0:00Hey, it's Tim here. In today's video, I
0:01want to talk about social networks and
0:03Tableau.
0:04As ever, let's get stuck in. So the Tableau
0:06community has mostly found itself on
0:09Twitter.
0:10Twitter has been the one place when I was
0:11learning Tableau. Twitter was the platform
0:14to have a profile
0:15and communicate with everyone doing
0:17anything interesting in the Tableau space.
0:20Very quickly
0:20after that, I also discovered that the
0:22community forums, Tableau's own community
0:24forums, were
0:25another great place to go and find people
0:27who could not only help, but give some
0:29pretty detailed
0:29answers and breakdowns to solutions and
0:31problems that you might have. I still
0:33recommend those two
0:34resources as a place to go and find
0:36innovation, inspiration, and a whole bunch
0:38of other stuff.
0:39But there's one big problem with social
0:42networks at the moment. And right now,
0:44there's actually a
0:44very interesting situation going on with
0:46Reddit, which has sort of prompted me to
0:48make this video.
0:49I should have also made a video when
0:51Twitter had its own range of problems. But
0:53at that time,
0:53I just thought that was a little bit
0:55unnecessary. But I think now that we've had
0:57a repeat instance
0:58of social networks going rogue, I think it
1:00's time that we start to ask the question,
1:03should Tableau make an effort to create a
1:06space in the social universe that it owns,
1:09it manages,
1:10and most importantly, it moderates? Let's
1:13talk a bit about that. You might be asking,
1:16well, what's the point? What's the point?
1:17Everything's fine on Twitter. People are
1:18still
1:19using Twitter. People are still using
1:20Reddit. Well, what's the point? Well, the
1:22point here is
1:23this. When you're a company like Tableau,
1:26and you are operating in a space that you
1:29ultimately don't
1:30control, as in Twitter, you don't control
1:31the API, you don't control the platform,
1:34essentially,
1:34someone else, another company, another
1:36organization with, quite frankly, needs
1:39that need to meet the
1:40whole world, can make platform decisions
1:42that fundamentally change the nature and
1:44the way in
1:45which your community functions on that
1:47platform. One of the downsides with, you
1:49know, Twitter and
1:50its changes in the most recent months has
1:52been they killed a bunch of APIs. So if,
1:54let's say,
1:54a part of your community was using Twitter
1:57through third-party apps as Tableau, what
2:00you'd see is a
2:00side effect that people would just stop
2:02communicating on Twitter as much as stop
2:04going onto Twitter as
2:05much. And I have to say, I track various
2:08social media metrics on Twitter. And since
2:11the last three
2:12months, Twitter has just fallen off a cliff
2:14. People are not using it. And the people
2:16who are
2:17still using it were the people that were
2:18the vocal, the vocal minority, as it were.
2:20But frankly,
2:21people just aren't consuming Twitter
2:23anymore. I'll even show you some YouTube
2:24stats.
2:25Twitter contributes less than 0.001% of
2:30traffic to pretty much all of the activity
2:33that goes on
2:34on my channel. So when I share something on
2:36Twitter, you'd think a lot of people would
2:37go
2:38and see the video. Actually, the reality is
2:40, if I share a video on Twitter, and let's
2:42say 200
2:43people like the post, in reality, only 10
2:46people are likely to actually go and watch
2:48the video. So
2:50it also sort of plays into this effect that
2:52you see on Twitter, where it starts to
2:54become an echo
2:54chamber, where we kind of, we will post
2:56something we like and re-like and re-share.
2:58But actually,
2:59how many people actually, you know, valid
3:01ating what's being shared, whether it's good
3:02or not,
3:03or we just supporting each other in this
3:05sort of effort to sort of amplify the
3:07message, those two
3:08things and kind of get sort of blurred out.
3:10So, you know, Twitter's had this issue. And
3:12so I just
3:13stopped using Twitter, you'll notice, I've
3:15just stopped using Twitter as much as I don
3:17't, I don't
3:18honestly, you know, want to post on Twitter
3:20much because at the same time, the owner of
3:23the platform
3:24and the way that people behave on the
3:25platform has also led me to dislike the way
3:27it works.
