The day after the recent Teradata event I headed over to the other side of London to the aptly-named Big Data London event at Olympia.
On entering the main expo hall I made a beeline for the Opal Fruits Starburst stand.
The moniker ‘Big Data’ feels a little ‘2010s’ as we near the middle of the 2020s, but never mind, it’s all about data and it’s free to attend.
None other than my old British Airways (1994), LloydsTSB (late 1990s) & Dataupia (2007-08) colleague Richard ‘RVP’ Persaud was on booth duty, as expected. It’s over 30 years since we first worked together at BA. We both had different coloured hair back then.
‘Back in the day’, whilst at Dataupia, Richard and I went to the #2 coldest place on planet earth to watch the New England Patriots play American football (more accurately described as ‘catch’). Despite our best efforts, neither of us could figure out what was going on. Midway through the game, which lasts forever, we went to the bar to watch on TV. Thanks to the commentary we then knew what was going on, at least a bit anyway!
We also went skiing with Mike Rogge at the #1 coldest place on planet earth – a very icy Sunday River, Maine. I can’t recall ever being as cold or needing a face mask before. Thankfully, Mike accepted mines & RVP’s offer to come over to Chamonix for some civilised skiing in the French Alps. Good times!
Following on from RVP & Starburst, a tour of the expo hall took in stands as varied as the British Computer Society (BCS), Aiven and Microsoft. Much chatting was had.
I spent quite some time discussing all things Fabric with Zidan M at the Microsoft stand. Could be *be* any more helpful?
I always love it when vendors put highly knowledgeable folks on booth duty. You can learn *so* much. Very many thanks sir (and for the post-conference follow-up)!
Despite several laps of the expo, and a quick look at some of the discussions/lectures on offer, somehow the ‘Modern Data Stack Theatre’ didn’t manage to entice me in, despite spelling ‘theatre’ correctly!
On the final lap of the expo I spotted bearded hipster BI kinda guy on booth duty. As I got nearer he spotted me & asked “Is that Paul Johnson?”. Guilty as charged!
It was none other than Johnny Winter. We’ve never met and only ever interacted via LinkedIn. But, he’s a fellow northern data nerd so I knew I’d be in good company.
Data Factory…blah…Fabric…blah…Power BI…blah…
Then we got onto the good stuff. What are the chances of us both being *really* into 1990s grunge & alt-rock!?!?! The conversation quickly turned to Nirvana, Mudhoney & co.
What a great way to end the Big Data London event.
Let’s rawk m/