Last night I was talking to my friend Neelesh Raheja. We were overdue for a “touch base/compare notes” session, so when the phone rang and I saw his number, I knew it was “on.”
First – Who is Neelesh?
Neelesh works for GNet Group and is a hardcore BI pro. I mean, he has all the pedigrees. Name an acronym and he speaks it fluently. SSIS, SSAS, SSRS, ETL, EDW, PPS, ECS, EWA, EPM, MDM – the list goes on. So if Traditional BI were a martial art, Neelesh would be a black belt.
But Neelesh is Different. Like Tyler Durden, he has the ability of letting That Which Does Not Matter, Truly Slide. In other words, he doesn’t care where we’ve Been. He cares about where we’re Going. He doesn’t view Power Pivot as “just another technology.” He understands it as a total paradigm shift, a fundamental change in the way everything can and should be done.
Tellingly, I can’t provoke Neelesh like I sometimes do with the larger BI community. If I say something inflammatory like “Data Warehousing is widespread dysfunction,” Neelesh smiles and says “yeah Rob we know.” At which point I sit back in my chair and say “go ON…”
So all the “revolutionary” stuff I’ve been preaching for a few years now? GNet is already DOING that stuff at big clients. In fact I think they are even less “apologetic” about it than I am. He’s seen the same future I’ve seen, but he’s bringing it to Big Corporate America every day, top-down through IT, whereas my “vector” is bottom-up, through the Excel Pro.
GNet Needs a Power. Pivot. Platoon.
I asked him last night, so how are things going? And his answer was “great – our Agile BI strategy (aka the Power Pivot strategy) is really delivering results. We’re going to be adding a significant number of people to that practice in the coming months.”
“Hrm, what KIND of people,” I asked. “Power Pivot people,” was his response.
At which point I said something like “Shit YEAH, ladies! You want me to post to the blog?”
And here we are.
Here’s the gist:
- He has capacity to hire MULTIPLE Power Pivot Pros. Yes, maybe as many as 2-5 across 3 offices in Minneapolis/St. Paul or Des Moines or Dallas. I know, that rules so many of you out. But keep reading, because relocation might be worth it. Seriously.
- You do NOT need to be a BI Pro today. Power Pivot knowledge, communication skills, and a hunger to learn (and change the world!) are the requirements.
- The GNet team will teach you the rest. You go in as a former Excel Pro. You come out as a hardcore, cutting edge BI Pro. A 21st Century BI Pro, free from the age old traditional practices and focused on cutting edge Agile Self Service BI. This is nothing short of a Career Re-Vectoring. I sometimes joke that I want to be Neelesh when I grow up, and you’d be learning from him.
Give it some thought. Send resumes and questions to [email protected] and I will fwd them along.
And even if you can’t realistically contemplate any of those three cities (or if you raised it with your spouse and they threatened you with divorce if you moved the family), take this as inspiration. This is the Real World knocking, telling us that change is afoot. It won’t be the last time it knocks.
