Follow me on LinkedIn for daily Microsoft 365 insights

Data Talk Episodes

Data Talk is where we slow down and unpack the entire Microsoft data stack — from self-service to enterprise, from Excel users to lakehouse architects.
This is Power BI, Microsoft Fabric, SQL Server, Synapse-DNA lineage, Dataverse, Lakehouse, Warehouse, Real-Time Analytics, semantic models, data governance, DAX patterns, dataflows, pipelines — and the craft of turning raw data into actual intelligence that impacts business decisions.

We talk about how the pieces fit — not just the tool buttons.
Data modelling logic, semantic modeling best practices, enterprise data product thinking, proper star schema design, delta table decisions, Power BI report performance tuning, how to operationalise Fabric workloads, how to treat Power BI as a “first-class” enterprise platform and not a wild west of “dashboard in five minutes” chaos.

We cover governance deeply: capacity planning, workspaces strategy, managed vs unmanaged lakes, sensitivity labels, lineage, data mesh vs data swamp, self-service enablement frameworks, adoption and literacy programs, federated ownership, and the “balance of freedom vs control” that every organisation struggles with.

We also talk human business dynamics — because data is ultimately not a tech project. It is a decision-making multiplier.
We are here to surface the patterns that create trusted, reliable, explainable, well-governed analytic landscapes — not one-off Power BI hero dashboards.

If it moves data, visualises data, secures data, or makes data make sense — it belongs in Data Talk.
Dec. 19, 2025

The Fabric Ecosystem: I Have Forged Your New Data Reality

You think Power BI performance problems are a dashboard issue? Think again — the real problem is hiding upstream. In this episode, we break down Microsoft Fabric as a living data ecosystem and explain why Power BI only thrives when the entire architecture beneath it is healthy. Using a clear, st…
Dec. 14, 2025

STOP Using Power BI Themes That Lie

Your Power BI theme might be the reason your dashboard is silently lying to you. In this breakdown, you’ll learn why a Power BI theme isn’t “just branding” — it’s a containment field that keeps critical signals visible. The video exposes five hidden failures that make alerts fade, subtotals vanish …
Dec. 6, 2025

Why Microsoft Fabric Is Becoming the New Operating System for Enterprise Data

Your data platform isn’t a platform – it’s a staged illusion. In this episode, I break down why your “modern stack” of Power BI, ad hoc pipelines, shadow CSVs and seven conflicting dashboards is really entropy in disguise. We dissect the real reason Microsoft Fabric exists: not as another feature b…
Dec. 1, 2025

The Doctrine of Distribution: Why Your Power BI Reports Require Apostolic Succession

Are your dashboards secretly preaching lies? In this episode, we turn data governance into a full-on revival meeting. We name the heresy of ad-hoc share links, stale workspaces and broken RLS that quietly corrupt your “single source of truth”. Then we reveal the doctrine of distribution: org apps a…
Nov. 30, 2025

Excel Is NOT Your Database: Stop The Power Apps Lie

Your “Simple” Excel App Is Quietly Wrecking Your Business (And You Won’t See It Until It’s Expensive) Stop wiring Power Apps into spreadsheets and calling it “production.” Every shared Excel file is a glass elevator: silent data loss, last-save-wins concurrency, and zero governance until an audi…
Nov. 27, 2025

The 1400 Connector Lie: Why Azure Logic Apps Beats Power Automate

Summary: In this episode I explain why “1,400+ connectors” is a vanity metric and compare Power Automate vs Azure Logic Apps for real enterprise integration. We dig into throttling, throughput, vNet and private endpoints, Azure Arc hybrid, AI agents with Azure Functions, and give you a simple decis…
Nov. 25, 2025

Stop Using Fragile Data: Fabric Snapshots Deliver The ONLY Version of Truth

Think your data is stable? Think again. Your warehouse is basically a construction zone—ETL is rewriting tables, pipelines are mid-write, replicas are copying chaos, and your dashboards refresh right through the mess. No wonder finance reruns a report and gets different answers. This episode br…
Nov. 22, 2025

Python is Dead: The AI That Killed It

Python is NOT the language of AI inside the Microsoft stack—and in this episode, I show you why that belief is quietly wrecking your Power Platform projects, inflating defects, and burning your budget. If you’re cramming Python into Power Automate, Power BI, Fabric, or custom connectors as “glue co…
Nov. 19, 2025

The 3 Ways Microsoft Hides Pixel-Perfect Reports

Your Power BI dashboards aren’t broken – you’re just using them for the wrong job. This episode shows why “Export to PDF” is a lying screenshot, and how paginated reports (in the Service, Report Builder, or Visual Studio) finally give executives the print-perfect, audit-ready PDFs they keep asking …
Nov. 18, 2025

Stop Using DAX UDFs Wrong! The Hidden Gotchas

You thought VAL vs EXPR was harmless syntax sugar. In reality, it decides when your metrics are evaluated, which means the same function, same arguments can return a completely different “truth” — clean visuals, perfect totals, and numbers that are confidently wrong.
Nov. 17, 2025

