Cat Memes Built my Data Model, w/ Krissy Dyess

Krissy Dyess is a prime example of inspiration and adaptability.  She made a decision to better her knowledge of the updated and evolving BI tools through self-teaching, and with help from the amazing data community.  She went from being stuck in a cubicle, to being a team leader at one of the best BI consulting firms in the world.  And she creates excellent Cat Memes!

References in this episode

Telling Ain't Training by Harold D. Stolovitch

David Churchward's SQL UNPIVOT Makes My Data Skinny blog post

Dave Grohl Explains Everlong

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Episode Timeline:

• 0:00 - Krissy's history is her story, Krissy is the nicest stalker ever, and the art of self-teaching
• 23:40 - Abstract learning vs hands-on learning, the role of the community in teaching, Krissy is a Power BI Evangelist
• 45:00 - Krissy's thirst for knowledge leads her to Seattle and a moment of clarity, her transition into being a consultant and trainer at a young upstart P3 Adaptive

Rob Collie (00:00:00): Welcome, friends. Today's guest is Krissy Dyess, one of our directors here at P3 Adaptive. And I want to say that today's episode is brought to you by the words, inspiration and human. At P3, we are in the inspiration business. Now of course, we're also in the implementation business. We're not just inspiration. Otherwise, we'd be McKinsey. Necessarily, we're in the reality business. We have to bring things to life. But in today's data landscape, the art of the possible is so much wider, so much more valuable than what it ever was before that we'd be doing a disservice to our clients if we weren't also in the inspiration business.

Rob Collie (00:00:39): Krissy is basically the living embodiment of inspiration. Whether you're an organization plotting your course through an ever-changing landscape or an individual planning your career as a power platform professional, I think that inspiration theme will shine through as you listen to Krissy. And that second word, human that's also Krissy. You'll notice in this conversation that she keeps circling back to training.

Rob Collie (00:01:06): And we still do training here at P3, but the majority of our business is now project implementation. But even when we're building things with our clients, we can't help it. We're always transferring knowledge. We're always teaching. We're always training and it's that human connection, the need to help, the desire to help that shines through over and over again in this conversation with Krissy. She's just an incredible person. I'm so glad that she took that leap and joined us four years ago. She's grown tremendously in her time with us and we as an organization, as a team have grown tremendously right along with her. I hope you smile as much listening to this as we did while we were recording the conversation. So let's get into it.

Announcer (00:01:54): Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please?

Announcer (00:01:58): This is the Raw Data by P3 Adaptive podcast, with your host, Rob Collie, and your co-host, Thomas LaRock. Find out what the experts at P3 Adaptive can do for your business. Just go to p3adaptive.com. Raw Data by P3 adaptive is data with the human element.

Rob Collie (00:02:21): Welcome to the show, Krissy Dyess.

Krissy Dyess (00:02:24): Hi. How are you doing?

Rob Collie (00:02:26): Oh, we're doing fantastic. This is one of those things that it's a real pleasure. I'm already like all curve ruffled. You just asked me how I'm doing and I'm like, "Shit, I'm not prepared to answer questions." I'm already failing.

Krissy Dyess (00:02:40): It's one of those days.

Rob Collie (00:02:41): We interact a lot because we work together.

Krissy Dyess (00:02:44): We do.

Rob Collie (00:02:45): I figured what we could do is we just do sort of like a story of your life type of thing today. But also we could just almost like conduct like a one on one meeting and just record it for the world. What do you think?

Krissy Dyess (00:02:55): Okay.

Rob Collie (00:02:55): Sound good?

Krissy Dyess (00:02:55): Sure.

Rob Collie (00:02:55): So you've been with P3 for how long now?

Krissy Dyess (00:03:00): Ooh. It's interesting that you asked me that. I just realized yesterday I was outside in the yard, just taken in the nice spring weather and the angle of the sun felt familiar and I couldn't place it. Then all of a sudden I was thinking and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is actually four years ago that I came to P3." And the angle of the sun, I remember it. I remember it so fondly, because I don't know if I ever told you this before, but I actually did not read the book before applying to P3.

