Post by Rob Collie
GENERAL MADINE: “General Solo, is your Strike Team Ready?”
SOLO: “We’re making huge strides. The Death Star is Toast.”
Avi Singh Joins P3 Adaptive Full-Time!
File under “Coup, Major.” Folks, this is a CRAZY cool moment for us at P3 Adaptive . We like to think of ourselves as the Rebel Alliance of Data, and seriously, we feel like we’ve found our Luke Skywalker.
That’s Right: Avichal (“Avi”) Singh has left Microsoft to become a full-time member of the team here at P3 Adaptive . Microsoft’s loss is our gain, which is… ALSO Microsoft’s gain, ultimately. Because in this role, Avi is going to “light up” people and organizations all over the world. As opposed to performing data miracles strictly within the internal Microsoft org, he’s going to be helping MANY OTHERS perform their OWN miracles. With MS’s platform, of course, which is great for them.
So hey Microsoft, please don’t be TOO upset with us for poaching him. But really, we did nothing of the sort. He um, kinda stalked US. Let me explain.
To Build A Different Kind of Firm, You Need a Different Kind of Person
I had just finished a presentation at BA CON ‘14 in San Jose, California – a presentation I had opened with the theme of “I have the best job in the world – I work in data, and I get to spread HAPPY wherever I go.” (Which is the truth, btw).
Out in the hallway after the talk, I met Avi in person for the first time. Like me at the time, you probably know Avi primarily through the excellent guest posts that he has penned from time to time.
The written word does not do justice to the “in person” version of this human. He is one of the absolutely most sincere, genuine, and positive people I have ever met, and that was clear in the first two minutes. (If I say he’s in the Donald Farmer Zone, I mean it as a compliment to both gentlemen).
What followed was LITERALLY a “hand on heart” moment. The very first thing Avi said to me, in reaction to the talk I’d just given, was to zero in on that “spreading HAPPY” theme. He said something like “That’s so true, I’ve seen it! And I feel it… in my heart.” And to emphasize that last part, he lightly bumped his fist to his heart. That moment was so incredibly genuine, and conveyed several years’ worth of information in an instant: this guy was special.
You kinda had to be there to see why that was so impactful, so convincing to me, but if you get to meet Avi in person, you will see what I mean. And I think you will ALSO see what I mean in the coming months, as you hear from him more often on this site and in other media.
“Different” Kind of Firm? “Reinventing” an Industry?
The Traditional Business Intelligence Industry Looks Like This
And We Mean to Change That COMPLETELY.
More “Team BI.” Less “BI Team.” That’s a direct, original quote from Avi himself, and it captures the spirit of our direction perfectly.
You simply cannot Outsource the Smarts of Your Business – either to an external consultant OR an internal IT team – and expect good results. And yet, that is PRECISELY the way the BI Industry has operated forever.
So it’s no accident that Excel has quietly dominated that entire industry. Analysis and reporting tools, in the hands of the business, are better than ANY tool in someone else’s hands, no matter how wide the “power gap” might be between those tools. Pick on Excel all you want. In practice, it was still better than the expensive, highly-touted junk that’s been sold for billions of dollars over the past 20 years. Whether you had “professional grade” BI or not, Excel was still powering the vast majority of all valuable insight.
Of course, the recently-arrived Power BI suite of tools from Microsoft (Power Pivot in particular) have shrunk the “power gap” between Excel and “professional” tools to a point where it’s practically nonexistent. (Yes, there are still a few gaps, but those gaps are mostly academic at this point).
Empowerment Over Outsourcing
Empowerment is the New Style
THAT is why Avi is the perfect kind of person to help us lead this revolution. Pure DAX chops are just part of the story. Business knowledge, empathy, communication, and above all… something I call having the right “religion.”
If you look at the rapidly-changing world of data, and the revolutionary new tool set we’ve been given, and all you see is a chance to Capitalize, to extract cash, you are Doing it Wrong. I’ve had former colleagues in that boat (at a previous company) and it didn’t work out.
The new wave of BI “consultants? We are Different. We charge much less, and deliver much more. We turn the whole backwards industry on its head. We reach 50x as many clients, on a per-“consultant” basis, as traditional firms. Even the smallest of businesses can get the help they need – the same kind of help we deliver to the world’s most massive organizations. Because we Empower.
And that is why Avi is the face of the future. I’m super stoked to have him on board.
