# S3 E5: Cronovirus

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2024-04-22
- **Format:** Video · 45 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Industry trends, Productivity, Tool strategy
- **Tools:** Tableau
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/s3-e5-cronovirus
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKAekNUTGUE

In this episode of the Datum podcast, recorded during the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown, Ravi and I talk through the sudden shift to remote working. We cover cloud versus on-premise infrastructure, the behavioural economics of panic buying, collaboration tooling, and how the world of work and learning might change in the long term.

## Key takeaways

- Companies already running cloud and SaaS infrastructure weathered the sudden shift to remote work far better than those reliant on on-premise servers needing physical access or VPNs.
- Trust is the central barrier to remote working, both culturally between managers and staff, and in terms of which collaboration vendor (Microsoft, Google, Slack) organisations are willing to adopt.
- The pandemic created an unprecedented real-time dataset for economists, driven by card transactions, social media and search rather than traditional surveys, though most of it stays locked inside a handful of large tech firms.
- Tool adoption is often decided by existing ecosystem ties, which is why Microsoft Teams wins where Office is already in place rather than on features alone.
- Forced lockdown is pushing people toward self-directed learning and platforms like Udemy and Peloton, and may permanently shift how education and home-working spaces are valued.

## Chapters

- 0:00 Botched intros and going live
- 3:02 Recapping last episode and Tableau updates
- 6:34 COVID-19 context and remote work
- 9:29 Cloud versus on-premise resilience
- 15:27 Trust and cultural adaptation
- 18:26 Behavioural economics of panic buying
- 24:11 The productivity case for remote work
- 30:11 Collaboration tools and integrations
- 34:05 The long-term future of work and education
- 39:47 What we're learning in lockdown
- 43:09 Streaming metrics and sign-off

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/s3-e5-cronovirus

---
just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena