Leonard's Blog

The Black Swan

2013-05-01T10:35:07+00:00

Last month I finished reading one of the worst-written books I have ever read: The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

While the book was very poorly written, the message itself was interesting to me and therefore worthy of a blog post.

Essentially, Taleb warns against trying to predict the future in certain circumstances, particularly when the magnitude of an event is more important than the event itself.

The example he returns to throughout the book is the stock market: it doesn't matter whether the stock market gains or loses tomorrow. What matters more is how much it gains or loses. If the stock market gains each day for 2 years straight, that sounds great. If, tomorrow, half the value of the stock market is wiped out, then that event would dwarf the significance of the previous 2 years of gains.

So, essentially, in situations where the magnitude of a rare event is unlimited in its potential to devastate, you can't sit back and say "Well, that's so rare I'm not going to worry about it". Floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, epidemics, wars, the global economy: just because something hasn't happened in the last 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, 100 years or even 1000 years doesn't mean that it won't happen tomorrow, or in 2 years, 5 years or 10 years. Don't bet everything on a rare event not happening.

Taleb does also talk about positive rare events and positioning yourself to take advantage of them. However, a corollary to his main message is that you can't bet everything on a rare event happening either. These two pieces of advice don't quite jive for me. For example, his suggestion is not to have your entire retirement portfolio invested in stocks (where you're 100% exposed to the global economy), but rather to lock the majority of your savings away in "safe" assets (such as cash), and use the rest to make high-risk high-return bets. The first part of his strategy certainly hedges against a devastating loss, but the 2nd part requires a certain amount of predicting when & where a positive rare event will occur. Given his message is that you can't predict negative rare events, so hedge against them, I'm not sure how you're realistically supposed to predict positive rare events. (My guess is that, if you make 500 bets and only 1 of them benefits from a positive rare event, the magnitude of the gain from that rare event is supposed to dwarf the losses/lack of gain across the rest of your portfolio).

As an IT professional, the message of this book struck me as very relevant. It's basically a reminder to do backups, to have off-site storage, to drive safely and to seek shelter when the tornado sirens go off. Just because a tornado/fire/flood has never destroyed my house before doesn't mean that it won't tomorrow.

As a data professional, the message was also relevant. Often I'm asked to show trend lines or use predictive modelling to understand how things might look if the current trend continues. Taleb clearly warns against both of these practices: just because something looks rosy for 2 years straight doesn't mean something terrible won't happen tomorrow. (And likewise, just because something looks terrible for 2 years straight doesn't mean something great won't happen tomorrow). The magnitude of future events is more important than historic trends.

Indeed, Taleb suggests I should be more concerned when data shows no volatility, regardless of the trend. Humans gravitate towards stability: the more the stock market (or house prices) go up, the more people think of them as a good investment and buy into them. If something that has the potential to be highly volatile is stable, a red flag should go up. While stability is nice (if sales are increasing nicely each year, it makes it easy to know what to plan for next year), it's also lulling. What if sales don't increase 5% next year? What if they increase 50%? What if they fall 50%? As a company, I would want to be able to hedge against one and be able to take advantage of the other. The long-term viability of the company depends far more on that than on anything the historic trends can say.

SQL Saturday Chicago Presentation

2013-04-29T14:06:49+00:00

Earlier this month I had the honour of presenting on Power View at SQL Saturday Chicago. It went very well: I had a good turnout including quite a few other speakers who showed up to support me. Afterwards I got lots of positive comments (all 4s and 5s on my evaluations). I was much better prepared than when I spoke in Madison the week before (not being an event organizer helps a lot!). It was my first experience as a guest speaker at an out of state event and the organizers and volunteers were very welcoming.

SQL Saturday Minnesota has now been announced and is coming up in October. I'm going to wait a little while to see if I have an appetite to submit a session or if I want to attend without speaking. Speaking is a lot of work but at the same time, SQL Saturday's are only as good as the speakers who submit.

In the meantime, I will be presenting at MADPASS in June on self-service Business Intelligence from the perspective of the end-user. I'll primarily be talking about pivot tables and the power they bring: I know when I first heard of a cube, I didn't understand why they were so powerful and even at Trek, a lot of people who could get a lot of information out of pivot tables still choose to rely on someone else to build them reports. I have work to do!

SQL Saturday 206 Recap

2013-04-07T11:50:57+00:00

SQL Saturday Madison 2013 was a roaring success. I'm not quite sure what we did right, but we did it!

