9 things to know before getting into Power BI (Or, really anything)

yo guy in a Cuban in this video I'm gonna share with you nine things that you should probably think about before you get going with power bi or really anything let's go if you're finding us for the first time be sure to hit that subscribe button to stay up to date with all the videos from both Patrick and myself alright you're just getting started with power bi you're not really sure what to do where to go who what when how what I want to do is share with you a couple things that I think about or that I wish I had really thought about more when I started my journey hopefully this will help you out alright the first thing I want to share is passion having a passion about what you do really helps you in terms of sticking with it over time right so it's not just a fad it's not something you're just gonna give up down the road if you're passionate about data if you're passionate about reporting if you're passionate about exploring items to get solutions to problems that's gonna really help you in terms of learning the product as well as continuing to just keep going with power bi and I mentioned in the intro that this is also relevant to things outside of power bi even with this YouTube thing that we do on guy in a cube passion has been a huge driving factor I have two huge passions outside of my family that is power bi and that is video production bring those together you've got guy in a cube that has helped us keep this going alright so you got all this passion and you want this to be done right now I want to crank out those amazing reports within 30 minutes well you need to have patience patience is going to help you along this journey rome wasn't built in a day and this is going to take a while to build up those skills and to be an expert in your craft that's true of anything right the more you do it the better you become and as you get more of those examples and that experience you're just gonna be that much better for it but you're gonna have to have patience to get you through that long haul one thing that helps when I think about where I'm at in my journey is try not to compare yourself to someone who's further along in their journey than you are so compare yourself to someone that's if you're just starting out compare yourself to someone else that's just starting out and see if you can kind of pace yourself with them or make that comparison making your comparison with someone who's been working in the field and working with power bi for about five years or so it's not a fair comparison and it's probably gonna be a little negative in your thought process as well so have patience figure out where you are in your journey compare yourself with where people were at that point in their journey so it's apples to apples comparison and then move forward all right there are a ton of tutorials and trainings and all of that stuff available for you but the one thing that you shouldn't do is get stuck in those tutorials right so they're great for just kind of learning things and getting up to speed quickly but the one thing you should absolutely do is start doing the work right so start building a rapport start working on a project that will help you get those skills the minute you start working on those items you're gonna figure out and learn a lot more about the product through trial and error as you actually work with real-world scenarios and I'm gonna tell you right now it's gonna suck at first everything does and as you do it more it will get better and as you see more examples and you start integrating that into your projects it's gonna become awesome so don't be afraid to put those tutorials to the side and start actually working and creating something I go back to a blog post that my friend wrote at Matthew Roach looking at Legos and building blocks and things of that nature and power bi is just like that it's like Legos and building on that foundation of what you've got it's important to know the base and then you can build on top of those items understanding data modelling understanding Dax understanding visualization concepts and when to apply the right visual and when not those are super important reading things outside of the power bi sphere so just visualization in general or just data modeling concepts and data concepts in general those can all help you to hone your skill and to make you a better report person so make sure you are having that solid base in your understanding and your learnings as you work with power bi data modeling is such a crucial piece and I think it's probably one of the more often overlooked pieces of power bi because everyone just wants to get to the visuals and then when they get to the visuals stuff is slow it's not working right I'm getting wrong numbers and it's all because that data model was overlooked ninety percent of your time is gonna be with that data so make sure you understand how that works and how you can do it inside a power bi for the most performant outcome I've been saying this over the years I was in support for ten years and now well if you're watching this in the future as of the recording of this video we were in this thing called coronavirus where everyone was on lockdown my kids were out of school for like or homeschooling for like half a year and the kids would come up to us and ask questions and so my response my native response when I was in support and now with my kids is what did you search on because if it's something new and I don't know guess what I'm gonna do I'm gonna go search like if someone asked me a question I don't know it I want to go see if it's out there so don't be afraid to search first and the act and art of searching is just that it's an art do more of it and you will figure out what terms can get you to the information that you need but also try to build that muscle or the the ability to discern information that may not be directly related I don't know how many times I've read a blog post where okay it's got some of the error messaging that is related to my problem it's not exactly on my problem but reading this it helps me make that connection and jump in a different direction or try something new right just from searching and looking at results so it may not be the exact thing you're looking at but you may still be able to gain knowledge from items that come as a result and if it's not working for you change up your keywords figure out what you're searching on search for the actual error message you'd be surprised how many times the answer comes up the other thing I would add to that is like I don't there are things in Dax that either I don't know or I have not committed to memory because I can just look them up and I can search so I can search Dax space whatever it is I'm looking for a month over month and I can quickly get to something that will give me that pointer and move me along my way so I don't have to commit everything to memory my brain is