New year, new name, new project

The Name

It has been a while that I wanted to switch from my old nickname to a new name. TheSQLGrrrl is the old me, as old as SQL, and as old as the Riot Grrrl, feminist figures from the nineties that inspired me. I am still into Data, still into diversity and Intersectional Feminism. Also, I like outliers, and atypical as they told us a lot about boundaries, relations, coherence, and the necessity to think twice before making assumptions. It is not the most comfortable position to continuously ask ourselves about our biases but it is the only way.
And I can easily relate that to the hard work we are doing in our ETL to build a better version of our data. Same in the representation of it. It takes time, in this era of spontaneity, to investigate and rebuild our beliefs.

I have chosen DatAtypical for 3 different reasons:
Data because I am a person of facts, data, and analysis.
Typical because I believe in pattern and methods and good models and datatype, once convinced.
Atypical because I like to continuously think not only out of the box about problems but also to try to have a different look at situations and contexts. Not just to be an IT person. My daughter is on the spectrum and I learn so much from her.

The Project

In that spirit, beyond the name change, I am also very pleased to have shaped a vision into reality.
I’ve been into the tech community for years, 10 years as an MVP, giving conferences around the world. In big conferences as in casual meet-ups. I am also running users groups and organising conferences up to hundreds of people. But for a while now, I wanted to build something slightly different. A true participatory community. Very small, very local, very rooted in our day-to-day experience. No “speakers”, no “leaders”.
I wanted to do something other than being a “guru”, an “evangelist” in front of a passive audience. The community can be elsewhere than in the speaker room and the Expo Hall.

Arnaud Gastelblum shared that vision with me and we spoke about it the last 2 years…Then the Covid situation gave us the last impulse to start it. No more questions about the how, where, when. We simply reached out to passionate people we had the pleasure to have worked with to start our group. The magical part is that they all agreed to be part of it. DataSprouts was born ! Because it is local it is in French. But I really want to share our manifest with you:

We are a collaborative laboratory of Microsoft Data Platform professionals, intending to exchange our practices, ideas, points of view, and problems. Unlike traditional webinars and conferences, we work in a participatory and inclusive model. It is no longer a question of a person delivering knowledge frontally but of bringing together our experiences and knowledge in a friendly atmosphere. Don’t hesitate to participate in our discussions on our pages and to bounce back on the topics discussed!!!!

In concrete terms, our community records a monthly discussion on a more specific theme and publishes it on YouTube. Demos, sharing and feedback can be found there. Links, scripts, and other resources can be found in our sharing space. Content directly connected to the reality of our projects and the challenges of the field in business to fuel the discussion with you and go even further Don’t hesitate to participate in our discussions on our pages and to bounce back on the topics discussed!!!!

Of course this project takes place side by side with my current implication into the PowerPlatformAssociates partnership with Serge Luca aka DoctorFlow and my commitment into the ClubPowerBI for Brussels edition and the GUSS association as VP.