PASS Summit has gone virtual this year, but that isn’t keeping PASS from delivering a good lineup of speakers and activities. I’m excited to be presenting a pre-con and two regular sessions this year. I know virtual delivery changes the interaction between audience and speaker, and I’m going to do everything I can to make my sessions more than just standard lecture and demo to keep things interesting.
Building Power BI Reports that Communicate Insights and Engage People (Pre-Con)
If you are into Power BI or data visualization, check out my pre-con session. It’s called Building Power BI Reports that Communicate Insights and Engage People. Unless we’ve had data visualization training, the way we learn to make reports is by copying reports that others have made. But that assumes other people were designing intentionally for human consumption. Another issue is that we often mimic example reports from tool vendors. That can be very helpful with the technical aspects of getting content on the page, but we often overlook the design aspects of reports that can make or break their usability and effectiveness in communicating information. My pre-con will begin with discussion on how humans interpret data visualizations and how you can use that to your advantage to make better, more consumable visualizations. We’ll take those lessons and apply them specifically to Power BI and then add on some tips and tricks. Throughout the day, there will be hands-on exercises and opportunities for group conversation. And you’ll receive some resources to take with you to help you continue to improve your report designs.
This session is geared toward people that have at least basic familiarity with Power BI Desktop (if you can populate a bar chart on a report page, that’s good enough). If you have never opened Power BI Desktop, we might move a little fast, but you are welcome to join us and give it a try. If you are pretty good with Power BI Desktop, but you want to improve your data visualization skills, this session could also be a good fit for you. I hope you’ll register and join my pre-con.
Implementing Data-Driven Storytelling Techniques in Power BI
Data storytelling is a popular concept, but the techniques to implement storytelling in Power BI can be a bit elusive, especially when you have data values that change as the data is refreshed. In this session, we’ll talk about what is meant by story. Then I’ll introduce you to tool-agnostic techniques for data storytelling and show you how you can use them in Power BI. We’ll also discuss the visual hierarchy within a page and how that affects your story. You can view my session description here.
Inclusive Presentation Design
I’m also delivering a professional development session for those of us that give presentations. Most speakers have good intentions and are excited to share their knowledge and perspective, but we often exclude audience members with our presentation design. Join me in this session to discuss how to design your presentation materials with appropriate content formatted to maximize learning for your whole audience. You’ll gain a better understanding of how to enhance your delivery to make an impact on those with varying abilities to see, hear, and understand your presentation. You can view my presentation description here.
Other Pre-Cons from My Brilliant Co-Workers
If you aren’t into report design, my DCAC coworkers are delivering pre-cons that may interest you.
Denny Cherry is doing a pre-con session on Microsoft Azure Platform Infrastructure.
John Morehouse is talking about Avoiding the Storms When Migrating to Azure.
I hope you’ll join one of us for a pre-con as well as our regular sessions. With PASS Summit being virtual, the lower price and removal of travel requirements may make this conference more accessible to some who haven’t been able to attend in past years. Be sure to get yourself registered and spread the word to colleagues.