A key moment for me was right around 8.35am. I was talking to Tony at the registration desk when suddenly a huge number of people all walked in the door at the same time (at least 20-30). Both Tony & I were like "Uh oh, we'd better stop talking and help out because this could get ugly". 2 minutes later, the entire crowd had been sent on their way to breakfast, goody bags in hand. I was stunned. It was a level of efficiency even I wasn't expecting and I had barely done anything.

Of course, that level of awesomeness doesn't just happen. It was the combination of the efforts of a large number of people: especially Gina who organized the putting together of the goody bags the previous night, helped set up the registration table in the morning, printed instructions for everyone to follow and made sure the volunteers knew what to do. Tony helped massively, supplying laptops and printers and working tirelessly to make sure they all talked to each other. The registration desk volunteers (Katie, Matt, Jackie and Jim) were all fantastic.

And overall the event just went so well. I can't begin to list everything Jes did to make it such a success. Before the event Jes recruited sponsors, organized the catering, found speakers plus managed the budget and led our weekly planning meetings. During the event, Jes, more than anyone, has this amazing ability to make everyone feel welcome and important. She did both the opening and closing addresses, stopped by every session and was continuously making sure everyone had what they needed.

My thanks to every single speaker, volunteer and sponsor for making the entire event so successful.

My Own Experience

Not only was I on the organizing team, but this year I decided to speak. This was my first SQL Saturday as a speaker, and my first presentation longer than 30 minutes. I was under-prepared, and I spent much of the day in last minute preparations.

The presentation itself went ok. I would rate myself as a 3 out of 5. On the positive side, I never went blank. I had content to show and I showed it. The audience were laughing. Only one person fell asleep. I got primarily 4s and 5s on my evaluations (one 3) and the comments were all positive. By all external accounts, it was a roaring success and I should be very proud of myself.

However, I know I can do better. I did a number of things wrong. Primarily, I didn't do a full dress rehearsal. I rehearsed in that I knew what I wanted to say, but I never ran through it all to feel it out. As a result, my presentation was not tightly packaged. It was a first draft. I had too much content and it was more a stream of thoughts than a coherent message. About 15 minutes into my presentation, I realized I had spent a ton of time pointing out every little flaw in the product and not spent much time focusing on the value it brings (especially to businesses without any BI at all). If I had rehearsed, I would have known that and I would have tweaked it. I also ran out of time at the end, and blurted out key points without clearly explaining them.

Essentially, there's two parts to a presentation. First, there's the work. You have to have stuff to say, you have to have demos and examples and points on slides. Then, there's the presentation itself. You have to present it well. I did #1. I failed to do #2.

If this was the entirety of my first SQL Saturday speaking experience, I might be tempted to give up on public speaking. It's a lot of work to pull off an hour long technical presentation (and I have a TON of respect for those speakers who do it well). I'm a little disillusioned, and the thought of doing it all again doesn't excite me right now. However, for better or for worse, I'm committed to do the same presentation again next week at SQL Saturday Chicago.

Of course, it won't be the same presentation. Next week, it will be well rehearsed. It will be tightly packaged. I've already taken out ⅓ of my slides and 2 of my demos, so I get right to the heart of my message. I want to pull off a presentation that I could honestly rate 5 out of 5 stars. I'm getting back on the horse and, with a bit of luck, I hope to walk out of SQL Saturday Chicago feeling alive, like I've just accomplished something truly awesome, that I did the best job I could and that, just maybe, public speaking is something I want to do again.

Not a do-over. But a 2nd chance.

The SQL Triple Play

2013-03-25T13:09:49+00:00

This April, I'm one of a lucky handful of people who get to enjoy the SQL Triple Play: SQL Saturday Madison on April 6th, PASS Business Analytics Conference on April 10th-12th and SQL Saturday Chicago on April 13th. Yes, you read that right: 4 days of SQL Server training in 8 days.

Plus I'm not just going to these events. I'm helping organize SQL Saturday Madison 2013 and I'll be speaking at both SQL Saturday Madison and SQL Saturday Chicago (the first 2 times I've even spoken at a SQL Saturday).

SQL Saturday Madison 2013

I'm shocked at how well the planning for SQL Saturday Madison has gone this year. After our debut last year, I was expecting it to be a little more toned down this year (less money, less speakers, less attendees). In fact, the event is set to be equally as well attended and we have some really great speakers lined up on the entire gamut of SQL Server technologies. We have a free breakfast (including coffee, sodas and juices), a full lunch (for $10), some great raffle prizes and more.

