Recently I experienced one of the proudest moments of my professional career to date, by winning a Power BI t-shirt. This may sound a bit sad, because it is, but never-the-less in this article I’m going to share a bit of information about the competition and provide a great resource for keeping up to date on Power BI developments.
Who ran the competition?
The competition was run by “Power BI Manchester User Group”. Running since 2017, here’s how they describe themselves on their LinkedIn page:
#PBIMCR – UK’s 2nd biggest Power BI community which meets monthly with talks from PBI experts from across the Globe :’
They’ve had incredible speakers giving talks, including Power BI celebrities such as “Guy in a Cube” and Marco Russo. Recently, the group expanded and started holding meetings in Leeds as well, which is where I first found them.
With Covid-19 restrictions in place, what are they doing at the moment?
Since lockdown started, they’ve moved their meetings online. Streams occur Wednesday lunchtime 12:30 – 13:30 and Thursday evening 18:00 – 20:00. These are usually broken down into two sections, with a different presenter giving a talk on an interesting topic within Power BI.
What was the competition?
The competition was just a fun way to end their first season of online content. The quiz was filled in using an online form with multichoice answers, and the top 3 scoring contestants won a prize. Normally I’m dreadful at quizzes and regularly get last place in the weekly quizzes we do at work, so it was a nice change to have subject matter I knew something about.
Would you recommend the group?
Yes! For anyone interested in Power BI, it’s definitely content you want to be watching. The presenters include material at a wide range of levels, often starting sessions out simply before moving into more complex material. In addition, most of the talks include live demonstrations, so you can pick up all sorts of tips and best practice just by watching these industry experts using the tool. They have just started up season 2, which they are calling “The World Tour” and will feature guest speakers from different countries. Hopefully they’ll end with another quiz, so I can try to add a 2nd t-shirt to my collection. 😊
