Daily Coping 17 Mar 2022

Posted on March 17, 2022 by way0utwest

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to stay fully present while drinking your tea or coffee.

I tried to do this last week at SQL Bits with a few people. I drink a lot of coffee at events, perhaps too much, but at times I’d get a cup and then find someone to chat with. I’d listen and focus on them for the 5-10 minutes we might talk. I’ve found it to be an interesting and helpful way to spend time with people that I see rarely, or those I’ve just met.

I want my energy to be with them, and not be distracted. I try to put my phone in a pocket, and just be with them. This doesn’t always work, but I am trying to be better.

It’s something I enjoy, and I look forward to doing more at future events.

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Power BI Dashboards

Posted on March 16, 2022 by way0utwest

This is part of a series on my preparation for the DP-900 exam. This is the Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals, part of a number of certification paths. You can read various posts I’ve created as part of this learning experience.

I don’t know a lot about Power BI. I’ve lightly hacked and played with it, but it has evolved and changed so quickly that I needed to dig into some concepts.

Power BI Dashboards are a part of what you need to know for this exam. Over the years, I’ve lightly made a few reports, but not dashboards, so this was an area I needed to study up on a bit, especially these concepts.

Dashboard Basics

A dashboard is different from a report. A dashboard is

  • a single page
  • available in the Power BI Service only (not Power BI Desktop)
  • composed of tiles
  • can use data from one or more reports, and more than one dataset
  • one dashboard can be featured
  • supports natural language queries
  • can’t see the underlying data, but can export data

Tile Sources

A tile can be from:

  • a report (a visualization)
  • another dashboard
  • an Excel workbook in OneDrive for business
  • Quick Insights
  • An on-premises paginated report from Power BI Server or SSRS

There can be standalone tiles for  images, text boxes, video, streaming data and web content.

These are a series of facts I think are important to understand about Power BI Dashboards

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The Chief Data Officer

Posted on March 16, 2022 by way0utwest

I don’t know if I’d be a chief, but I am glad that more companies are recognizing that data is one of the most valuable assets in most companies and starting to hire Chief Data Officers (CDO) to manage governance and security projects, as well as oversee data quality and management. With Chief Information Officers (CIO) and Chief Technology Officers (CTO), it appears that technology is becoming a force in the executive ranks.

Most of the companies I’ve worked for only had one chief-anything to do with technology. It seemed that anything to do with computing fell under that individual. Adding a CIO and, now, a CDO shows that there there is a complexity in working with computer systems. The infrastructure and architectures of systems are important, but how we capitalize on information is crucial. I see a CIO as more of a business role than a technology one.

The CDO seems to be a specialist that owns the data and ensures that it is well cared for, protected, and more importantly, managed appropriately. That would include knowing what data we have, how it is classified, how data should be protected, when to dispose of it, and how to assess the risk of keeping data around. It seems like a mix of strategic and tactical areas that a CTO or CIO might be tempted to consider low priority issues.

I think data is one of the most important assets in many companies. We are always searching for ways to better understand our environment and make decisions that improve the way our organization works. We depend on data, and these days data is often something we lean on heavily. We need to protect it, especially as more regulations appear all the time that require us to change how we use and handle data.

I don’t know how many of you have a CDO in your organization, or how quickly this will become common. I do know that the growing importance of the functions of this role are impacting more and more people who deal with data. While they might feel like a pain to adjust to, the more that we pay attention to how data is handled, the better off we all will be.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

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Daily Coping 16 Mar 2022

Posted on March 16, 2022 by way0utwest

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to have a no plans day and notice how that feels.

Incredibly hard for me to do this. I really, really struggle. How so? A little story.

After a volleyball tournament recently, an all day (5am wakeup, arrive by 7, busy until 330p), I got some food and drove home. I got home around 530. As I was close to home, my wife noted that the generator outside wasn’t working right and she was hoping to do a training session with a horse. Mind you, she was with me all day and then needed to go pick up this horse.

I was looking forward to unwinding at night, play a little guitar and rest. Instead, I got out there, dragged a second generator out there, hooked it up, tested lights, then dragged the old one in. I stood in the barn reading for about 20 minutes until she arrived. I explained how things were working, then went inside.

I could have told her we need to let this go for a day, but I didn’t. I had been somewhat productive coaching during the day, but it wasn’t enough. Not for her either.

This weekend I’m going to try this on Sunday. We are visiting our daughter in NY, and I’ll work Friday while she’s in class, and Sat we have plans to watch volleyball and go to a TedX talk.  Sunday, however, I’m not making plans. I want to just see how things go, what my daughter wants to do and just flow with the day. No plans, no worries. If I work out, great. If not, no plans.

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