Rob Collie (00:03:37): I'm going to give you my false gasp before there.

Krissy Dyess (00:03:42): Did I tell you this?

Rob Collie (00:03:43): I don't really care. It doesn't bother me. You've kept this secret.

Krissy Dyess (00:03:46): Oh my gosh.

Rob Collie (00:03:48): You've kept this secret all these years because you were afraid of... No.

Krissy Dyess (00:03:52): No, no, no. It wasn't that I was keeping it a secret, but everything just kind of came together so rapidly. I was in my cubicle back in the day. I had been following the blog post for a long time, 2013. I think you could go back in the data and find my actual subscriber date. Yeah. So I've been following the blog for a really long time, and one of the blog posts came across looking for full-time consultants. And I thought, "This is it." All my energy shifted and I went to the website and filled out all the information. There was a lot of information and I was like, "Whoa, whoa. I don't know about this."

Krissy Dyess (00:04:29): So I filled out all the information and put my resume together. Gosh, it had been many, many years. I'd been with the previous organization for 16 and a half years. I hadn't really updated my resume. I had to get that together and sent that along. And then I entered into the interview of doom process if you will. It was quite interesting. I expected it. I expected to be quizzed and grilled a bit. As I met for the first time with Kellan, it was my first ever video interview, if you will. That was new.

Rob Collie (00:05:04): Yeah. We were video interviewing before it was cool at P3.

Krissy Dyess (00:05:07): You were. And to be honest, I was in my cube for 16 and a half years. Really wasn't interviewing or moving anywhere. But this was really a new thing for me. How am I going to come across in an interview using video? I guess I said all the right things. And then I was notified that I would be moving on to an interview with Rob and I was like, "Oh my gosh, because I don't really have celebrities like growing up. I never really had crushed celebrities. Not that I had a crush, but this was like this person that I had been following and even some in my previous job would say stalking. They used to joke about me like stalking because I knew everything.

Rob Collie (00:05:48): You stalked me, but you didn't read my book. I just want to point that out.

Krissy Dyess (00:05:51): I know. I know. Right? I'm not a great stalker.

Rob Collie (00:05:55): Well, that takes a lot effort. Who wants to read the book?

Thomas LaRock (00:05:58): Yeah, but did she pay for the book? That's the important thing. If she paid for the book, you don't care if she reads it?

Krissy Dyess (00:06:03): Well, honestly, I didn't know about the book. I didn't know. Clearly I was stalking. I was reading the blog. I even had read the one blog post where you were looking for people to help with the Keller version and at that point in time, I was like, "I don't get it." Right? In any case, I didn't really realize the power of the book. It wasn't communicated in the ecosystem that I had fallen into.

Krissy Dyess (00:06:27): So I just felt like if I'm going to be interviewing with Rob Collie, the owner of the company, I should probably read the book. I actually thought I would probably get questions about the book. So I'm like, I better read the book. So the interview process, it moved pretty quickly once I made it through the screening, once I made it through the first interview. I didn't have a whole lot of time. It was like, "You're meeting with Rob."

Krissy Dyess (00:06:57): I literally was losing my mind. I was like, "Oh, I need to create an environment that conveys that I can conduct business in a remote environment." You can see me now. I'm still in the same spot. I think I had screens. I probably put plants up, tried to look super professional. I ran up to borders and I bought the book and I came in my backyard as I like to multitask, the weather was nice. It was April. Weather was nice. The sun was out and here I was laying in the sun reading through this book.

Krissy Dyess (00:07:27): As I kept reading, I was like, "Oh, yeah, this is cool." I had no formal training. I was self-taught. I learned a lot. I went to a lot of user groups and talked to other people. And back then, Power BI, it wasn't even Power BI, it was Power Pivot and Excel. I just sat there and I'm reading this book and so many light bulbs went off when I compared to th