Data Saturday Chicago: Travel, Community, and the Power of “Database Crap”. I started writing these notes at the airport on my way home after attending Data Saturday Chicago this weekend. The event itself took place in Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago, hosted at a local college campus. Like many community data events, it brought together people … [Read more…]
You Are the Guide: Why Great Power BI Reports Start With the Decision, Not the DataDecision-first Power BI reporting begins with a simple mindset shift: the audience is the hero, and your job is to guide them from uncertainty to action. The role shift that changes everything In the last post, I made a statement … [Read more…]
Start With the Real Question: Why Good Analytics Begins With the Decision, Not the Data. Start with the decision and your dashboards become clearer, smaller, and more useful. Start with the data, and you often end up with disconnected visuals and slow decisions. The question that derails most analytics projects There’s a single question that … [Read more…]
Are You Catching the Data Wave or Floundering in the Deep?Analytics isn’t about tracking everything. It’s about selecting what should influence behaviour. In 2026, with better tools than ever, the question is simple, are you surfing the data wave, or struggling to stay afloat? Why this matters: we measure too much, and decide too little … [Read more…]
From Data to Insight: Why Meaning Must Be Made ExplicitThere’s a dangerous assumption inside most BI solutions: if we show the numbers clearly enough, the insight will land. It won’t.From data to insight only happens when meaning is made explicit. The invisible gap in most dashboards Think about the typical BI workflow. Collect the data … [Read more…]
Data Overload Is Killing Decision-Making (And More Dashboards Won’t Fix It)We’re not short of data. We’re drowning in it.Every year, organisations collect more information than the year before. More systems. More integrations. More telemetry. More tracking. More metrics. And the default response? Build another dashboard. Add another page. Track another KPI. Create another breakdown. The assumption is simple: … [Read more…]
In the previous post, I made a deliberately provocative claim: Dashboards don’t drive decisions.If you haven’t read that yet, it’s worth starting there, because this post explains why that problem keeps showing up, even in organisations with good data, good tools, and capable analysts.The short answer is this: We keep confusing data, charts, and insight as if … [Read more…]
Why Platforms Like Microsoft Fabric Don’t Fix Broken Data CultureAfter dashboards fail, organisations often reach for a bigger answer. A new platform. A more integrated stack. A promise that this time things will be different. That’s where platforms like Microsoft Fabric come into play. Fabric is powerful. Modern. Well-architected. But it’s also one of the … [Read more…]
A four-part framework for leaders Most data initiatives don’t fail loudly. They stall. Dashboards exist, but confidence is low.Platforms are in place, but value feels elusive.Reporting works, just not quickly enough. From the outside, it looks like a tooling problem. From the inside, it feels like friction everywhere. This series exists to explain why that … [Read more…]
Dataflows Gen2 vs Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric: What’s the Difference? I have been asked this question several times in recent training sessions on Microsoft Fabric, so I jotted some notes down here. Microsoft Fabric brings together the best of Microsoft’s data engineering, data integration, analytics, and AI capabilities into a single unified platform. For … [Read more…]