2014 Year In Review

As is our want, we must look back over the past year to see what happened. While I normally focus on work related items, this year was a crazy year for our family as well as my career. So let’s have a look at what happened this year.

Traveling Family

2014 was a year that saw our family do a bunch of traveling. Although our trips were not all done together, it was travel all over the world. Here are some of our highlights:

• My two oldest children, Kristy and Alex, went on a tour of Italy with the Burnsville High School Band. They saw Venice, Rome, and a few other cities. They were able to perform with the band during that trip.
• Kristy journeyed to Israel with Grace Church right before the missiles started being launched. She was doing a Holy Land tour which she enjoyed a lot. However, as parents, getting a text that said, we left before the missiles landed around Bethlehem did make us a bit nervous.
• Alex worked in an orphanage in Romania. He was significantly impacted with the conditions there and is looking for his opportunity to return and serve some more.
• Andrew and Mikayla went to a town in Indiana for a weeklong trip with Teenserve and our church. They had the opportunity to join teens from around the country and perform repairs and general maintenance for a town in need.
• Alex visited colleges in LA and Lynchburg
• Andrew traveled to Chicago with band and a church group.
• Our entire family enjoyed a true break in Cancun, Mexico. Truly a lot of fun and great downtime.
• We followed the Cancun trip up with a cross country trip to Los Angeles to drop my oldest, Kristy, off at Biola College for her freshman year.
• Andrew and I went to Key West with the Boy Scouts and sailed around the Keys for a week. That was truly enjoyable. I loved being on a boat.
• Sheila and I enjoyed our company Holiday party in the One Ocean Resort in Florida
• We wrapped up the year visiting family for the holidays in Kentucky.

Overall, we were all over the country and even the world. We were blessed to have the opportunities to experience so much this year.

Changing Employers

In the middle of all the travel, I celebrated 10 years at Magenic in March and transitioned to Pragmatic Works in October. I loved working at Magenic. During this year, I came to the realization that I wanted to focus more on data and BI solutions, so I made the move to Pragmatic Works. I enjoy my new company as much as my old one which is very good. Thanks to everyone at both places for supporting me and my career.

More…

This past year, I also contributed to my third book. Hopefully you found it helpful. I also did a first for me this year, I reblogged a post from a friend and fellow Scouter, Jim Larson. His PowerShell work is awesome and I wanted to share it with my readers as well.

Thanks to My Readers

Finally, I wanted to thank all my readers. I appreciate your support. It has been cool to see my readership increase this year. I hope you find value in the technical content here. I look forward to hearing from you or even better, seeing you at SQL Saturdays and other events throughout the year.

Here’s to a great year in 2015!

The Only Constant Is Change

In March of this year, I celebrated 10 years at Magenic. I blogged about it and called out values and reasons for staying (Ten Years and Counting …). Now, I am writing to talk about my departure from Magenic. I can start by saying the decision to leave was neither quick nor easy. As I noted in my previous post, I really liked working at Magenic and still have nothing bad to say about it.

So, let’s get on with it. As of Friday, October 3, 2014, I left Magenic and am starting a new opportunity at Pragmatic Works. It is only fair that I talk about my decision and some of the reasons behind it. In my March blog post, I focused on three areas that kept me at Magenic. For me to make the move I did, I had to see that these three areas must be covered by Pragmatic Works as well. So, being a research type of person, I asked friends who were currently employed at Pragmatic Works and, in particular, one consultant who had also worked at Magenic. Would Pragmatic Works measure up in Family, Opportunity, and Appreciation? Based on what I learned about it, yes. I think both companies provide much of what I look for in these three key areas. So, why the change? After taking some time off, I realized that I wanted to pursue more of Microsoft’s cutting edge BI, data, and cloud technologies. Magenic has always been a cutting edge company, but Microsoft was moving in directions that did not particularly align with what Magenic does in these areas. (For the record, Magenic’s pursuit of Microsoft’s cutting edge application development technologies is excellent.) This is where Pragmatic Works comes in. They do a lot of work with the latest advancements in Azure, Power BI, and SQL Server and which gives me more opportunities to work on those tools to deliver great customer solutions.

The interesting part for me about the entire process is that I truly think I would be happy at either company. With over 10 years of service and over 15 years of history with Magenic, I am sad to go. I have made many friends over the years and I truly enjoyed the opportunities I had to influence people and careers as a Practice Lead. I wish Magenic and the team that I left, only the best. Without Magenic, I would not be where I am today.

