>> Now we have Amanda Rivera,
Principal Program Manager in Power BI,
sharing more about her career,
the Power BI community,
and Power BI with Kelly Kaye.
>> Well, hi, welcome. Hang on,
let's just take out masks off here, and I'll put this over here.
Hi, Amanda.
>> Hi, how are you?
>> I'm really well. How are you?
It's great to see you back in campus we're here in person.
>> Yes.
>> It feels a bit crazy.
>> Yeah.
>> It's pretty cool.
>> Yeah. I'm very happy to be here with you.
>> We are so
excited that you're here for the Power BI Women Summit.
It's our first summit.
>> It's exciting.
>> It really is. Amanda is
a Principal Program Manager here at Microsoft with Power BI.
Amanda is Power BI royalty as we all know, and she's very modest.
But, we really see all of
the beginnings of Power BI from Amanda's videos.
She was certainly one of the people that I
looked up to and saw her YouTube videos, and learned Power BI from.
For me, it's like a bit of fandom here.
It's great to see you, and
learning from all of your experience at Power BI,
we'd love to hear about it.
Let's just offer the beginning.
How did you start at Power BI?
>> I was a college hire, so I studied computer science in school.
Then when I was looking at what companies
I wanted to work for full-time.
Obviously, Microsoft was exciting
because Microsoft sounds fancy on a piece of paper.
One of the other things I really liked about Microsoft was
that I knew even though as a computer science major,
that I didn't necessarily want to program my whole life.
I wanted to be able to do more than that.
I wanted to work with people.
Microsoft was one of the few companies that let
college hires actually go in as a program manager directly.
I was able to interview, and I was really lucky,
and found a great team coming right out of college.
I was actually straight on from college right into the BI space.
>> I love what you just said.
Microsoft is definitely Origen might grab.
We love Microsoft as you know, as everybody knows.
But it's really lovely that you are able to come in as
a PM if you don't want that pure development experience.
>> Yes. It's like I knew just even
from the projects the type of work I wanted to do.
The great thing about being a PM is that you get to do so much.
You get to work with the engineers.
I still get to, not use my CS degree,
but still get to work with people who have a similar background.
But then I also get to work with
so many different types of customers,
and MVPs, and community members,
and designers, basically every type
of person who's part
of the system I get to work with, and I love that.
>> It's the best of both worlds.
>> Yes, it really is. I love the job.
>> How long were you at Microsoft before Power BI was launched?
>> Two years. Like I said,
I joined into the BI space.
I actually worked on Power View to start
with for people who have been around a little bit longer,
I was on Power View first,
and then I got to be here in
that transition from the Power Pivot,
Power View days into the Power BI as we know it today.
It is a very exciting ride,
the roller coaster. Amazing.
>> All of those videos
teaching people about this great new product.
Looking back, I should say, well, right?
>> I love that I get to be part of that journey, and
help introduce new people into Power BI as well
as one of my favorite parts of
the job is that I get to meet
new people across all stages of their journey,
but especially people who are just coming in,
helping them learn about the product, and
maybe start new careers and things like that.
It's a lot of fun.
>> We always ask,
what do you do at Microsoft?
What kind of job do you have?
Do you have to be a super dev, and there are
some exceptional engineers at Microsoft.
Women who are engineers at Microsoft.
I remember 2019,
I think seven out of eight of our engineers were women.
>> That's great.
>> It was fantastic.
>> When looking back on your experience, and launching a product,
and being in that kind of start-up mode,
and thinking about women in the community.
How how did you think about bringing in the community?
I ask you this because you're so engaging,
your videos we're really engaging.
They've really taught me a lot.
This is from personal experience.
I know a lot of people watch them, and they learned a lot.
It was so clear. How do you just saw it,
what the message is, and how to bring people in?
>> Well, I think a couple of different things, I would say.
One is that whenever I think about
making content in general for Power BI,
I really try to talk to a person.
I wanted to feel like I'm talking one on one with something, and
helping this person who was watching the video one-on-one.
Let's figure this out. Let's learn.
Let's figure out how can I use this feature,
what are all the details of it that I would care about.
I tried to take that person-first approach.
Not care so much, just about technically how the product works,
but what are the scenarios that
are interested in, and how can I help them?
I think that's a big thing is
that people-first approach, I would say.
Just in general with the community,
I find that I take this from a PM perspective,
whenever we build products.
Our products are always going to be so
much better if we engage with
the community first to learn about their challenges.
I think whether it's building content
about the product, or building the features themselves.
Actually spending time to talk one-on-one with
people as much as I can, or if it can't be
one-on-one talking on Twitter, or any kind of
other community space, and learning what they
need really helps influence all of that content.
>> When you say people first,
I actually felt that when I first was learning Power BI
because it was like you were talking to me, but I
never realized until you just said, seriously.
I mean, that's what makes it good.
>> I think it makes it more engaging, and interesting versus
just talking head smart person just lecturing me.
