AtlantaMDF meeting 2009-01-12

Wanted to drop a quick post wrapping up tonight’s usergroup meeting for AtlantaMDF.  Tonight was the first chance I’ve had to pitch SQLSaturday #13 to a larger audience, and I got a lot of positive feedback.  I had several people volunteer to help, and even had two or three people volunteer to present (not including those who were interested in presenting in my two super-short sessions).  I’m hoping this is going to be killer; I’ve got a lot of legwork to do to get sponsors lined up, but we’re on our way!

There were a lot of new faces tonight; the cynical side of me wants to point to the economy.  A lot of people are either looking for work, or want to make sure that they still have work in the next year.  User groups provide both free education, and free contacts, and you can’t fault someone for doing what they can to improve themselves and make sure that their opportunites are lined up.  However, I think a lot of people are finally starting to realize that SQL Server is a great platform for database development, and the best way they can learn about the technology is to participate in the user group.

Tonight, Eric Melcher of Intellinet gave a great presentation on End-To-End BI.  If you weren’t there, you may want to download it from the AtlantaMDF site when he publishes it; I think the title was a little misleading, but the content was great.  Eric really focused on the client tools available for analysis, including everything from Excel to Performance Point, touching on Excel Web Services, Proclarity, and Reporting Services along the way.  If you’re like me, and you feel overwhelmed by what BI is, and what options are available to display data, this was a great presentation to get your feet wet.