3:28Quite honestly, I get so much more
3:30interesting engagement and comments on
3:32YouTube comments where
3:34I have a much bigger presence, because the
3:35people that value the content and they
3:37value sort of
3:38the feedback on Twitter, you do get into
3:40this sort of shouting match sometimes, and
3:42it sometimes does
3:43sort of bring out the worst in some debates
3:45in the worst in some discussions. And you
3:48also sort
3:48of get this element where the platform, the
3:52platform sort of cultivates a specific type
3:55of community, it's really hard on Twitter
3:57to have a community that becomes really
3:59vibrant, meets up
4:00weekly and does a bunch of things. What
4:02people tend to do is they tend to share
4:04resources to
4:05things like user groups, they tend to share
4:07resources to other platforms to go and do
4:09those
4:09things. So it ends up just becoming this
4:11sort of place where things move really
4:13quickly and to new
4:14audiences, which is just, you know, archaic
4:16in many ways, the generation of tomorrow,
4:18if I look at my
4:19brother who's 10 years younger than me, he
4:21doesn't spend time on Twitter, they don't
4:22spend time on
4:23social network. So if you're also thinking
4:25about the future of the people who are
4:26going to be using
4:27your product, Twitter is just not a good
4:29place to be. Now, you might say, okay, well
4:31, we have
4:31Tableau forums, we have all these other
4:33places. Well, what's wrong with those? Well
4:35, here's, here's
4:35another problem with these. Frankly, people
4:38don't know they exist. And you have to, you
4:40have to use
4:41the platforms for quite some time to
4:43stumble into someone that will tell you
4:46that these places exist.
4:48A simple good example is when people
4:49suggest ideas, they say, well, Tableau
4:51should do this. And I always
4:53go to people, hey, do you know that Tableau
4:55has a place where you can make a suggestion
4:56? And they
4:57don't know that. And then I'll send them a
4:58link, and they'll go to the link, and they
5:00'll see, oh,
5:01wow, this thing I've had in my mind has
5:02actually been in the community's ideas page
5:05for the last
5:05eight years. And only recently have Tableau
5:07started sort of knocking some of those off.
5:09But
5:10nonetheless, they don't realize that this,
5:11you know, this is happening. And so what
5:13that does
5:14is it changes the dynamic. When you know
5:16something has been asked for, for eight
5:18years, you have a
5:18very different kind of relationship with
5:21the vendor, because what you want to now do
5:23is sort
5:23of play an accountable role with the vendor
5:25and say, hey, why hasn't this feature been
5:27developed?
5:28Instead, you kind of come at this from this
5:29approach where you're thinking, oh, you
5:31know,
5:32why was it such an obvious thing? Why isn't
5:33in the product, and you start to critique
5:35the product
5:35assist now as if no one has ever thought of
5:37the idea. But actually, that leads to a
5:39very different
5:40discussion to just, you know, holding Table
5:42au to critique. The other thing is that
5:43forums just
5:44aren't a dynamic that many people enjoy.
5:46And I hate to say that because forums are
5:48incredibly
5:49useful. I've said at the beginning of this
5:50video, I'll say it again, the kind of help
5:52and the kind
5:52of value you'll find in the Tableau forums
5:55is a really exceptional quality. But if you
5:57try and
5:58introduce again, generation of today,
6:00younger generation, my brother, he's 10
6:02years younger
6:02than me to something like a forum and the
6:05way a forum works, it's just too slow. The
6:08idea that
6:09you create sort of a post in a thread, that
6:11's all happening on much, much more real
6:14time platforms.
6:15For those we're talking things like slack
6:17and discord. And again, you know, people
6:19just look
6:20at those platforms, and they don't want to
6:21create a Salesforce account to have to use
6:23that they
6:23don't want to have to, you know, traverse
6:25the search, they want to have to understand
6:27its
6:27structure. And the forums aren't always set
6:29up in like, the most sort of transparent
6:31way. In fact,
6:32the best way to experience forums is to not
6:34browse the forums is to search for
6:36something and then add
6:37the term Tableau forums. And you'll get
6:39what you want really, really quickly. They
6:41also come up
6:42because when solutions get posted,
6:44sometimes it's a community forum post that
6:46's actually answering
6:47the question whether there's no knowledge
6:49base or no sort of central point. So I
6:51think it's pretty
6:51interesting that, you know, Tableau, a
6:53company that's been around for 20 years,
6:56yes, was forward
6:57thinking when it had forums, yes, was
6:59forward thinking when it built its
7:01community on Twitter.