>> Yeah.
>> Actually feeling that you're having a conversation about it.
>> It's a nice revelation one for me today.
Talk to me about being a PM here,
speaking with the MVPs, and engineers,
and being a young woman in a great tech company.
Talk to me about supporting
functions that Microsoft has, your team.
I know personally, Arun is a huge supporter.
>> One of the great things about
Power BI is just how many women there
are even like the engineers, and people actually program,
a lot of the leadership are women,
and very smart, brilliant women.
>> Yeah.
>> I guess everyone here tries to make it
feel like a family, and they want to support you.
Obviously, you still have to advocate for yourself,
but you know you have the people to fall back on.
If you're advocating for yourself,
there's that support system there,
but just because there's so much diversity on the team.
>> A hundred percent. Recalling Jane, she's amazing.
I think she's the partner director.
She's actually head of products with Power BI at Microsoft.
I love her poly, I love what she's doing with product,
I love how she's thinking about the future.
One of my people that I look up to incredibly.
She's also humanous.
>> Yes. I love working [inaudible] people working with them.
Some of the best times I've had on the team is
whenever there's been women in my leadership, Jane, I love.
I don't know, it helps me see
myself also growing in the company as well.
I've been here a while,
but there's still so much.
I'm hoping so much to grow on the team.
It's nice to see the other people even higher than me,
so I know I can also achieve that.
>> Yeah, it's a succession plan,
and because you're seeing a woman leader.
>> I know I can do it too.
>> Exactly. That's what we talk about on Power BI women as well.
Actually, we want to support women in Power BI.
We want to grow the number of women-led user groups, and
expose more of the younger generation of women
coming up to Power BI, and the career trajectory.
There are so many other women,
I mean, Narayana Sujata just joined.
Sujata is fantastic, rosy.
>> There's so many women PMs, it's great.
>> Yeah, it's amazing. Speaking of career choices,
so you've come to Microsoft,
you've decided to do a balance of
technical, and non-technical when you're
bringing those skills together.
For somebody graduating from
college, and thinking about Power BI as a career,
what kind of other career paths could they take?
From a beginner's perspective, where could they start?
>> I think one of the great things about
Power BI is that there's data everywhere now.
No matter really what path you take,
you can find a way to incorporate Power BI into it.
Actually, a lot of the best people I know in the community,
they didn't start out saying,
"I'm going to be an analyst."
They started out in other careers like they're in accounting,
or they're in finance, or HR.
All those places, you still have data.
They found ways to incorporate Power BI, and
use that as a leveraging in their career to stand out.
Not only am I really great at being an accountant,
I have the skills of building reports so I
can communicate all of this information better.
I think you want a great approach to
take if you're not just wanting to jump straight into
being an analyst is to find a way
to merge that with other skills you have, or
other jobs, or roles that you can take
on and find ways to incorporate Power BI
into that, and use that as a way to the standout.
>> It's funny that you should say that
because I started in finance.
>> Yes, exactly. You're a perfect example of this.
Like I said, all the best people I know.
>> It was interesting because I was a dev in
a past life, or program, or I should say,
and it was interesting
going into a finance, and looking at the data,
and then I think it's the right place at the right time.
Power BI came out, and I was just super lucky.
>> Just like I said, every role now has to interact with data, and
some form whether I'm entering things into a tool like Dynamics,
or maybe I'm doing surveys, and I'm
getting data back from those surveys.
Everything has data now.
>> Absolutely. You know what I love?
I love first of all Excel and Power BI.
Is just my favorite.
>> Yes.
>> My second, and third favorite are Teams, and Power BI,
and I just love Azure Synapse, and Power BI.
I mean, the possibilities there are just exponential.
>> You actually named one of the things that
are great about working on Power BI is
that we have so many connections
of other products as well, so we're not siloed.
We get to work with
all these other teams, and
great products, and people who are passionate
about these other areas, and we can
find ways to build up with each other.
>> Yeah. Exactly. That's very similar
to how we operate with our careers as well,
we all help each other, and build.
>> Yes. Exactly.
>> Support each other. You launched Power BI with the Team.
Of course, it's a huge team.
>> Very big because I'm not just me.
I was there. I happened to be there.
>> You happened to be there. Then the product
came out, became popular,
we started the great community,
with Miguel Martinez, Sandy.
It was fantastic.
I remember going to all of the conferences.
>> So much fun.
>> It was fantastic. Hopefully we'll get there one day again.
Then I was sad to see that he left for a while,
but this is like our Amanda.
There is no Power BI without Amanda.
That's how I felt. This is a personal opinion.
>> Absolutely. They don't think that's true for most people.
>> I identified with you and actually, and with Thompson a lot.
Also see behind after you did the first dashboard in a day.
What did you discover?
How was that experience?
Why did you make that decision? Talk to me about that.
>> I had decided because I had, which I joined,
Power BI or BI in general at Microsoft right out of college,
and so I had been here for a while,
and I just felt like I needed to try something new,
learn some new skills.
