Tableau's Future - is it falling behind? Season 5 Episode 4 | Datum Podcast

0:00Next week, Tableau is going to share their vision of what the future of Tableau looks like.

0:05Last week I had a chat with Ravi as part of our podcast to talk about this narrative in the community at the moment that Tableau

0:13is uh on the way down, it's dying, it's on you know, it's it's getting overtaken by Power BR.

0:18Lots of different sort of s sentiments all culminating in the same sort of thing.

0:23Um and in order to have that discussion, we actually broke it down into various topics.

0:27Just looking at my list here, it's uh price, uh, you know, is Tableau too expensive versus Power BI, uh the core features, what should those be?

0:35Should Tableau be building new things or should they be

0:38doubling down on giving us the things we've been asking for for years.

0:41Um innovation, where is it, where is it heading?

0:44Like w what are tablet going to add to the product to make it?

0:47relevant.

0:49And then we also talked about the fourth wave, this new thing we're going to see next week.

0:53We kind of broke down the key concepts there.

0:55And then the very last thing is we talked about the job market.

0:58A lot of people are worried about their skills

1:01Um and you know, they're wondering should they still be investing time and energy into Tableau?

1:05All very valid questions.

1:07We didn't want to just put them into one big bucket and talk about them in one go.

1:11So we dealt with them, each of them individually.

1:13and looked at each of them on their own merit and we gave our opinion on what those sort of outcomes are.

1:20Broadly speaking, at least I'd like to say I'm still quite optimistic and I think Ravi shared the same sentiment and lots of things

1:26The whole industry is still working out quite a lot about what's coming next, especially in the analytics space.

1:33My next video will be with someone who knows a

1:36ton about one of the products that's going to be challenging in this space that you might have seen at Tableau Conference.

1:41I'll keep that a secret until the video is out later this week.

1:44But nonetheless, we covered it all.

1:46And then at the very end, we we kind of announced something which I think is going to be pretty exciting.

1:51A way to make sure that as Tableau pushes forward, we're actually looking back and reflecting on what they have delivered, what they said they'd deliver.

1:59and where they're heading.

2:00Okay, so there's a lot to cover in this one.

2:01So go ahead and catch this in your favorite podcast player of choice.

2:05It's also on YouTube as ever.

2:06And um yeah, let's get started.

2:08Ravi, what is this?

2:10We're back and I haven't even edited the last episode before we record this.

2:17We we are going in with a two-episode buffer.

2:20What's going on?

2:21I think it's it was that hook.

2:22It's the hook you put in right at the end of the last one.

2:25Right.

2:25Just like percolated.

2:27Right.

2:28Um that that would have been better at diary planning.

2:31Well, actually I'd argue we haven't been better at diary planning because there should have been like an episode out by now.

2:36Yeah, but anyway.

2:40True, true, true, true.

2:43And then this is me digging on Tim because he does all the

2:49I have not yet uh figured out how to use AI to do uh replace my entire job.

2:54Although I will say, D script, sensational editing tool.

2:58A year ago, I kind of I I I very much trounced on DScript, said it was a bad tool.

3:04I am sat here uh two months into actually figuring out how DScript works.

3:11And I'm I'm debating and moving my entire workflow to that because their AI tools are unbelievable for editing.

3:18If you edit podcasts or edit videos,

3:20Need to create social clips.

3:22I'm just gonna say it now.

3:23This tool is sensational.

3:26Check it out.

3:27It's really reasonably priced.

3:29Just just check it out.

3:30Is it kind of like when you move from

3:33Do you have Paint Shop Pro?

3:34Oh yeah.

3:35Or Paint Shop Pro or like I mean even just paint and you get Photoshop for the first time you like.

3:41Yeah.

3:42I am not sure what I'm doing with this tool.

3:44Because we do so much with Photoshop, right?

3:46Every industry.

3:49Yeah, if you work in print design, it's the difference from moving between Quark Express and InDesign.

3:54You go to InDesign and suddenly all your photoshop assets are like, whoa.

3:58Um in web in web browsing it's like going from Netscape to Internet Explorer.

4:02Yes, that was actually a good direction.

4:05Internet Explorer to

4:06Firefox, Firefox to Chrome.

4:09Chrome to Arc.

4:10Like the like all those transitions all the same.

4:13So yeah, it's very much that.

4:15But anyway, um before we get too carried away with caching arc.

4:20Arc arc.

4:21I mean I've been using Arc for a year and a half.

4:24I haven't used Chrome in the last three months.

4:28On the case.

4:29Do you do count brave as do you use count brave as Chrome?

4:34No.

4:34Okay.

4:35I haven't used Brave.

4:36I haven't used Brave.

4:38Um so I only had Chrome on my lap my Windows laptop and the uh arc for Windows came out properly properly three months ago and that's basically the last time I used Chrome properly.

4:48Um the other browser I have used is Edge because that's that's on work laptops for Microsoft, right?

4:54So you can't really control those.

4:56But yeah, I haven't used Chrome.