7:02But you have to ask the Tableau the future,
7:04the Tableau that was at the keynote, the
7:05Tableau
7:06that's looking ahead to a dashboard list
7:08feature, the Tableau that wants more and
7:10more people to
7:10come and engage, if they want developers,
7:12if they want this kind of community to come
7:14and get
7:15involved, you got to ask, well, where is
7:17that community. And that's when we get to
7:19really
7:19actually a really interesting opportunity
7:22that I think is just blindingly obvious.
7:24But yeah,
7:26it's quite simple. It's Slack. So Sales
7:30force own Tableau, Salesforce also own Slack
7:34. Now Slack,
7:35bizarrely, is one of the most well
7:37respected community platforms on the planet
7:41. As an analyst,
7:42I can't tell you how many different slacks
7:44I'm part of that to me, just foster a much
7:47more
7:48vibrant, much more dynamic, much more
7:50reactive community. And yes, on Twitter,
7:53you can post
7:53something and get something back. But what
7:55you get on Slack is just of a higher
7:57quality level.
7:58Because things are threaded, things are
8:00organized in a much better way. And I know
8:02there's lots of
8:02people who hate certain dynamics within
8:04Slack. But honestly, Slacks integrations
8:06and the way
8:07Slack works compared to pretty much
8:09everything else are second to none. And so
8:12once people get
8:13over that dynamic, once people sort of
8:14figure out how that dynamic works, the one
8:16thing Slack
8:17sucks you do is customize your own
8:18experience, which is one feature that
8:20forums and Twitter
8:21don't really let you do. And another thing
8:23Slack does, it lets you build and scale
8:25your community
8:26in a way that works. And the irony here is
8:28that Salesforce has the power to do this
8:31for its own
8:31communities. And it to me, it's just the
8:34most obvious place. But we also have a, you
8:36know,
8:37official place on Reddit, and we have
8:39official place pretty much everywhere on
8:40all the key
8:41platforms. Now, the thing with Reddit, and
8:43I don't think you know, Reddit is going to
8:45really
8:45be impacted, Tableau Reddit won't be
8:47impacted by the most recent API changes.
8:49But I think it sort
8:49of speaks to this point, again, where the
8:51platform owner is changing the way and the
8:52dynamic in which
8:54people work with Reddit. And the other
8:56thing I have to say about Reddit is
8:58actually the Tableau
8:59Reddit itself, this is not a criticism,
9:01this is, you know, Reddit has a very
9:03specific identity. And
9:04because of that, you have roles called
9:06moderators, and they decide how a
9:08particular group works.
9:09And the reason they're in that role is
9:10because they know what works. And they're
9:12trying to sort
9:12of stop the bad side of the internet coming
9:14through. And so one of the things with the
9:16Tableau Reddit is it's you can't do self
9:18promotion, you might think, yeah, that's
9:19good.
9:20Actually, that's really a good thing. Why
9:21would you allow people to self promote?
9:23Well, the problem
9:24is, is that when people build something,
9:26and they want to share it, or they make
9:27something they're
9:28proud of, they want to be able to share it,
9:30I made a video explaining Tableau, and that
9:32's now had
9:33600,000 views. Now, when I posted that
9:35video, initially, I wanted to get out to as
9:37many people
9:38as possible. And I put it in the Reddit and
9:40actually ranked to the top ranking post
9:42that week.
9:42But unfortunately, it got sort of removed
9:44by the moderators, because ultimately, I
9:46was doing self
9:47promotion. So what I really needed was for
9:49someone else to go and post the video. But
9:52why would
9:52someone else post the video if they don't
9:54know about it. So it's kind of a strange
9:55thing when
9:56you want to do some good, but the way to do
9:58is to kind of, you know, have a sort of a
9:59backdoor way.
10:00And I just thought, well, that's a weird
10:02dynamic. I don't want to have to do this
10:03every time I post
10:04the video. So I just I just gave up. And so
10:06that's why you probably don't find people
10:08sharing their
10:08work and their resources on somewhere like
10:10Reddit, but you get more of a discussion.
10:12And then what
10:13ends up happening is that the valuable sort
10:15of knowledge ends up sort of coalescing
10:17away from
10:18those places. And it becomes sort of
10:20slightly less to you. So what point am I
10:22trying to make? Well,
10:23ultimately, Tableau have a platform that
10:26they could use that's owned by Salesforce.
