xvi
that anyone can use, and that’s easy to sign up for? With an open source visuals plaorm? This is Microso doing all
this? Are you KIDDING ME. And it all happened this year.
Pace – you can put this together from the previous bullet, but MS is now moving at a frightening pace. Frightening? Did
I say frightening? Well, it’s only frightening if you write books. There’s now an ever-present danger of us wring an en-
re chapter on how you deal with a parcular problem, and then three weeks later, them adding a feature that makes
that problem go away, rendering the enre chapter obsolete, and thereby making the authors look silly. Actually, this is
virtually guaranteed to happen. But outside of the authoring world, yeah, this is a very good thing. Not having to wait
two years for key omissions and/or bugs to be addressed has precious lile downside.
What’s Changed in My Corner of the World? Also Everything.
I always tell rst-me public speakers and bloggers to talk about their own personal experiences. You are, in fact, the
world’s #1 expert on what has happened in your own life.
That’s what I’m going to do here, because hey, I can’t be wrong! Yes, it is a “skewed” view in some ways, to take small-
scale observaons from one person and put them next to the changes happening at a goliath like Microso, but I do
have what they call a ringside seat for this parcular show. There’s relevance here, especially when it comes to hard
numbers and economics.
Let’s sck to that list format:
4x Community Growth - Judging by PowerPivotPro.com blog stats, our community – those who are aware of and using
Power Pivot and Power BI – is now approximately four mes the size as it was when the rst edion went to print.
That’s right, there are a lot more “new” people at this point than grizzled veterans. As it should be! This will connue
to hold true for quite some me. Welcome everyone
Team Growth – at me of wring there are now seventeen human beings with PowerPivotPro.com email addresses.
Guess how many humans had such addresses three years ago? Zero – not even I had one! Not all of the seventeen are
doing Power Pivot / Power BI work, but most of them are. And the handful who play auxiliary roles are in some ways
even more telling: we now have an organizaon which is large enough to require auxiliary roles. I nd that incredibly
sasfying, and not just on the personal front – our organizaon wouldn’t be growing unless the demand for our ser-
vices was growing. We’re not tradional BI consultants, and we’re not spreadsheet consultants. We’re a new breed
and the market is saying “yes, this is a good mutaon, your virus may connue to grow.” In fact I’m aware of several
brand-new rms that have joined us in this “new style,” and the world of data is so large that there’s zero sense of
compeon, only a shared sense of joy in changing the rules in a posive way.
Avi – among those seventeen is our esteemed co-author, Avi Singh, who has been working himself half to death on
this 2nd Edion. This is great news, because there was zero chance I’d have been able to do this alone. (I’ve never been
busier, as a professional, than I am today). So First Edion would probably have remained Only Edion without Avi on
board. If anything, Avi believes in this stu more than I do – anyone who says “I’m coming to work with you even if you
can’t pay me” is a bit crazy, but the right kind of crazy. We are lucky to have him, and yes, we do pay him
Microso Relaonship – our relaonship with the “mother ship” is in a much beer place today than three years ago.
It’s not like there was fricon before, and I do sll have a lot of friends there, but there was also a longstanding mutual
sense that there wasn’t much ROI in cooperang. For the most part, I ignored Microso and they returned the favor
by ignoring me. But my views and their views on the world have converged quite a bit over the past three years, and I
would aribute that to “everyone geng smarter” rather than one of us adopng the other’s longstanding stance. To-
day, our messaging helps Microso reach customers, and Microso likewise connects us with people who need help.
This may sound like a subtle point, but it could not feel any more dierent. Surprising as it sounds, this ex-Microso
employee (and High Priest of their data plaorm) feels like he’s back in the family for the rst me in six years. And
again, this reects on Microso’s posive direcon as well as the market.
Condence – this one is my favorite. Three years ago, I was “sure” that The New Way was going to replace The Old Way.
So “sure,” in fact, that I’d happily argue vigorously with anyone who disagreed or quesoned it. Today though I’m not
just “sure” – I am sure. For example, a few weeks back I watched a debate unfold in the comments thread of a Power
PivotPro.com blog post, in which one “combatant” was quesoning whether this stu was catching on or not. Three
years ago I would have waded into the fray, guns blazing. But this me I sat it out – my pulse didn’t rise, I didn’t take
the bait. I just moved on to the next task. Someone else was taking up the good ght anyway (thanks Greg). The point
here is that before, my certainty was predicve in nature, and that naturally carries some insecurity. Today’s certainty
comes from having seen it happen – we are no longer talking about what will be, we are talking about what undeniably