Personal

A table with which I am far too obsessed

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We are undergoing major renovations at home at the moment (kitchen and deck) so we donated some things we don’t use (what IS a tajine and why would I want one?) to St Vinnie’s. 

While we were there, I saw this fantastic older table and chair set for a mere $260,  just the right number of second hand scratches.  I have nowhere to put it, especially during renovations, but it just looked so good and useful. If I had my deck covered in I would have bought it I think. 

This counts as workstreaming as I had to go and pick up my motorbike yesterday morning and I popped in again on the way back (my phone was flat on Sunday) ‘to take a photo for a friend’. 

On another note, St Vinnie’s at Jindalee is looking really terrific.  And they have a never-used tajine for sale at $12.

Liveblogging Rostrum Convention 2016

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Might live blog today’s Rostrum convention, I think.

Started with a Facebook live with Marcela Ramirez from MRPR.

Marcela has the first session on ‘Selling the Sizzle’ at the Convention.  Marcela (@tweetmrpr) does a ton of good work in the community is very socially aware, and is a great presenter as well.

Oh, and just a terrific person.  Catch her podcast at http://www.mrpr.com.au/words-for-good

Then, after I was Chairman of Adjudicators of the Rostrum Freeman Frank Smith speaking competition – for novices – and that of course was a good competition to see fro Rostrum novices.

The next speaker was Maree Clancy of Say It Now Voice Consultancy.  Now, I have to say it’s the sort of thing I sometimes think is a litle fluffy.  A little woolly.  But Maree grounded it in the science and gave actual takeaways for the audience.  A very good speaker, and a very good understanding of what it takes to be a good speaker.  Very useful I think…

Presentations and public speaking for managers

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Last week I did a morning session with practice managers with the Institute of Urban Indigenous Health through UQ Executive Education.  A very switched on group of of women who are doing terrific things – if perhaps drinking a bit too much V to get them through the day.  Anyway, it was a really good half-day – they were presenting their work later that day – and we got to discuss things like what to watch in an audio-visual presentation as well as those five magic things that are important in the world of Rostrum:  Purpose, Content, Structure, Voice, and Body Language.  

Presentation

This was in the city – and I don’t get to go into Brisbane too often, so here are a few photos of me returning to my old haunts:

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And finally, here’s me with the graduating class.  The ladies are (L-R):  Imogen, Marti, Julie, Camile, Alison, Ray, Cassie, Noelene, Leila, Belinda and Samara.  A wonderful group – though it might be time for me to get a haircut and lose some weight.  Hmm.  

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Launch of the new PowerBI Community group in Brisbane

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So I thought I’d do up a small blog, as it’s pretty interesting and relevant.  Tonight I am attending the Microsoft BI user group in Brisbane, and we’re meeting at the Microsoft offices in George Street.

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There has been a release overnight of ‘publish to the Web’ for PowerBI.  Recently there was a competition held in the UK, and we have there a visualisation of M25 accidents that won Best Report in the UK.  It’s all  interactive.

http://community.powerbi.com/t5/Best-Report-Contest/M25-Road-Traffic-Accidents/td-p/17210

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There are open source visualisation templates available as part of the new PowerBI toolset.

We heard also from Peter Ward, who advised that there’s a PowerBI executive group targeted at business groups and sharing about the strategy meeting on the third Friday of every month.  Welcome to attend either or both groups.  Bring that ‘PowerBI goodness’ back to your own organisation.

Ron Dunn from Wardy’s IT gave the main presentation for the evening, and the overarching theme is practical implications of PowerBI.

One key point is the vision for Microsoft BI reporting.  Here, the vision is on interactive reports – that’s Power BI Desktop.  Then there are spreadsheets – and of course, that’s Excel.  Report builder is good for Paginated reports, whereas mobile reports use Datazen.

PowerBI is Microsoft’s competitor to Tableau and Qlikview.  Tableau is kind of expensive, and possibly better at Infographics.  Power BI is a maximum of $12 per user per month – though there are free versions available – whereas say Tableau might be $2,000 per seat.

PowerBI is moving away from ‘cloud only’.

Power BI Desktop is a free download.  It does geospatial representations a map.  Connects via data source connectors to data sources.  Lets you pick a number of visualisation sources, and drag-and-drop to build an interactive dashboard.  The visualisations are linked to each other.