In terms of organization, I have to give a special shout-out to Jes Borland, whose energy and enthusiasm is what brought the SQL Saturday brand to Wisconsin and kept it here. Also, Gina Meronek who has the thankless job of finding enough volunteers to ensure the event goes smoothly. Ted Krueger for helping us with the speaker selection & scheduling. Tony Sebion for helping with the social side of the event, plus getting the technology for early morning check-in to run smoothly. Finally Gill Rowley and Steve Novoselac for their support. Putting together an event like SQL Saturday is hard work and takes a lot of time, but in our case many hands are making light work.

PASS Business Analytics Conference

I'm excited for this conference. It'll be smaller & more focused than the annual PASS Summit, which I went to in 2011. I know a number of the speakers and attendees, and I'm looking forward to meeting more people I know from blogs or on Twitter that I haven't yet met.

I still have to figure out what sessions I want to go to. I will likely do a mix of sessions: it's always good to understand what other companies are doing in the world of Business Analytics (maybe there's something we're not doing that we should be). It's also good to see what's new & coming on the technology side, so I'll be paying attention to speakers who might be in the know. Plus it doesn't hurt to learn how to do things myself.

SQL Saturday Chicago 2013

This will be the first time I've attended a SQL Saturday as a speaker (vs an organizer or an attendee). I've always seen SQL Saturday Chicago as "the" blueprint for SQL Saturday, so I was very honoured when I was invited to speak. I'll likely attend as many sessions as I can as my presentation is not until the end of the day.

How ready is my presentation? Well, with 6 days before SQL Saturday Madison I should be doing final rehearsals. Let's just say I'm not. And on that note, I have some work to do...

Are you doing the triple play? Or the lesser, but still respectable double play? Let me know!

PS: No, I wouldn't recognize a triple play in baseball if I saw one.

Negative Filtering in Power View

2013-03-19T03:37:30+00:00

My last post on Power View was about a flaw, so this week I'm going to be more positive and write about something Power View does well: negative filtering.

Filtering is usually a straight forward need. You have a list of states and you only want to see Utah. With Excel pivot tables filters and with Power View filters it's as simple as checking the box next to Utah.

What happens if you have more than 50 items to choose from? Let's say, instead of 50 states, you have 50,000 account numbers.

After 10,000 items, the list gets so long that Excel can't display every single option in a list with a check box. Luckily, in both Excel and Power View, you can search for what you want to filter on.

Example of searching for an item to filter in Excel: type in what you want to filter in the search box at the top and then select what you want to filter to.

What if you want to filter more than 1 item out of a list of 50,000 account numbers? Here, the job gets harder. In Excel, you can search for each item in turn and check the box "Add current selection to filter". This works alright if you only have a few items to filter on. If there's more than that, you'll want OLAP PivotTable Extensions (which allows you paste in a list of items to filter on).

Now for the $65 million dollar question: what if you want to select everything BUT a handful of account numbers? Here's where it gets tricky. In Excel, unless the account numbers you want to de-select are in the top 10,000, you're out of luck. Even OLAP PivotTable Extensions doesn't work in this scenario.

Power View, however, handles this challenge with aplomb. You 'Select All' in your filter, then search for the item you want to de-select and de-select it. You can search again for each item you want to de-select.

Example of filtering on everything but an item in Power View. First, select all and type in your search term. Press enter. Then de-select the item you want to exclude. The filter will automatically update to exclude that item. Repeat step 2 as needed.

Where this came up for me was in performance metrics: a manager wanted to exclude a handful of accounts that were known exceptions from counting against his employee's monthly performance metrics. While not something you'd want to do very often, it's was good to have an end-user tool that was up to the challenge.

Windows Phone

2013-03-11T11:53:43+00:00

I upgraded my phone this month: from an iPhone 4 to a Windows Lumia 920. I was a little bit nervous making the transition, but so far I'm very happy and have not looked back.

I know that the iPhone 5 is vastly better than the iPhone 4, but I wasn't convinced that it was better enough to justify the $200 price difference over a Windows phone. So, anyway, here's my comparison about what I like and miss.