10:29I say Tableau,
10:30I should just really stop saying Tableau
10:31and just say Salesforce. Salesforce have a
10:33platform they
10:34own, it's called Slack. Slack could be an
10:36incredible place, not just for the Tableau
10:39community,
10:39but it could also be an incredible place
10:41for bringing all of its communities. We're
10:43talking
10:43about the Slack community itself, which
10:45runs on Slack, surprise, surprise, we're
10:47talking about
10:47the Salesforce MVP program that could also
10:49run on Slack. And we're talking about the
10:51Tableau
10:52community program, which could also run on
10:54Slack. In fact, if you're part of those
10:56community
10:56programs, you do get invited to the
10:59internal Slack space for the company, Table
11:03au. But here's the
11:04thing. I think it's somewhat of a limited
11:07experience, because we don't have a place
11:10for other people in the community to openly
11:13come in and take part in that we don't have
11:14a place for
11:15these discussions and threads to take place
11:17in a much bigger setup. And so what you get
11:20there
11:20is essentially a misrepresentation of the
11:23wider community base. And I think this is
11:26what sort of
11:27speaks to some of the disconnect that you
11:28get at conference, you see Tableau going on
11:30with the
11:31cloud, saying that the cloud is the biggest
11:32product, this is where people are pushing.
11:35And what we get internally sometimes is
11:37this idea about where's server, where's
11:39server going. And
11:40that's because fundamentally, a lot of the
11:42people who've been using the core product
11:44are still on
11:45server, but actually a lot of the new
11:47customers are on Tableau cloud, but they're
11:49not in that
11:49Slack, they're not represented as much. So
11:51you get this sort of disconnect. So I
11:53really do think
11:54something like Slack would be a
11:56fundamentally amazing addition to open it
11:58up to create a Tableau
12:00community Slack where not only can we
12:02communicate directly with Tableau, not only
12:04can we communicate
12:05with each other, but we could have threads
12:07about certification, we could have threads
12:09about
12:09visualizations, a visit a day feed could be
12:11in there, we could have people being tagged
12:14on lots
12:14of different threads, we could have even
12:16videos from the community, blog posts from
12:18the community
12:18being dynamically shared and entered into a
12:21specific feed automatically. So you add
12:24yourself
12:24to a form, we actually have a weekly post
12:27called this week in Tableau in Tableau. And
12:30it has a
12:30bunch of different posts that could all be
12:32automated without needing to sort of have
12:34someone
12:35manually put it together, all these autom
12:37ations already exist in other communities. I
12:39have to say
12:40the community I sort of like to refer to as
12:42the DBT community. And whilst it's fairly
12:44quiet in
12:44the Tableau channel, I actually enjoy just
12:46reading the threads in other channels. I'm
12:48one of these
12:48people that just sort of sits quietly in
12:50pretty much all communities, I just read
12:52the content,
12:53I for my own opinions, I disagree
12:54passionately with most of it. But I just
12:56don't share them
12:57because I think you know, sometimes we'll
12:59only share something if you're willing to
13:00actually
13:01take action and push for that outcome and
13:03fight for that outcome. And so if you're
13:05not willing
13:06to do that, what's the point in sharing,
13:07you know, you kind of got to, you got to
13:09choose your battles
13:10wisely. So I talk when I'm really
13:11passionate about something. And so for
13:13everything else,
13:14for 99% of stuff, I'm just, I'm just
13:17looking on making opinions for my own
13:19judgments and
13:20sort of enjoying the content that way. But
13:21anyway, I think Tableau Salesforce should
13:25seriously
13:26consider a community slack. And why am I
13:28making this video? Well, I started to
13:31believe in life
13:33that if you want something to happen, you
13:34kind of have to put it out there, you have
13:36to put the idea
13:37out there as a way of manifesting it
13:39yourself. I'm not into manifestation. But I
13:41do think that
13:42when you start to socialize ideas, people
13:44start thinking, and you never know the
13:47ideas might just
13:48end up somewhere useful. Anyway, that's
13:49pretty much it for this video. Thanks for
13:51watching,
13:52and I'll see you in the next one. Trans
13:54cribed by https://otter.ai
13:55Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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