PM roles tend to be very different
depending on what company you're working for,
and so I thought it would be really good for
my career to just try
something new, and see what else is out there.
I did leave Microsoft for a little bit,
and I went, and I worked on another team,
but obviously, I still was very much a family here.
I have some of my best friends work on this team.
I just loved the environment,
and so I never completely disconnected, I would say.
Then eventually a road did open backup on Power BI,
that I felt like could push me in new ways.
That's what hold me back in.
Obviously I miss my family,
but like I said,
I was trying to try new things, and find new ways
to grow my career and new skills as a PM,
and so when a role did finally open on Power BI that could
also meet those needs, it was perfect.
I got to grow as a PM and come back to my family.
>> That's fantastic. Microsoft's a great big company,
but it's wonderful that you're able to find that new step,
that new challenge and you step out of your comfort zone by
leaving and coming back shortly after, which was great.
But what did you find was different
working outside of Microsoft versus Microsoft?
>> One of the things that really
is different between the different companies is
really how much you are involved with the community and
how much you are involved with
other aspects of building a product.
There's obviously the parts
of the product that all PMs do like defining features,
and working with engineers and designers,
but I think depending on what company you're working for,
you can engage sometimes deeper in
other areas like support and marketing,
or you could be deeper as
a community person and really engaging there,
and so depending on, I think, on where you work,
you can pull these different levers of
being a PM and go deeper depending on the company.
>> Awesome. Now that you're here,
you have a multitude of experience.
Where are we going from here?
Where do you think we're going from here?
>> Nowhere but up. I think it's a really great time, I think,
to be learning Power BI this is
because there's just so much happening at the company.
Like I mentioned as one of
the great things about Power BI is we can
partner with all these different tools,
and I think that's just going to get even more true,
Power BI is showing up in more places related to Office,
we're getting deeper with Synapse.
There's just so many new ways that we're going to be able to
leverage Power BI across the whole Microsoft stack.
I think it's just going to continue to grow,
and I think it's going to be a really fun, right?
>> Yeah. The viewers would want to know,
what is your favorite Power BI feature. I love Goals.
>> This is always a PM because I want to have
seen my own feature I create.
>> What was that?
>> In Power BI, we have a set of
features that we call Quick create
that lets you basically get started really quickly.
I'm looking at a table of data and maybe I can just paste it
into Power BI and visuals are automatically generated for me.
Or maybe I'm looking at a list
in SharePoint and I click the "Power
BI" button and I get a whole report based off of that list.
I think it's a really great feature because it's one of those,
I think, gateway features into the rest of Power BI.
You don't have to already have
these deep technical analysts skills to start using Power BI.
You just need to have data which we've already said everyone does.
Then you can just get started and
then you can start learning about
the other parts of Power BI as you need to,
so like I loved this report that was started for me,
but I need to tweak this thing like
I want it to be different colors.
Then you start exploring the formatting features,
or what other charts do Power BI have?
I make new columns and then you might discover Docs.
It's a really great way to slowly build yourself into
the product instead of having
to jump off a cliff and learn everything.
>> I know that Quick create.
Here we go. Quick create.
I'm running it down. I know it exists.
I played with it a little bit, but not so much.
I think that's a great tip.
Any thoughts for Power BI women
and joining user group and volunteering?
>> I think the biggest thing is just to start getting involved.
I'm always, and it doesn't always appear that way,
but I'm not a super social person naturally,
so I have to push myself,
but every time I do,
I'm glad that I do because the only type
of way you can get started to get involved,
it just becomes like
a way of pushing you further in and you start learning,
meeting new people and networking and finding new experiences.
Just even if you're a little nervous,
just try and push yourself out of that comfort zone and
jump in and just start it. You have to start.
>> That's a great advice. People can start user groups within
their company because remember we when we
started we had the internal Power BI,
so you don't necessarily have to have like
an external worldwide one you could have one
within your own little community.
>> Exactly.
>> Your group of friends.
>> Yeah, maybe you team,
you start building Power BI within your team and then you
start pulling other people in from across the company,
that you can just build from there.
They're starting with a little step.
It's always a lot easier than just trying to
make that big jump into like,
oh, I'm just going start a whole new group from scratch.
Some people can do that, that's great,
but little steps easier to mark progress.
>> Okay. Cool. Well so you heard it from Amanda.
Join us at aka.ms/PowerBI
women and either join their user group or start your own,
and if you need help, you can always contact
us via Twitter or via the community.
Amanda any final words of encouragement for us today?
Of course, we value your time.
We thank you so much for joining us today,
but any other final thoughts?
>> Know that you're in the right place.
You're doing the right things,
you're learning the right skill set,
and it's only going to benefit from here,
so just have confidence that you're doing the right thing.
>> Thank you so much today it was again great seeing you in person
and we all look forward to working together again in the future.
>> Yes. Thank you for your time.