That being said, I joined Pragmatic Works because I believe that I will be able to say the same thing about them in 10-15 years.

Thanks to everyone at Magenic for all you have done and the friendships that have been made.

Pragmatic Works team, let’s get started. I am ready to open the next door of my career.

Ten Years and Counting …

On March 8, 2014, I reached ten years of service at Magenic Technologies. When I started in 1999 (don’t do the math just yet), Magenic had only been around a few years and it was my first consulting job. I stayed at Magenic for about 5 1/2 years. During that time, I went from an application development consultant in Visual Basic to a Business Intelligence Architect specializing in SQL Server Analysis Services and MDX.

At that point in my career, I was beginning to travel more and take on a much larger leadership role as Magenic was growing beyond that first office in Minneapolis, MN. I went to work for one our customers, XATA Corporation, as their Data Architect. For the next 4 1/2 years I learned a lot about transportation management and how important data was in that area. (My Twitter handle and domain name, DataOnWheels, was established during this time.) I also learned what it meant to live with your code and architecture after the consultant left. While at XATA, I continued to be involved in the SQL Server community which was very helpful for the next step.

There came a time in my stint at XATA, that it was clear that it was time for me to move on. I started the process of looking at what was available in the market. When I went to Magenic’s career site, I found that my job or its nearest equivalent was available. I called Carole Cuthbertson, “V-mom”, and asked about coming back. We had lunch a week later and the transition back to Magenic was set in motion. (So, if you leave a company you like for good reasons, never burn bridges! You might want to go back.)

When I told my wife that I was going back, she was glad I was. This kind of surprised me as I had been doing a lot of traveling before I left. She noted that I was happier working at Magenic which was better for our family. That was the final push I needed and I returned to Magenic. As I come up on this anniversary, I am really at great point in my career. I truly enjoy being a Practice Lead at Magenic and still consider it a a great place to work.

I recently was talking with a customer who pointed out that communicating ideas with 3 points is very effective. Ironically, I probably should have known that from all of the ministry training I went through. So, I thought I would conclude this post with the three reasons why I enjoy working for Magenic.

1. Family

As I noted above, my wife was happy when I went back to Magenic. What I realized is that no matter how hard it got, Magenic would do what they could to help your family while you worked for them. I realize that everyone’s experience is different, but I saw them work with consultants who were going through tough times with their family.

During my first couple of years there, I lost both of my maternal grandparents over two successive Christmases. I was close to my grandparents so when the news came, I still remember Tim Wold, my project manager and Magenic’s employee #1, telling me to go take care of my family and he would work out the details on his end. That was characteristic of management and leaders throughout my time here. Family matters to the owners, Greg Frankenfield and Paul Fridman, and that is carried through to the company.

My family has always been treated very well and they enjoy participating at the various events that the company has had from the Christmas party to the summer picnics.

2. Opportunity

When I joined Magenic, I had no idea what it meant to be a consultant. With mentoring and coaching, I was able to grow from a consultant to a practice lead. I am a technical leader in the company and have been able to expand my career throughout the years with their help. One of the biggest career changes was moving from application development to business intelligence. This has significantly shaped my career today in ways I would have never thought 15 years ago. During my time there, I was also encouraged to give back both internally and externally. This has opened up some great opportunities through the years.

3. Appreciation

Appreciation can take on a couple of different forms. Of course, being paid to do what you love is awesome! Even better when it pays well. However, there is more to appreciation than the paycheck. Magenic has an interesting culture which I had to learn through the years. Because we are hired to go and work at customer sites, it was not always known what or how we were doing. Magenic is a place where you can and should speak up about what your doing. While seeming counterintuitive and self serving at times, letting managers and other leaders know what I was doing, paid dividends for my career. Just as importantly, they were able to understand more about what was going on.

To me and my experience with Magenic, these are 3 key reasons that I returned and stay today. I am now in a place in my career where I need to give recognition to those whom it is due more than receive it. I have the opportunity to impact others in their careers and to help Magenic continue to grow.

I encourage all of you who read this to look at where you work. What is the culture like? Do you like what you do? Can you see yourself there in 5, 10, 15 years? Keep your core values in mind as you seek to change companies or careers. If you have had a job move conversation with me, I have likely told you something like “The grass is always greener on the other side, but a lot times it’s because of the manure.”

