Conference recommendations for Less-Technical Power BI Professionals
Conferences – those little vacations your company is paying for. However, they are as education should always be – fun, inspiring and empowering, often leading to new friends, or at least increased professional network.
Not all conferences are made equal and while some of them provide tons of knowledge you can apply the next day, you leave others wondering why did you spend time inside, instead of wandering around the city?
I have visited some conferences in Europe, and want to share with you the list of best ones for a Less-Technical Power BI Professionals (LTPBIPs). Why less-technical? Because connecting to your audience, telling a story, providing great user experience and even managing a project is often overlooked in more-technical events, while this is an essential part of Business Intelligence job.
But first – a short explanation of what kind of conferences I am recommending.
Types of conferences
I’d say there are three main types of conferences in the data field.
Have you been into any of those types?
1. Technical Events
These are the events that focus on technology, they are typically locked to a single solution or vendor. Common examples are Fabric, Python, SQL, Power Platform, Data Science conferences. Typically you get lots of knowledge about HOW to perform certain technical tasks within that technology.
Primary audience of such events are DBAs (me too didn’t know what that means long enough), developers, platform architects.
It is inspiring to learn about the possibilities your tools provide. However, I see a few troubles with that. First, whenever I need to know HOW to do something I rely on good ol’ YouTube or good new’ ChatGPT and never check my notes from events. Second, many of the new feature announcements are roadmaps, which means that the feature will be shipped in several months. And third, as one my friend summarized it very well: “All those new features would immediately solve our problems, but we’re locked with old version until the end of fiscal year”.
In some edge cases, Technical Conferences become a single Vendor showcases, where the Vendor itself provides most of the talks, and their CEO gives the keynote. They are still useful for CTOs to make decisions of what to buy during next fiscal year, and Consultants who have to know where to steer their clients.
For LTPBIPs it is more important to know WHAT to do, WHEN to do, and WHY to do, rather than HOW. The most interesting talks are when someone shares their experience with the new technology, explaining what issues they had and what problem they managed to solve. Or when someone provides a new perspective on an old technology, which seems to have been solved ages ago. And, obviously, a conference for LTPBIPs has to have enough Power BI content!
Some of technical conferences provide a more liberal stage for all the business, communication, dataviz or even mental health topics, and I believe those are the most suitable for LTPBIPs.
2. Generic Data Events
These are events where people gather to talk about data from multiple perspectives. Often you can see presenters from Microsoft, Google, and Apple, lawyers, scientists, and analysts sharing the stage.
As you might guess, you will not learn plenty of skills here, more probably you are going to broaden your perspective, understand the impact data or AI has on different business areas and society in general, hear the newest trends and what they are going to bring for us.
Primary audience of such events are business people – startup founders, IT decision makers, CEOs but also government and non-government organizations looking for trends, networking opportunities or new ideas.
In some edge cases, Generic Data Events become Commercial Stages, where speakers are not selected based on what they have to share, but how much they pay to get on the stage. Usually, you only see CEOs or CTOs from big international companies, as well as consultancies bragging how they did the cool thing. Such events are not for knowledge – they are for networking, and they are made for other CEOs and CTOs.
In Generic Data Events, LTPBIPs might feel a bit like outliers because they represent typical business, doing their daily work and not pushing the frontiers of data and AI. But a broader perspective is essential if you would rather not be “just a developer closing a ticket or two every sprint”, but you want to leave a long-lasting and meaningful impact on your organization. Also, such events will let you have a better understanding what skills to invest in during the next fiscal year.
Many of such Generic events have a focus or theme – it is trendy to have AI in the title, but there are BI events, scientific events – there are many options for LTPBIPs to choose from.
3. Data Visualisation and Design Events
These are events where the main topic is data visualisation or variations of it. They often feature scientific research on the topic, practitioners sharing their practices, and inspiring data journalism projects.
Primary audience are mostly data journalists and data visualisation design freelancers because they are the ones who benefit from the most inspiring, most creative, most boundaries pushing works in the field.
Sadly, since dashboards are not something you can showcase easily, the amount of Business Intelligence content beyond “here are the best dataviz practices for dashboard” is rare.
In some edge cases Data Visualisation Events become Exhibition of Projects (sometimes literally) where majority of talks are provided by students presenting their very cool data visualisation, sonification and visceralisation university projects. While this influx of new ideas is undoubtedly great for a freelancer doing purely creative work, LTPBIPs typically look for confirmed solutions that work.
Dataviz conferences are still very useful to LTPBIPs because their work is heavily involving data visualisation in presentations or dashboards, and knowing the best practices and pitfalls always help to communicate with audiences better. Furthermore, since dashboards are highly interactive data products, learning from interactive projects created by leading artists and designers might provide some great ideas where to improve.
In the end, such events are attended by a lot of data and BI professionals, so there are plenty of networking opportunities, and you can be sure, that whoever you meet is probably a less-technical data professional just like you.
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As you might have guessed, I suggest:
- Technical Events with significant business and Power BI tracks.
- Generic Data Events with fewer CEOs.
- Data Visualisation and Design Events with fewer students.
And here is the list of regular conferences, ordered by which month they usually happen, that I recommend for you if you are a LTPBIP.
List of recommended conferences
Power BI and Fabric Summit
Place: Online
Time: February
Type: Technical Event with focus on Power BI and Fabric
Content: A week-long online event with a variety of topics. The amount of content is so large, that you will definitely find a few talks you like.
Power BI Gebruikersdag
Place: Utrecht, Netherlands
Time: March
Type: Technical Event with focus on Power BI
Content: Plenty of Power BI focused content – from deeply technical security questions to various design related talks. Most talks are in English.
sqlbits
Place: UK
Time: April
Type: Generic Data Event
Content: Event though it has SQL in its name, and is quite technical, it covers all conceivable aspects of Power BI development.
Outlier
Place: Online or Hybrid, usually based in USA
Time: June
Type: Data Visualisation and Design Event
Content: This is THE data visualisation conference, featuring all its aspects – from Data Art to Business Intelligence. A nice balance between inspirational project showcases and best-practice discussions, with unique talks not often repeated at other conferences.
Data:Scotland
Place: Scotland, usually Glasgow
Time: September
Type: Technical Event on the edge of being Generic Data Event
Content: Various technical content mostly about Microsoft technology, however the amount of business and even mental health topics makes this a very business-friendly conference.
DataFest Tbilisi
Place: Tbilisi, Georgia
Time: September
Type: Generic Data Event
Content: A very broad scope of content covering data in relations to IT, science, health, democracy – you name it. You can meet lawyers, startup founders, data scientists and even woman rights activists in one place.
Budapest BI Forum
Place: Budapest, Hungary
Time: November
Type: Technical Event with focus on BI
Content: There are separate tracks for data visualisation and for Power BI. This says a lot.
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There are a few events I have never been at, but from a distance, they seem worth visiting as well.
Power BI Next Step
Place: Denmark
Time: September
Type: Technical Event with focus on Power BI
Content: A Power BI focused event with both more-technical and less-technical topics.
Information Design Conference
Place: Hilversum, Netherlands
Time: October
Type: Data Visualisation and Design Event
Content: The focus is not just data visualisation, but information design in general, which broadens the spectrum of talks.
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These were my suggestions!
There might be more great events I haven’t yet visited or heard of. If something significant is missing, please let me know in the comments! Looking forward to meeting you there!