I just wanted to share with you two great presentations that quickly get you up to speed with PowerPivot, they are done by Program managers Julie Strauss and Ashvini Sharma from the PowerPivot team at the Teched 2010 in New Orleans.
Building Sophisticated BI Applications Using Microsoft PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel
PowerPivot for Excel (and SharePoint) is a breakthrough technology that enables end users to build BI solutions and collaborate with their peers. This session dives deep into the capabilities of PowerPivot for Excel and shows how end users can build sophisticated BI applications using an intuitive and seamless user experience. This session consists almost entirely of demos and assumes some basic knowledge of PowerPivot and its value proposition.
View it here
Enriching Microsoft PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel Applications Using DAX (Data Analysis Expressions)
DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) is a new expression language for end users to add business logic to their PowerPivot applications. DAX offers a lot of power and flexibility while retaining the the simplicity and familiarity of Excel like formulas. This session explains the fundamentals and concepts behind DAX and demonstrates how to add business logic in PowerPivot using calculated columns and measures. This session also introduces you to various categories of DAX functions — scalar functions, table functions, aggregates, time intelligence — but is not intended to be a comprehensive overview.
View it here