What I like

Primarily, my favourite part of Windows Phone 8 is the user interface (see picture). I love the live tiles. My main complaint about iOS was how awful it looked. Of course the touch-screen user interface was pioneering when the first iPhone came out, but now it looks blocky. I hated that there were certain icons I couldn't hide - I put them all in the same folder on the 3rd screen, but still they were there. In Windows Phone 8, I can unpin whatever I like from the start menu, but still be able to access it in the application list.

I also love Kid's Corner. There was nothing like this on the iPhone, so when I gave my phone to my son, there was always a risk of him making a phone call or deleting an application. With Kid's Corner, my son has no access to the main parts of my phone such as where calls are made. (One exception: he can switch off the phone and when it switches back on, it doesn't default back to Kid's Corner - he has to swipe to it). Bonus: In addition to being able to choose what applications my son can see, I can also add playlists of his music from iTunes. My son loves controlling the music in my car (via bluetooth) from my phone, and I can drive safe in the knowledge that he isn't calling 911. Now on the drive home I get asked "Would you like to listen to Lion King again?" and when I invariably say "I would love nothing more", my son lines it up for me.

Family Room. At first I thought Family Room was a bit of a gimmick. But, since my wife & I have the same phone now, it's actually turning out to be really useful. My favourite part: the "notes" section, which is essentially a OneNote document on Skydrive shared with your family. In one click, I was able to persuade my wife to start using OneNote. We have a shared shopping list that we can add to at any time, plus other OneNotes for vacation plans, upgrades we want to make to the house, etc.

OneNote. I love OneNote. I've loved it for a long-time. I already saved my OneNotes (except my work related ones) in Skydrive. So the fact I can open these OneNotes seamlessly on my phone was a big plus. The OneNote application on my iPhone never worked quite right: it spent a lot of time syncing, it took a while for changes to show up, I couldn't paste into it and indeed I couldn't really update it from my phone. The OneNote application on Windows Phone has none of these problems.

Office & Skydrive. I was not a big user of Skydrive before, but now my phone integrates seamlessly with it. I can store the documents I have as the board member for my condo association in Skydrive, and if I get surprised by a question, I can pull up our budget in Excel or the latest letter we sent in Word right on my phone, and know that I have the absolute latest version. I can't wait for Sharepoint file storage to be this smooth.

Wi-fi sharing. One reason I upgraded this month is because next month I'll be doing 2 presentations that require an internet connection. There's nothing worse than a presentation sinking because your internet connection is poor or non-existent. Being able to connect my laptop to my 4G data plan for a few minutes is a good backup solution.

Syncing with iTunes. The Windows Phone interface for syncing your music & photos is much faster than the iTunes one. I hated syncing with iTunes on the iPhone. It was slow; sometimes it didn't recognize when the phone was connected. ITunes is great for managing my music, but not for anything else. (Downside: I can't rate songs on my phone and sync them back to iTunes). I also love that any photos I take save automatically to Skydrive. My iPhone has 6 months of photos I haven't yet synced to iTunes.

Backups. I initially bought a refurbished phone, thinking it would be just as good for 10% of the price. It wasn't. The battery drained 10% an hour even when off. The phone crashed several times an hour. Wi-fi sharing didn't work. I returned it and got a new phone instead. I was nervous about re-setting everything up. I didn't have to be. Windows Phone had saved all the applications I had installed (but not the data) and re-installed them for me. It had even saved my photos and text messages and restored those too. The only thing I had to reconfigure was my start screen.

Operating System Updates. So far I've updated my Windows operating system twice. Both times were seamless - the phone reset and was out of action for about 5 minutes then came back on. With iOS, I stopped doing updates. They would download over iTunes, then I had to sync them. It was always a big ordeal: the most recent time wiped out my phone, requiring a restore. Except iTunes had deleted my last good backup and replaced it with backups of my phone after my phone was wiped. Very helpful.

Contacts. Windows Phone automatically created contacts for everyone I'm connected with on Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook. It also automatically recognised and linked people's LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter accounts for me. At first this sounds nightmarish - why would anyone want contacts in their phone that they don't call? But I actually like it. For starters, I can go to the contact page of my boss and see his latest tweets, LinkedIn posts and Facebook messages in one place, along with the history of any messages/calls we've exchanged. When, as an organizer of SQL Saturday, I got the phone numbers of the other 6 SQL Saturday organizers, I found 2 of the numbers were already in my phone (picked up from Facebook). The other organizers were already in my phone as contacts (complete with profile photo) and all I had to do was add their number. So much easier than creating a new contact from scratch for each person.