4:57So maybe Edge is the secret Chrome bastion in my life.

5:00But anyway

5:02Um today the topic, Ravi, is quite a sincere one.

5:07If you've seen the thumbnail of this episode, you'll know that we're we're basically talking about Tableau, obviously.

5:12Um but whether or not Tableau is dying, right?

5:16That's uh that's a very radical statement.

5:18And I never liked it.

5:19Clickbait, clickbait.

5:21Exactly.

5:22Yeah.

5:22Is Tableau dying?

5:24Um

5:25I don't know, I don't know what other what other sort of uh what the word, thumbnail clickbait worthy things are.

5:32But what I will do is, because I'm gonna edit this with AI tools.

5:36Once I've edited it, I'll ask it to suggest some titles and we'll find out what it thinks this this episode should be.

5:44And you'll get that in the thumbnail.

5:45I'll actually go with what the AI tool suggests for the thumbnail and the title.

5:49So we'll go with that

5:50Okay.

5:50There we go.

5:51Find that soon.

5:52But yes, no, on a serious note, we wanted to talk about Tableau.

5:55Um I've been approached on um a couple of platforms about oh where what is Tableau dying?

6:01Um YouTube comments are the ones where I constantly get people asking, hey

6:05Is this a skill worth having?

6:07Should I be learning it?

6:08Um, we've seen a lot of you know kickback with 24.

6:112 coming out and you know, there being a couple of bugs and people

6:14sort of suddenly talking about the quality of the product and and and sort of where that's been.

6:19Uh there's Salesforce fourth wave that's made people think, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, like

6:24Where's this product going?

6:25Um, where's the core experience going?

6:27Um we've had the we had the price topic come up multiple times now.

6:32More and more companies are potentially doing that transition from Tableau to beep Power BI, mostly driven by cost.

6:39Um

6:40And there's some interesting sort of arguments that come out of that as well.

6:45Yeah that song.

6:46It's not so funny anymore, is it?

6:48Um It's not working

6:53But nonetheless, nonetheless, if we combine all of this together, I think it is fair to say there is a general mood, there's a sentiment that Tableau is losing market share.

7:04Um and what I wanted to do is talk about that.

7:08And we're not coming at this from a comparison to any one tool.

7:11We're going to purely evaluate Tableau for its own merit.

7:14on each of the points that typically kind of come up.

7:17So we've done a list, Ravi, and we'll go through this in more detail shortly.

7:20But price.

7:21No tangents today.

7:22Yeah.

7:23Innovation.

7:24uh core capability, Salesforce influence, and the job market and skills.

7:29And then at the end of it we've got a little surprise for everyone.

7:32about something we're going to be doing to try and try and uh you know add data to the narrative because I think that's also something that's missing and Gartner's not providing it.

7:39We'll come on to that later.

7:41So there's the agenda.

7:42This could be a long one, Ravi.

7:44Um where shall we start?

7:45Price.

7:46Price.

7:47Well we say we would.

7:48Like.

7:49I think this is this is interesting, right?

7:51Like again, to to to be the history teacher in the room, Tableau had

7:55A previous pricing model where you could buy perpetual licenses, um, or what do they call it?

8:02You could buy the the one and done and then pay for maintenance on a yearly, yearly cost to get the latest updates

8:09Um they then had a core subscription and a perpetual subscription for the Tableau server where you could pay price per core or um

8:20I think it was per user, was it previously?

8:22Yeah.

8:23Yeah.

8:23User-based pricing.

8:24User-based pricing.

8:25And then everything changed.

8:26You had a new data for data, if you remember that slogan.

8:29Oh yeah.

8:30Where everything moved to the subscription-based model.

8:34Yeah, so all in one.

8:35Again, you you're not then put off to say, let's take customers on this journey from desktop to then sharing with your colleagues on the server.

8:42And then you grow and expand and

8:44The land expand disappeared to say actually let's just have a one fixed cost and we'll go from there.

8:50Kill core pricing, you should be limited by your hardware, uh, etc.

8:55Um

8:56And that's how it's been, right?

8:57Like you you get billed for a 12-month cycle per month.

9:01So actually you have a total number you get quoted rather than say, oh, it's $11 a month.

9:06Well actually it's

9:0711 times $12 a month, uh dollars total for the year.

9:11Um and that's the what the pricing's been.

9:13And you know, so you always have the

9:17The stepchild in the middle of the Explorer license, which people are like, does anyone buy it?

9:22Does anyone use it?

9:23Is useful.

9:24Uh you you end up with a top-heavy section of viewers and uh a small subset of creators because that's the most expensive.

9:31But yeah, that's that's where we're at right now, Tim.

9:35It's an interesting one because the the critique that often comes up with Tableau, and and and I'll say this from the perspective of how I see it.

9:42Which is Tableau users are very happy with the value they're getting from Tableau.

9:47That's always almost the the statement that's let people lead with.

9:51And then immediately after there's the ask.

9:55to bring the price down to meet a product that they also agree is sub st sub subpar compared to the experience

10:04They have, right?