not like an imported cache model in power bi not everything's up here sometimes I got a direct query moving the Train along try to find either a group of folks or someone that you can bounce things off of some folks refer to this as mentor other folks refer to this as just a learning group or a mastermind of some kind having this available for you to bounce off ideas is something that can be very helpful and make you not just so siloed on your own right and you know maybe have tunnel vision and you're only working on something else but bouncing it off of someone else can really help you so one of the things I love about working with Patrick is he and I are we're very like-minded but I mean we'll sit there and we'll talk about a problem and just bounce it off of each other and one of us may have been going down this one direction but by talking to the other person it opened our mind a little bit and now we can maybe navigate it a different way so it's incredibly powerful you may also be thinking like well how do I even get involved in something like that check out your local user groups that's a great way to start and to meet people that are in a similar situation develop those relationships and then you can start building off of each other and empowering each other to build your skills on power bi check out your local user groups if you're not sure I'll have a link down below for the power bi user groups website that you can go check out and start interacting and working with folks right so you started doing all these things that I've been talking about and you're just you know kind of you're doing the grind but you're frustrated that it's taking so long or it's really hard the one thing I can say is it get easier as you do this more as you build those muscles as you work those skills it will get easier over time over time you'll know better what to search for you'll have those people that you can work out to or that or that are reaching out to you you'll have a ton of project under your belt that you can refer back to you and even you know you know two three years down the road go back look at that very first one you did and just shudder oh my gosh it's so bad I've done that with blogging Patrick and I do that with our videos it's it's amazing how far you will go over time but it does get easier and you'll figure out things and you'll know where to go you won't spend so much time in this one area anymore because you're so familiar with it and this goes back to those fundamentals once you've learned those items those base items data modeling and all that it becomes so much easier and you don't have to spend all your time in that space anymore right because you're you're very familiar with it and so you get to do things faster than what you did when you first started out so just hang in there play the long game it will get easier for you I mentioned before don't stay in your silos so the eighth thing I'm gonna call out is get involved in social media you'd be amazed of how many people are out there especially in this coronavirus world where we're all on lockdown is to just engage with people online it's very easy to do twitter is a huge community that I partake in the reddit community as of the recording of this video just recently crossed 20 thousand members there there's a huge Facebook group out there as well with a lot of people so these are folks that you can bounce ideas off of you can ask questions you can search through those items because there's a lot of items out there but I know like a lot of the MVPs a lot of the product team and other community members they're active on Twitter so there's a lot of resources out there for you to connect with other like-minded at face to face interaction and all the links down below in the description to some of those items I called out to help you start getting involved in there the last thing I'll throw out there and I'm going to challenge you a little bit is try to give a priest tation on something I know that can be incredibly scary for some folks even for myself sometimes when I'm presenting on a new item I get a little cold feet right you know we get a little nervous about something that's new and challenging and pushes you but presenting something I know Patrick and I have said there's so many times when we're building out the demos and we're working on something for a presentation it really pushes us to learn the product in different areas that we wouldn't have otherwise looked at endure to refresh your knowledge on something that changes so fast inside of the power bi and power platform world they're just technology in general right so this could be presenting at your local user group once everything lightens up or just presenting on you know there's a bunch of places that have gone online now so you could present on those you could present in your maybe a local group do a start a local group inside of your organization if there's a bunch of people doing power bi present to that locally or even start up a YouTube channel and start pumping out videos and present that to the world just know that'll suck in the beginning to remember practice practice practice more you do it better it'll get and that's true with presenting to the first time you're gonna present it's not gonna be great but you're trying and you're doing it and you're pushing yourself and the more you do it the better of a presenter you'll become and the more you'll learn about the product and you'll also make connections and build relationships along the way so it's just a win-win all around I definitely challenge you to do that again on the link down below of how you could get connected with your local user group it's a great place to start all right those are the items that I want to highlight in terms of what you should know before getting started with power bi but I would love your thoughts as well I'm sure you've got many more leave them down below you know where in the comments if you like this video be sure to hit that big thumbs up button smash it if you so desire if it's your first time here hit that subscribe button and as always from both Patrick and myself thank you so much for watching keep being awesome then we'll see you in the next video hey friends right over to YouTube to see the full video of my thoughts on what you should know before getting started with power bi and a little bit of a challenge at the end

Channel: Guy in a Cube

Views: 32,500

Rating: 4.9287958 out of 5

Keywords: power bi, power bi data modeling, power bi data modelling tutorial, power bi desktop, power bi desktop for beginners, power bi desktop model view, power bi desktop modelling, power bi desktop tutorial, power bi desktop tutorial for beginners, power bi for beginners, power bi reports, power bi training, power bi tutorial, power bi tutorial for beginners, data modeling in power bi desktop

Id: EolSBRkNpbk

Length: 13min 1sec (781 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 23 2020