3D Objects Are the Ultimate Test of Fabric Governance: Catalyst E3

Think spreadsheets are chaos? Cute. In this episode we stress-test Microsoft Fabric against the worst data you own: photorealistic 3D assets and full-fidelity digital twins. We break down why a single “file” is actually a sprawling supply chain of scans, meshes, textures, physics, and licenses — an…
Nov. 15, 2025

The NVIDIA Blackwell Architecture: Why Your Data Fabric is Too Slow

Your GPUs aren’t the problem. Your data fabric is. In this episode, we unpack why “AI-ready” on top of 2013-era plumbing is quietly lighting your cloud bill on fire—and how Azure plus NVIDIA Blackwell flips the equation. Think thousands of GPUs acting like one giant brain, NVLink and InfiniBand …
Nov. 14, 2025

Stop Using Default Gateway Settings: Fix Your Power Platform Connectivity NOW!

Your Power BI refreshes still crawling like dial-up? This episode exposes the real villain: your “safe” on-prem data gateway. We tear apart the myth of the dumb tunnel and show how the gateway actually behaves like an overloaded processing engine—juggling auth, TLS, caching and concurrency. You…
Nov. 8, 2025

SharePoint Is NOT a Database: The Power Apps Lie

In this episode of the M365 Show, we unpack the most common Power Apps mistake in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem: assuming SharePoint is a “free database.” We break down why SharePoint lists look like a database, but architecturally behave like a file-centric collaboration layer—not a transactional da…
Nov. 6, 2025

Why Your Fabric Data Warehouse Is Still Just a CSV Graveyard

You paid for AI synapses — but you’re parking fossils. Fabric was engineered for real-time intelligence, semantic relationships, live context, and AI agents that reason. Most orgs treat it like a network share. The result? Zero cognition, zero AI, zero advantage — just expensive cold storage with b…
Nov. 5, 2025

Stop Writing SQL: Use Copilot Studio for Fabric Data

Your company isn’t blocked by data—it’s blocked by syntax. Copilot Studio turns plain-English questions into governed Fabric queries, so “What was our revenue by quarter?” finally gets an instant, secure answer—no SQL, no tickets, no waiting. It’s not a chatbot; it’s a translation engine that reme…
Nov. 5, 2025

Why Your Power BI Query is BROKEN: The Hidden Order of Operations

Power BI is lying to you. Those neat, orderly “Applied Steps” you trust are a façade. Power Query is secretly rearranging, deferring, collapsing and sometimes ignoring the way you wrote your transform steps — which is why your filters don’t filter, your merges get weird, and refreshes suddenly go…
Nov. 4, 2025

Your Fabric Data Model Is Lying To Copilot

Copilot didn’t hallucinate — you hallucinated first. Your schema lied → Fabric believed it → Copilot repeated it with confidence. Bad Bronze → leaky Silver → fake Gold = executive decisions built on fiction. Fix the Medallion discipline + fix the semantic layer — or keep paying for an AI that po…
Nov. 4, 2025

The Secret to Power BI Project Success: 3 Non-Negotiable Steps

Power BI isn’t failing because of visuals — it’s failing because nobody plans. 60–70% of BI projects become expensive wallpaper. This episode exposes the 3 discipline steps that separate strategic intelligence from dashboard vanity — why most organizations confuse activity for progress, and how to …
Nov. 3, 2025

Stop Power BI Chaos: Master Hub and Spoke Planning

Power BI Collaboration — from Wild West → Hub-and-Spoke Power BI self-service feels empowering… until every department defines “revenue” differently and no one agrees which dashboard is real. In this episode, we break down why the chaos isn’t a tooling problem — it’s an architecture problem — an…
Nov. 2, 2025

Dataverse Pitfalls Q&A: Why Your Power Apps Project Is Too Expensive

Dataverse isn’t “included.” It’s a premium, enterprise-grade platform with costs that stack fast: licenses, capacity, environments, storage (db/file/log), and API limits. Most sticker shock comes from assumptions—thinking M365 covers Dataverse, that guests are free, or that storage is cheap. Use…
Nov. 1, 2025

Stop Wasting Money: The 3 Architectures for Fabric Data Flows Gen 2

Most Microsoft Fabric teams are bleeding money because they treat Dataflows Gen2 like old Power BI ETL. In Fabric, compute—not storage—is the meter, so every redundant refresh spins up clusters, reloads the same sources, and multiplies cost. The fix is architectural, not heroic CSV exports. Ther…
Nov. 1, 2025

GPT-5 Fixes Fabric Governance: Stop Manual Audits Now!

Fabric didn’t fail at features—it failed at governance cohesion. Data lives in Fabric, security sits in Power BI, labels live in Purview—and they don’t natively reason about each other. That’s why audits devolve into CSV marathons and name-matching nightmares. Enter GPT-5 inside Microsoft 365 Co…
Oct. 30, 2025

Stop Cleaning Data: The Copilot Fix You Need

Most “analysis” in Excel is disguised janitorial work: inconsistent dates, mixed data types, rogue spaces, and copy-pasted chaos that later poisons Power BI, Power Automate, and Fabric. The fix isn’t heroics—it’s Excel Copilot acting as an AI janitor that understands structure, enforces types, and …