September 2026
Direct Lake in Practice: When It Wins and When It Bites
Direct Lake promises the speed of import with the freshness of DirectQuery and the pain of neither. Mostly it delivers — until it falls back to DirectQuery and your fast report gets slow. Here's where it genuinely wins and where it bites.
Making the Case for Your 2027 Data Budget
It's budget season, which means your 2027 data number is being decided right now — often in a room you're not in. Here's how to make the case for it before the window closes in December.
When Microsoft Isn't the Answer: An Honest Platform Comparison
I've spent my career deep in the Microsoft data stack, and I'll still tell a client to walk away from it when it's the wrong fit. Here are the honest cases where Fabric, Synapse, or Power BI is not the answer — and what I'd reach for instead.
The Tell Was Never the Word
I ran a stack of my own old posts through one of the AI-detector checklists, expecting to be vindicated. It lit up like a Christmas tree — and taught me what actually separates writing from output.
The Belated Recap: The Data & AI Releases I Missed on Sabbatical
While I was away, Microsoft held two of the year's biggest data events — FabCon in March, Build in May — and reshaped the roadmap around agents. I read six months of announcements in a weekend so you don't have to. Here's what actually matters, assessed late and on purpose.