Community

I’m in Mechelen for DataMinds Connect, one of my favourite events, bringing the latest iteration of Digital Snake Oil: Data Literacy in a World of Easy Answers. Sponsor booths sold out in two minutes. The competition for speaking slots is fierce. There’s clearly something here people want to be part of. This year feels particularly special, though. I’ve been mentoring Marilou Puissant as she prepares her first conference session, and I can’t wait for her to have that room.

Every data conference has the same problem: the most valuable conversations happen in the hallway, but try explaining that to the boss approving your travel budget. Meanwhile, we expect speakers to deliver 50 to 100 hours of unpaid preparation, then upload their work to YouTube. The comparison is always ‘why can’t you just watch it online?’ I think we need to rethink how events are structured. Build the hallway track into the programme. Make the interaction worth the flight.

I’m heading to Barcelona for FabCon Europe, and this year I’m attending without a session of my own. That changes the rhythm of the trip. More time to follow conversations with product teams, listen to other speakers, and work out which Fabric developments actually deserve attention. I’ll be gathering material for Knee-Deep in Tech Topics and exploring what the announcements really mean for practitioners. Also: finally visiting Barcelona, which is a substantial bonus. If you’re there, come say hello.

My Data Platform MVP renewed for another year, nearly a decade now. I should feel celebratory. Mostly I feel like I owe somebody money. Because none of it was mine to begin with. Every door was opened by someone who didn’t have to. But the compact that built this community, where you give it away and trust it comes back around, I’m not sure it holds anymore. We built the library. Someone else started charging admission.

Years ago, fear kept me silent about bad actors in tech. Now stepping away from Data Weekender after organizers kept a speaker with documented harmful behavior. Safety demands action, not just codes of conduct. No longer afraid to speak out.

I just had an absolute blast presenting at the Data Platform Discovery Days - both the European and the US edition! For the US edition I presented “Azure Machine Learning for the Absolute Beginner”, a session looking at machine learning in general, walking through Azure Machine Learning and giving several examples of machine learning in action - in both expected and unexpected places! The European edition asked for “Building an Empire - Implementing Power BI Step by Step”, a session on Power BI, datasets and dataflows.