MSBIC 2008 Day Three

General Session
Slightly better. 
The first half contained an interesting demo of integrating BI with Microsoft's Surface technology.  A perfect example of "thinking bigger about BI", and a magical demo.  I mean that literally, actually.  There are two kinds of conference demos that seem to work particularly well for me, especially when you're shooting for the "wow" factor like you ought to in a General Session.  The first is the "magic show": demo something to the crowd that is creative and amazing.  Something that they can all see with their own eyes is real (not smoke and mirrors) and contains of hints as to what the underlying technology might be - but doesn't explain how any of it works.  It leaves everyone wondering how it was done, and generates a buzz as speculations as to what was under the hood - the Gemini demo is another example.  The second is the Penn and Teller magic show: demo something cool to the crowd, and then show them how you did it.  Of course, this one is more technical, and has to be shorter because you have to leave time to clearly show what's under the covers, and probably repeat the demo with operational commentary.  The Surface demo of water consumption and quality in the Seattle downtown area was a "magic show".  It was very cool, very "real", and it wasn't necessary to expose the insides.  Just showing what is possible to accomplish with today's technology was sufficient.
The second half was the presentation of the awards for BI excellence that Microsoft gives away at these things - but after being bitten twice by self-serving panel love-ins, I'd learned my lesson and left - choosing to keep an hour of my life to use more meaningfully.

High Points of the Day
Quite a few, actually. 

I'd snuck in to the end of Joy Mundy's session on building a Kimball Method Data Warehouse yesterday, and shamelessly promoted my SCD Component.  (Actually, it was uncomfortable to do, but I forced myself - I just assume it must have appeared shameless.)  Being the gracious and curious person Joy is, she indulged me with arranging a time to meet this morning, where we ran through it.  I was very pleased with the positive feedback I got (which in no way will I - or should you - interpret as "approval" by the Kimball Group) - and perhaps even more pleased with the couple tidbits of info on package design I picked up during the conversation.  Thanks, Joy.  If you download it from CodePlex, send bugs straight to me - because yes, you'll find some.

I attended the "Avoiding Common SSAS Mistakes" session, to great effect.  I know now that I will definitely avoid/mitigate the eight or so mistakes I know I would have made, as I'd already made the first two mistakes on Craig Utley's list in my first SSAS forays.  I encourage you to visit Craig's LearnMicrosoftBI site.

And I was so very grateful, relieved, and yes - got some of that old MSBIC 2007 excitement back when the afternoon sessions provided my "business guy" with the "why do BI?" answers I was looking for him to be shown from day one.  We had a brief conversation between the two afternoon sessions, but we both had to run after the last, so more are forthcoming.  Bottom line: I think he "gets it" and is now willing to think about and do what it takes to get our company on the BI track.  I think we will still have to do a little Guerilla BI, but I now have a known ally on the business side to help plan the campaign.

Final Thoughts
I'm afraid that I have to say that the Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference for 2008 was barely worth attending.  It pains me to say that, and even more so to say that I don't plan on going to the 2009 conference, which has already been scheduled for October 6th to 8th next year.  I can really only see myself, or anyone else from my company going if the focus more closely mirrors the 2007 version - Business Value.  And yes, I made detailed and comprehensive suggestions on my eval - because it does appear they listen to those, as all you code-heads ruined this year's conference by your evals last year... just kidding.  You got what you asked for.