What I miss

Navigation. There is only one good navigation tool I've found (the Nokia one - thanks to @virtualolympus for pointing it out to me). However, there's no Waze, no Google maps. I miss both of those applications.

I don't like the Facebook application. It's beautiful, but it's not as smooth. On the website, I've hidden updates from certain people because they post a lot and I'm not interested in reading everything they have to say, but I don't want to de-friend them. The mobile application on Windows Phone doesn't respect that hiding at all.

Google Search. I hate that the search button on the Windows Phone defaults to Bing with no option to change it. In the browser you can set your default search to Google, but not the main search button. I'm not the biggest fan of Bing.

Orientation Lock. Sometimes I'm lying down when I'm looking at my phone. Using my Windows phone when lying down is next to impossible. Every time you switch between apps, the orientation flips and you have to reset it (or get used to reading sideways).

Wi-fi prompting. It seems the iPhone and Android are better at letting you know there are available wi-fi networks. Windows Phone, not so much.

Live Tiles. Not all applications have Live Tiles. Some applications have Live Tiles, and they look pretty in screenshots, but they're actually not that dynamic (e.g. I would expect social media live tiles to be flashing by recent posts - Facebook just shows me my own cover photo, Twitter & Yammer don't have live tiles).

Privacy. Who even knows what Microsoft (and others) are tracking about me. They know where my phone is (and therefore where I am), who my contacts are on every social network, what I'm searching for, what websites I'm visiting, what photos I'm taking, what emails I'm sending (at least from Hotmail), what documents I'm storing (on Skydrive), what notes I'm taking (in OneNote), what text messages I'm exchanging and what applications I install. As someone who works in a data-driven company, I know the chances are they're not doing anything with this data. But still, I'm aware that I'm really not that aware of how much they're collecting and what they might know.

Overall, I like the Windows Phone a lot. I liked my iPhone too, but Apple would have to come out with something truly revolutionary (and desirable - i.e. not Siri) if they are to woo me back at their premium prices.

If there's one piece of advice I can give to you (regardless of what phone you have): avoid storing information in one-off applications on your phone. Stick with applications that sync to the internet (cloud) in some way. That way, you can easily switch phones and still get access to all your data. On my iPhone, I had a few "notes" applications that didn't sync to the cloud - now all those notes are locked away in my phone. Everything else (Facebook, OneNote, LastPass, GoodReads, Kindle) transitioned quite smoothly.

I’m Speaking Part II

2013-03-04T14:10:41+00:00

As I said in an earlier blog post, next month I'll be speaking at both SQL Saturday Madison and SQL Saturday Chicago on Power View.

This will be the first year that I've ever spoken at a SQL Saturday. I'm a little bit nervous. While I've done public speaking before (such as at MADPASS), SQL Saturday is on a different scale. My first ever SQL Saturday was in Chicago and I remember being incredibly impressed by the size of the event and the quality of the speakers. This year is no different: the session schedule reads like a 'Who's Who" of industry leaders, followed by little old me. I'm especially nervous about Chicago because it's a much bigger event than Madison and it's coming the day after the PASS Business Analytics Conference.

So, here's my top 10 things I'm worried about:

I'm sick - this is possibly my biggest worry: that everything is all set for a great presentation and then I can't deliver it

I go blank - this is never fun when you're standing in front of a room full of people. And, in my experience, the more I try to think about what I should be saying next, the more my brain says "You're going blank, you're going blank, don't go blank, don't go blank" on repeat 400 times

My voice doesn't carry - it's easy to get into a presentation, talk and talk and assume everything is going great, only to learn afterwards that no-one could hear me

I have something on my face, or I find out my fly is unzipped - I don't know what's worse: not knowing the entire presentation, or someone pointing it out and then having to take care of the problem in front of a room full of people staring at me

The internet doesn't work or my computer crashes - Power View maps requires an internet connection to look good. I'm planning to test tethering to my phone as a backup option. But, I've seen the blue screen of death in Windows 8 and it would be just my luck to demonstrate it mid-way through my talk

I lose my slides or mess something up at the last minute - it would be typical of me to make a last minute change to a demo, and then have that one small alteration cause the entire demo to burn & crash

People turn up - while I'd like a few people to turn up, I've seen SQL Saturday sessions where the room is packed wall-to-wall. That would be a big step up from an audience of 20

I say "um" too much - easy to do, but, um, hard to stop

Someone argues with me or asks a crazy question - I'm not the strongest when dealing with disruptive audience members - I have to remember to be firmer about taking things offline

I forget names - I'm terrible with names. I'm never sure which is worse: being completely blank on someone who insists they know me, or thinking I know someone and then finding out I've never actually met them before (the evil downside of Twitter)

Of course, nervousness isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's compelling me to prepare my presentation well in advance and make sure it's as polished as it can be. It's encouraging me to take precautions (such as backing up my files and having a backup internet connection). But, being confident about my presentation in the light of day doesn't stop me waking up at 3am in a cold sweat wondering what the heck I was thinking.

