem - the need for additional insights and less time spent getting to those insights and the resulting impactful decisions. Self-Service BI via PowerPivot, Power View, Excel, and existing and new data sources including HDInsight/Hadoop (usually via Hive) offers fast time to decision, but you still sometimes need Enterprise BI to add additional value via services such as data curation, data stewardship, collaboration tools, additional security, training, and automation. Add in the powerful new data sources available with Big Data technologies such as HDInsight/Hadoop that can also reduce time to decision and open up all sorts of new opportunities for insight and you have many powerful new areas to explore. Not to mention that Dr. Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics, is one of the keynote speakers!

Read more about my thoughts on Self-Service BI and Big Data in this #PASSBAC guest blog published today: PASS BAC PREVIEW SERIES: SQL Professionals and the World of Self-service BI and Big Data

And sign up for the session I am co-presenting at #PASSBAC with Eduardo Gamez of Intel: How Intel Integrates Self-Service BI with IT for Better Business Results

Take a look at all the information tagged with #PASSBAC and tweeted by @PASSBAC, there are some good blogs, preview sessions, and tidbits being posted. Get your own Twibbon for Twitter, Facebook, or however you want to use it, the Twibbon site will add a ribbon to the picture of your choice:

PASSBA2013Cindy

If you're going to be in Chicago anyway, you might as well stay a few extra days for two nearby SQL Saturdays. The weekend before the conference take a short hop over to Madison, WI for #SQLSAT206 on April 6, 2013 at the Madison Area Tech College. Then head over to the bacon, uhhh, PASS BA CONference April 10-12. Stay one more day in Chicago (technically Addison, IL) for the #SQLSAT211 sessions at Devry. This is a great opportunity for even more SQL Server immersion and networking!

See you at #PASSBAC in Chicago in April!

@SQLCindy

Small Bites of Big Data