2013 – A Year In Review

It is in our nature as humans to look back in order to understand where we have been.

Warning – some of this blog contains stuff about my family… In case you only want the technical stuff.

Family Fun

This past year has been very interesting for me personally and professionally. In the past year, my youngest, Mikayla, has entered Junior High officially taking our family out of elementary schools. Mikalya joined me at the SQL Saturday event in Omaha. At the same time, my oldest, Kristyna, is now a senior at Burnsville Senior High School. Both of my boys, Alex a junior and Andrew a freshman, are both taller than me and staying active. Alex joined us at the Minnesota SQL Saturday and did a lot of volunteering. Andrew probably had the best event of all as he joined me at SQL Saturday in Fargo. There he got to see Bill Gates in person. I am proud of all of them, they are great kids. This was also the year I celebrated 20 years with the woman I love, Sheila. Without her support, I would not have been able to get this far in my career as well. Yep, it has been a busy year personally. Soon there will be lots of college, marriage, and maybe even grandkids. Wow, I must be getting old.

Magenic and the Server Development Practice

2013 is my first full year as a Practice Lead at Magenic. I started out as the Practice Lead for our Business Intelligence and Data Practice. In August, my role expanded to include SharePoint, Biztalk, and TFS. This allows us to focus server technologies at Magenic. Along  the way, I have had to learn a lot about VMs (still a work in progress). I really enjoy working with the pros across the company that we have. We some very talented BI, SharePoint and BizTalk consultants including a few virtual TSPs in SQL Server, Business Intelligence, and BizTalk.

During this past year, I have traveled around the country to consult, to speak, and to meet customers. I have had the privilege of speaking at multiple SQL Saturdays, Modern Apps Live, SQL Live, and Code Mastery events. It has been fun. I almost made it to all of our offices including the locations we opened this year. I made it to Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, Charlotte, Boston, New York City, and San Francisco. Still need to get out to Los Angelos and Manila.

While it has been hard at times, the travel experience has been good overall. I try to keep my speaking engagements up to date, maybe I will see some of you next year.

This year I also authored outside of the blog. Chuck Whittemore (The Insight Analyst) and I coauthored a white paper on Leading with Excel: The Changing World of Business Intelligence. This was a fun project where we bring together Microsoft Excel and Microsoft BI in a real world way. We continue to successfully work this strategy with our customers and it was the impetus for my Excel BI Tips blog post series. I also had the privilege to coauthor a book that is just being released: SQL Server Analysis Services 2012 Cube Development Cookbook by Packt Publishing. This the third book I have worked on and it has been a while since was last published so this was a good experience for me. I still don’t know if I would take an entire project on, but maybe someday.

This year wraps up with me becoming a virtual TSP with Microsoft to further support their efforts with SQL Server and Business Intelligence in the marketplace.

One other thing that has been interesting for me is that with the release of Power Pivot and SQL Server Analysis Services Tabular Model, I am seeing a huge shift in how I work with and sell BI. I have always worked with cubes, but now I see the in-memory space as a more compelling and leading edge solution that will continue to change what my career will look like. While I had a lot of fun being a cube and MDX wizard, the ability to deliver results to business users in a timely fashion with great visualizations is actually more fun. The more things change …

Happy New Year!

I hope you and your family had much to look back and celebrate this year. I thank God for the blessings of a great company to work for and an awesome family to be with.

The Changing World of BI, A New White Paper for Magenic

In the ever changing landscape that is Business Intelligence (or is that Business Analytics?), a fellow business analyst from Magenic, Chuck Whittemore (B), and I authored a white paper based on our experiences over the past months.

What I think makes our work unique, a BI architect and a business analyst came together to show our worlds colliding in the age of modern BI tools.  While the goal has always been to bring the data to the users and let them work with it as creatively as possible, the tools to do this were IT focused.  What we see now is that with the advent of in-memory, client-side BI tools, users are now able to get to this on their own.  Microsoft has invested heavily in Excel to make it a first-class BI tool.  Our paper discusses this disruptive nature of the new tools and how Excel is being pushed to the next level.  After all, Excel is everywhere already.

Enjoy the read and I welcome your feedback.

The Changing World of Business Intelligence: Leading with Microsoft Excel