https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/ Writing on Power BI, data modelling, report design, automation and AI, from Duncan Boyne. en-GB Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:14:36 GMT https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/the-colour-crash/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/the-colour-crash/ LEGO went from ten colours a year to 113, then crashed to 59. The company nearly died in the middle, and nobody wrote that story down. The data recorded it anyway. My Power BI Dataviz World Champs entry, live and clickable, plus everything that broke on the way. Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:14:36 GMT Power BI Data Visualisation Deneb LEGO Dataviz World Champs Data Storytelling https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/the-report-i-never-submitted/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/the-report-i-never-submitted/ I found $2.4M hiding in a gap of less than half a percent, planned five pages around it, then talked myself out of entering. Round 1 of the Power BI Dataviz World Champs, and the report nobody was supposed to see. Wed, 08 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Power BI Dataviz Competition https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/power-platform-tools-2026/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/power-platform-tools-2026/ A practical 2026 list of Power Platform tools worth knowing across Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Pages, Dynamics 365, Copilot Studio, learning resources and AI. Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Power Platform Power BI Power Apps Power Automate Copilot Studio AI https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/the-architect/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/the-architect/ When Claude Fable dropped, everyone built the same landing page. I asked it for a living cathedral instead — where the floor is data quality, the pillars are revenue, and your decisions crack the foundations while you watch. Here's what it built, what broke, and why the idea still matters more than the tool. Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT AI https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/power-bi-is-becoming-an-ai-job/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/power-bi-is-becoming-an-ai-job/ Five Power BI and Fabric announcements landed in one week. Taken together, they reveal a job shifting from building reports to directing agents, governing semantic layers, and knowing when the confident answer is wrong. Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Power BI AI Microsoft Fabric Agentic Analytics https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/ai-provider-landscape/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/ai-provider-landscape/ The big three AI generalists aren't competing to be best — they've split the map. Claude for careful building, GPT for the broadest toolbox, Gemini for mountains of context. Here's what I actually reach for in mid-2026, where each one falls flat, and the niche players worth knowing. Don't marry a model. Marry the job. Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT AI https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/deneb-two-measure-heatmap/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/deneb-two-measure-heatmap/ Power BI has no native heatmap. Here's how to build a better one in Deneb and Vega-Lite, with gross margin as the cell colour and revenue as the label, plus the full copy-paste spec. Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Power BI Deneb Vega-Lite Data Visualisation DAX Microsoft Fabric https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/building-power-bi-report-without-opening-desktop/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/building-power-bi-report-without-opening-desktop/ I built a three-page Power BI report through Claude Code, Figma MCP, powerbi-modeling-mcp, and pbi-cli without opening Desktop until validation. This is the honest pipeline and the twelve things that went wrong. Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Power BI AI Claude Code MCP PBIR https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/linkedin-analytics-dashboard-claude-code/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/linkedin-analytics-dashboard-claude-code/ LinkedIn gives you 90 days of analytics. I wanted more. So I built a dashboard that combines the official export with an Apify scrape to show content format performance, day-of-week patterns, post quadrants, and full audience demographics — then open-sourced it as a Claude Code skill. Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT LinkedIn ClaudeCode Analytics Dashboard OpenSource https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/dax-fundamentals-power-bi/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/dax-fundamentals-power-bi/ DAX is not hard. But it is different. These are the 10 concepts I would teach someone starting from scratch — the things that unlock everything else. Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT DAX PowerBI DataModeling Learning Power BI https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/deneb-vega-lite-cheat-sheet/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/deneb-vega-lite-cheat-sheet/ A single reference for the Deneb / Vega-Lite things I reach for most often — the blocks, the syntax, and the gotchas. Built while preparing my PBIBRUM talk. Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Deneb VegaLite PowerBI DataViz Power BI https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/ai-adoption-power-bi/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/ai-adoption-power-bi/ I was an early AI adopter everywhere — except in Power BI, my actual job. Here's why AI can read your data, but still can't tell you why the numbers are wrong. Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT AI PowerBI DataAnalysis Consulting https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/saas-dead-small-businesses-surging-enterprises/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/saas-dead-small-businesses-surging-enterprises/ Vibe coding isn't replacing enterprise software — it's filling the gap for small businesses who can't afford £8k ticketing systems. Here's why the distinction matters. Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT AI VibeCoding SaaS SmallBusiness https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/speaker-feedback-d365-ppug-manchester/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/speaker-feedback-d365-ppug-manchester/ I received my first proper anonymous session feedback yesterday. 4.81 out of 5. Here is what people said, what I am taking away from it, and why "Fab" might be my favourite review of all time. Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Speaking Community PowerBI Power BI Talks https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/the-accidental-quest-to-become-a-modern-polymath/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/the-accidental-quest-to-become-a-modern-polymath/ I was laid in bed at 2am watching YouTube Shorts when I started thinking about something slightly dangerous. What if I actually tried to become a modern polymath? Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT SelfImprovement Philosophy Life https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/steal-my-website/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/steal-my-website/ Fork it. Clone it. Break it. Make it yours. Here's how I built my site and how you can steal it. Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT Claude https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/i-cried-today/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/i-cried-today/ Being alive is not a small thing. Some days, it's everything. Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT MentalHealth https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/claude-code-has-changed-my-life/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/claude-code-has-changed-my-life/ Claude Code, creativity, speed, and the reality of turning ideas into production in hours, not months. Tue, 10 Feb 2026 09:00:00 GMT AI https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/reasons-to-stay/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/reasons-to-stay/ Content warning: suicide and mental health. A letter to a stranger about reasons to stay, reasons to exist, and reasons to endure. Thu, 05 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT MentalHealth https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/power-bi-report-i-want-to-open-part-1/ https://duncanboyne.co.uk/blog/power-bi-report-i-want-to-open-part-1/ Why most personal dashboards don't last, and why motivation matters more than measures ever will. Part 1 of building a Power BI report I actually want to open. Fri, 23 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT Power BI