I wondered about the title to this blog post, I thought of various options but to me simply putting “2025” is enough…I don’t tend to write personal blogs, I’ve defined my online persona as a technical person. I find it difficult thinking that anyone would want to read a personal blog of mine, that they would say “oh shut up and post some technical content!” but of course I’m projecting… My wife says I do that too much, that I think ahead to a possibility that 99.99% of the time isn’t actually a reality.
I also find writing a “Year in Review” post difficult, what to talk about? Successes? Failures? Numbers? I don’t know really, so I started writing about all the things that just happened and I guess whether they are successes or failures will be subjective.
I do not want this to come across as a negative post, far from it. I learned lessons, readjusted my focus, moved forward. That’s the important thing. And if this helps anyone else out there then even better.
Here we go.
Work
Work wise it’s been brutal. I’d gone all in on “Fabric Consultancy” and frankly it was extremely difficult, maybe I’ve been too narrow minded on what services I offer? But by the time things weren’t looking good it was like turning a tanker in the North Sea to point in another direction. What was the problem? I don’t know, I honestly don’t know. I don’t think you can be a consultancy and be on your own, even with an Associate model it’s just too difficult. Large companies if they engage with a consultancy are likely going with a medium/large consultancy with all the benefits and bells and whistles that come with that. Do I think I can go toe to toe with the best of the biggest consultancies from a technical perspective? You bet. Can I compete with what they can offer? Free consultancy, free credits…nope, I just can’t do it.
What of the smaller companies? Well, that’s the market I work in but now with AI “everywhere” smaller companies are using LLMs to help them work through strategy, implementation, anything they need without bringing in external resource to work it through. Why pay for an independent consultant with no bells and whistles when you can get most of what you need from ChatGPT? I fed one of my client project proposals into ChatGPT 5 and asked “I’ve been given this proposal by a data consultancy but I’d like to try and implement it myself, give me a detailed plan” and you know what? It did a pretty good job…
I was always about “solving problems” and found myself drifting into “here’s some technology, let’s see if it solves a problem” and that’s not a good place to be. Concentrate on the problem first, technology comes way way later down the line, I was letting it define the solution before I’d even understood the problem.
So where does that leave 2026? Well, I believe I need to be getting back to Processes over Platforms. It’s what I used to do and I need to get back to that. Does this mean I’m stepping fully away from Microsoft Fabric? No, that would be silly. But it won’t be my primary focus, I’ll get back to solving problems and if Fabric just so happens to be the answer then great. If not, then great also.
In fact I have a Fabric certification course coming out hopefully in early 2026 and then a Fabric Warehouse course on my own learning platform coming out, so you see I’m still invested in Fabric.
Health & Fitness
I’ve neglected my health and fitness for many years now and it was showing earlier this year. Pictures of me at conferences smiling but looking tired, pasty, bloated, and quite frankly, unwell. That needed to change, and it started in the early summer of 2025. I started to built healthy habits with food and with exercise. I got rid of all the fads and health grifting that had promised so much and delivered so little over the last few years. Want to lose weight and feel healthier? It’s not going to happen in 7, 10, 30 days…it has taken me months and months to get to a place I feel much better in. And that journey will continue. My advice? Sleep better, drink water, put the phone down…which reminds me…
My attention span was all over the place having been wrecked with short form social media, endless scrolling late at night of Reddit data forums, data social media accounts, all thinking I was keeping on top of the latest things but ultimately destroying my attention span. I realised I had a problem when I started to work through the Databricks Professional Data Engineer syllabus and couldn’t concentrate for more than 10 minutes…It’s taken a while to expunge myself and reallocate my dopamine hits away from social media and into accomplishing learning, and again it’s taken a while to do that.
MVP
I can’t talk about 2025 without talking about something that takes a considerable amount of my time outside of work…being a Data Platform MVP.
That does leave a question of the Microsoft MVP…I earned my 5th year “blue disc” and I’m wondering whether that’s a nice bookend on this particular chapter in my life. I have no more voice relevant to the MVP program anymore…believe me it’s not an easy decision but it feels right as I honestly can’t carry on spending time on an award that I don’t fundamentally believe has value to me. That might sound mercenary but that’s the way I feel. I feel it’s better to “free up” a space (if that’s a thing?) and let those with the drive and passion in that particular area to go for it. I will gladly help anyone who wishes to go for the MVP award in anyway I can.
Does this mean I’m stepping away from the data community? Well, yes in specifics regarding Micosoft Fabric as I just don’t have anything to contribute there anymore… I don’t have any conferences or user groups coming up in 2026 other than the awesome Fabric February and I need to decide if I have a “voice” going forward, if I don’t then that answers that. If I feel I have something to contribute then I will, in whatever form that takes.
I also feel AI has had a huge impact on “content” out there, with voices being drowned out in a sea of AI generated fodder with no real nutrition other than to just get content out there for the sake of it… where’s the quality over quantity? Where are the real voices, where is YOUR voice? Where is mine?…
Here’s to 2026 and the voyage forward.
Andy
2025 was a rough year for many of us data consultants. I’ve never had to work so hard to get work. Things have seemingly turned a corner recently and I hope you find that to be the case no matter what technology you chose to work in. I wish you the best of luck in your new focus and fitness goals.