Fifteenth Blog Birthday

Every year, on the anniversary of the first-ever post on this blog, I write a post summarising my thoughts on what’s happening in the world of Microsoft BI and what I’m up to professionally.

This year has seen bigger changes than most: in June I closed down my company, gave up being self-employed after thirteen years and took a job at Microsoft. I’m pleased to say that I don’t regret this decision at all and I’m really enjoying my new job. The work is more interesting (as a Power BI fanboy, what could be better than working for the Power BI team?), my colleagues are great, I’m travelling a lot less and as a result I’m feeling a lot more healthy and relaxed and I’m able to spend more time with my family. I am earning a bit less but overall there’s no question that going to Microsoft has been a change for the better. I’m not surprised that so many MVPs are doing the same thing these days: Microsoft is a great place to work right now.

The thing is that even after explaining my reasons I still get asked by people why I moved, as if I’m hiding something, because it seems the opposite of what most people hope to do – it’s a bit like the famously boring British Prime Minister of the 1990s, John Major, who as a child ran away from the circus to become an accountant. I guess there are a lot of people who dream about leaving corporate culture behind to be a freelancer. Now don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my previous life, but although freelancing has its benefits it’s not all great and there are many positives about working for a big company as well; I’m particularly happy that I don’t have to chase unpaid invoices any more, for example. One of these days I should really get round to writing about my experiences and how it’s possible to make a living as an independent Power BI consultant and trainer, to help anyone who’s interested in making the the jump to self-employment…

One last thing to reflect on is what I’ve learned in my first six months at Microsoft. I don’t think I know Power BI in any more depth than before I joined – it turns out there is no secret store of inside information that you get access to when you join the team – and all the PMs and devs that I used to bother with my questions before answer my questions with the same level of detail now. It just goes to show how well we treat our MVPs and customers! I do think I have a much broader understanding of how Power BI works and its architecture, though, and I now have a longer list of PMs and devs who I can ask questions. I also have a much better appreciation for how difficult some features are to implement and how tricky it is to prioritise features; next time you get frustrated at the lack of a particular feature in Power BI you can be reassured by the thought that it’s almost certain that someone on the team already knows about the issue and is working on it. Blogging is easier in some ways and more difficult in others: as I said, I now have more access to interesting information but not all of it is bloggable or indeed useful to anyone outside Microsoft, and there are things that I would have blogged about in the past that I won’t write about now (this is a good example) because they aren’t really intended for use by customers or practices that should be encouraged. Finally, getting to work on some of the biggest, most complex Power BI implementations in the world is an eye-opener. Sure, I used to get to work with customers who were doing interesting things before but the customers I work with now are at a different level, and from a technical point of view it’s really exciting.

So yes, life is good and I’m looking forward to 2020 and all the great things that planned for Power BI next year. Thanks for reading!