In many ways, some of the functions are moving out of Excel into Power BI as a tool.

Does have visualisations in reporting services, although its integration with Sharepoint is somewhat limited.

Noted that Microsoft is moving its releases of PowerBI to more monthly releases rather than yearly.

Works with both on-premise and Cloud data.  So, you can have some of your data on-premise; proper support for this seems to be coming later.

Need to check out ideas.powerbi.com – this is a forum run by Microsoft where ideas can be voted on.  This is actively managed and communicated on.

This really creates problems for organisations that run with locked desktops and such like.

Ron has some thoughts on these matters to close.

  • Power BI is unbeatable value (free is quite good if it’ll do what you want)
  • Power BI is designed for millennial freedom (i.e. locked down desktops?  Pfft)
  • Power BI is not a complete BI solution (need the BI stack for that)
  • Power BI is a rapidly evolving work in progress
  • Power BI is for people, not applications
  • Power BI is amazing
Question and Answer sessions
In the wrap up at the end, one point was ‘How does Power BI deal with data governance?’.  And of course the answer here is that it doesn’t.  This means that Power BI does not follow data governance rules in its implementation – you can end up having your data that is subject to rules that Power BI completely stomps over.  So no, it doesn’t do that.
What about Excel and Power View?  Answer – it is going to continue to be supported.  As noted in the vision, there’s PowerBI Desktop, Excel, Integrated Reporting, and mobile reporting (Datazen).  Tonight’s discussion focussed on PowerBi Desktop.

The Rise of Bіtсоіn

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In thе раѕt three mоnthѕ alone, thе рrісе оf Bіtсоіn hаѕ: rіѕеn ѕtеаdіlу from below $250 tо thе low- tо mіd-$300 rаngе, ѕріkеd past $400, plunged bасk dоwn tоwаrd $300, stabilized аrоund $325, ѕurgеd аgаіn раѕt $350 around Blасk Frіdау, thеn jumped еvеn hіghеr — аftеr a роtеntіаl unсоvеrіng оf Bіtсоіn’ѕ creator — to about $430 аѕ of this morning.

Taking a wider аnglе to lооk at the year, thе high, $437 according to Blосkсhаіn.іnfо, was about twо аnd hаlf tіmеѕ іtѕ low, $177 — and these gуrаtіоnѕ don’t even bеgіn tо mаtсh those ѕееn frоm 2013 to thе bеgіnnіng оf thіѕ уеаr, when the price wеnt frоm thе teens to $1,200 аnd bасk down toward thе $200ѕ, that was when everyone started realizing they should be learning how to buy bitcoin.

Thоugh 2015 has рrоvеn to bе thе уеаr that vеnturе саріtаl аnd Wаll Strееt bet оn the blосkсhаіn (shorthand fоr thе dіѕtrіbutеd ledger tесhnоlоgу behind Bіtсоіn), with соmраnіеѕ rаngіng from Gоldmаn Sасhѕ to American Exрrеѕѕ, frоm Nаѕdаԛ tо Klеіnеr Pеrkіnѕ, investing іn ѕuсh vеnturеѕ, аnd VC investment іn thе sector tоtаlіng $314 mіllіоn ассоrdіng to Pitchbook, іt’ѕ nоt сlеаr whеrе thаt lеаvеѕ the сurrеnсу.

There hаѕ bееn ѕоmе movement оn Wall Strееt around it: еаrlіеr thіѕ year, thе New Yоrk Stосk Exchange lаunсhеd a Bіtсоіn іndеx, NYXBT; the Bitcoin Invеѕtmеnt Truѕt (GBTC), a trust whоѕе ѕhаrеѕ can bе hеld in IRA, Rоth IRA аnd оthеr brоkеrаgе аnd investment ассоuntѕ as well аѕ раѕѕеd оn to bеnеfісіаrіеѕ, bеgаn the trade forex; аnd the Winklevoss twіnѕ lаunсhеd Gеmіnі, a fully lісеnѕеd and rеgulаtеd Bitcoin еxсhаngе, in еаrlу Oсtоbеr. Thеу also hаvе іn the wоrkѕ аn ETF, whісh, like GBTC, could арреаl to institutions, pension plans аnd 401(k)ѕ thаt might want exposure to Bіtсоіn but wоuld not bе able tо оwn thе сurrеnсу dіrесtlу.