I’m quite thrilled we’ve nearly reached the time for the first meeting of the Charlotte BI Group (CBIG). The first CBIG meeting is on January 8, 2013. Our website has more information, and a link to RSVP to January’s meeting. If you fill out the Join Page, you’ll automatically receive meeting invitations. If you are interested, there’s two things for you to do: (1) RSVP to January’s meeting, and (2) Join so you continue to hear about meetings.

Javier, Rafael, Jason and I have had tons of fun the last few months planning the recent SQL Saturday as well as the Charlotte BI Group. Below are a few pictures to show you just how much fun! (Hint: I’ll have my camera with me at meetings…no grumbling at me if I want to take your picture!)

Since we organizers are all Microsoft BI professionals, the Microsoft toolset is where much emphasis will be. However, there’s nothing keeping us from presenting on any aspect of BI, or any BI tool. What we end up presenting over time will depend on you. Yes, I said you! This is your user group. We want to hear what you need to do your job better and to grow professionally. There’s 3 main things we wish to provide: Education about BI, Information about local happenings & product news, and Networking. We’ll be successful if every regular CBIG member knows each other by name.

Anyone is welcome who is interested in BI – this includes analysts, administrators who “inherited” BI systems, developers of all levels, project managers, students, or if you’re just interested in learning about BI. There’s many facets to a mature BI environment, so we encourage you to join the group & get involved.

The format will vary from time to time. Often we’ll have a single featured presentation. Sometimes we’ll have multiple shorter presentations. Once in a while we will have the meeting in a social place. We could have a roundtable discussion if that’s something you like. See a theme here? We want to know what you enjoy and find useful. If you’re going to spend some of your valuable after-work time with us, we want to make sure you’re having fun and learning what's relevant to you.

You are welcome to present any time. Just come & talk to one of us organizers, or send us an email, and we'll get you on the schedule. We want to give newer presenters the chance to practice & get more comfortable presenting, so if you’d like to start with a short presentation on something you just did at work, that’d be great!

See you soon!