Drilling & Filtering

2013-02-25T11:55:28+00:00

Two of the design principles behind the user interface of Microsoft Power View are "Choose the right default, by default" and "Easy for the user, hard on us". There's one place where Power View falls flat on both counts.

Every chart or map in Power View is interactive. If you single-click on a particular column (e.g. Japan), the rest of the Power View will automatically filter to Japan. This sets Power View apart: it's so easy to do and very intuitive.

Charts and maps in Power View also allow you to add multiple attributes to the same axis. For example, say you add first state and then city to your axis (see right hand side of screenshot below to see how this is done). Your chart will first show you the numbers by state. You can then double-click and Power View drills in to the next level (in this case city). Again, it's a really cool feature that allows you to start looking at high level numbers and then drill up and down to explore the data and see more detail.

What is not intuitive is that, when drilling down in this way, Power View does not filter the rest of the sheet. Take a look at the example screenshot. In the column chart on the right, I have double-clicked to drill down into Oklahoma, so I'm only seeing cities in Oklahoma on my column chart. I would expect, having done this, that the chart on the left is filtered and also only includes data from Oklahoma. However, this is not the case. While the chart on the right is filtered to Oklahoma, all the other data on my Power View remains unfiltered.

A dashboard of sales in Oklahoma. Or is it?

This behavior is the same whether I'm drilling on a chart or a map. I built a dashboard of tornado touchdowns by state, with a little table underneath highlighting the deadliest tornado. If I drill into Colorado, I would expect the data in my table to change to show me the deadliest tornado in Colorado, not to continue showing me a tornado in Missouri.

A map of tornadoes in Colorado. Note that the deadliest tornado listed underneath is in Missouri (many miles away).

Even though this is not technically a bug, it isn't easy or intuitive for the end user so I hope that this gets fixed in an upcoming update.

I’m Speaking

2013-02-18T14:32:13+00:00

This April I'll be speaking at 2 different SQL Saturday events: first in Madison on April 6th and then the following week in Chicago. I'll be talking about Power View.

What motivated me to submit to speak? I've been to a lot of different Power View demonstrations and each time the focus has been on everything it can do, and less on how to put it to good use. When I first started out using Power View, I was tripped up a lot because my dashboards lacked the slick interactivity and moving bubbles that so often feature in demonstrations.

I quickly realized that the problem wasn't the tool, but rather how I was using it. I couldn't simply throw a bunch of unrelated charts on the page and wait for the miracle to happen: there's a technique to designing a good Power View dashboard. The Power View dashboard page is limited in size, so designing a dashboard with maximum interactivity in mind is essential.

My presentation will talk about what Power View does well, so that you can design your dashboard to take advantage of these strengths. My goal is for attendees to walk away not only thinking "Wow, Power View is slick", but walk away knowing how to build a good Power View of their own, using their own data: something they can show their own manager and peers and have them think "Wow - this is slick; this person deserves a raise"*.

My sessions: Madison; Chicago. Special thanks to the organizers of both events for inviting me to speak.

*Disclaimer: Attending my presentation does not guarantee a raise

One Report to Rule Them All

2013-02-11T15:23:38+00:00

Everyone wants only one place to go for everything. A single report that contains all the key metrics that someone might need.

Of course, it's not that easy.

What metrics does that report show?

That's where the request gets interesting: it should show everything. Sales metrics, warranty metrics, shipping metrics, product metrics, performance metrics and call metrics. It should include charts and tables of the same data. It should be a snapshot of yesterday, but also show month-to-date and year-to-date trends plus a comparison to budget and a comparison to the previous year. It should be a single page. It should be mobile. It should be delivered by email. It should be localized.

The reality is, one report to rule them all is unrealistic. Just as you use different desktop applications for different purposes, you should use different reports for different purposes. The important thing is that each report is focused and, most importantly, actionable.