10:05So this is a comment I'll like I'll I'll try and find some comments and I'll put them on screen.

10:09And this kind of half-breaks my brain sometimes, but then I also understand where it's coming from because people would just like the discussion to end.

10:17They just want to be able to go back to their CFO, the purchaser, the uh executive sponsor to say, actually it's the same price now and it's better, so can we just keep it?

10:25That is really what people are like drawing a straight line to.

10:28But then in my head, like and I I don't respond this way because obviously I'm I'm conscious that like, you know, people are just making arguments that make sense to them.

10:37In my head, the analogy I draw is um you have two cars.

10:40I told you this analogy before, Ravi.

10:42So you have two cars, one is a Vauxhall Coarser.

10:45Um, maybe I'll choose a slightly different car that's more well known worldwide.

10:50One is a a Porsche 911 and another one is a BMW 3 series.

10:55Okay.

10:56Both really good cars.

10:58You wouldn't argue if you got any one of those two.

11:00Now your use case is you need a car, a daily driver, to do two things.

11:05Go to the supermarket and do daily nursery runs.

11:09Okay?

11:09You've only got one child, so don't worry about the fact that your Porsche only has two seats.

11:14Um now on that basis it turns out the BMW and the Porsche will do the supermarket run in exactly the same time.

11:22The BMW and Porsche will do shopping runs with pretty much the same luggage space and the same amount of comfort and whatever.

11:31Um the BMW and Porsche will also do um other sort of everyday tasks fairly well.

11:37And therefore your CFO, your executive sponsor, just looks at them and go, Well, I'll just go with the BMW.

11:42It's cheaper, it does the same job.

11:45And yeah, it has the same outcome.

11:47But any motorhead who knows anything about cars will tell you that the experience between those two cars

11:54Is vastly different.

11:56And if you try to argue that you could bring the price of a Porsche down to BMW, that would be that would be a crime.

12:03That would be heinous.

12:04People would understand.

12:05Anyone who knows anything about those two cars would understand immediately

12:08That makes zero sense.

12:09And that's that's sort of the comparison I sometimes feel like people are giving Tableau versus Pair BI.

12:15You recognize the value, you recognize the premium experience.

12:19But y you just you don't think that Tableau A business or Salesforce a business should be charging a premium for that recognized value.

12:28And I and I find that hard to rationalize.

12:31If the debate was about how to achieve that premium price, then I think we could we could have a different discussion.

12:37For example

12:38Should uh small companies be paying that really premium price or should the premium price be really applied to companies who are using at scale, right?

12:46Like are there more intelligent ways of pricing it so that the the ramp isn't just so steep and linear and it's more gradual, whatever.

12:52There's all those things are different things, but those are never the arguments people make.

12:56Typically the arguments are just make it cheaper.

12:59So make the view like that.

13:00I really struggle with that, right?

13:03I mean, for goodness sakes, Tablo did just make Tableau public.

13:07Uh the ability to um save desktop and uh save your workbook without needing Tableau Public.

13:16You can literally go and build a use case using nothing but Excel and CSV files for free.

13:20I mean they g they went they went there.

13:22They just went there and did it.

13:23And you get all of Tableau desktop capabilities with that.

13:27Granted you don't get prep.

13:29Granted you don't get

13:30Um nice stuff, you don't get the connectors, all the nice stuff, you don't get the fancy charts, you don't get the fancy all that stuff.

13:37Like, okay, other Power BI does give you some of those.

13:41But nonetheless, they they they brought it one step closer.

13:45And I I I just then never know how to pass that discussion.

13:50Because if you recognize the tablet is a better product, then I don't know how those two line up.

13:55But if you think Power BI is a better product,

13:58And Tableau's too highly priced.

14:00I'm here for that discussion.

14:01I'm here to understand why that is.

14:02I'm here for I'm here for that.

14:04I think those are the more interesting debates, in my opinion.

14:06People who've used Tableau have gone to Power BI and ended up thinking

14:10this is better.

14:11I want to talk to those people.

14:12And if they exist, please, I'm sure they do.

14:14Please, I'd love to talk to you on this podcast to sort of talk more about that experience.

14:19Because it's likely that there are use cases.

14:22where that is absolutely the case.

14:24There's different analysis flows, right?

14:25And I think that's what that's what Power BI could be supporting on, right?

14:29Like if you're able and you're adept and you're you can do things at speed within that tool.

14:34Absolutely.

14:35Like again, drive that BN W3 series.

14:38And if you don't need the luxury appearance, maybe that's the thing.

14:43But

14:43It really depends.

14:44It's horses for courses at the end of the day.

14:47But you're you're you are paying for a slightly, as you say, this the experience you're paying for.

14:52And the very last thing before we sort of talk too long about prices that the other thing is that the price reflects the platform and too many people narrow the price

15:03Down to Tableau Desktop, right?

15:04You look at the explorer price and you're saying I'm paying seventy-five dollars uh per month for desktop

15:11It's like no, $75 a month gets you Tableau Desktop, gets you Tableau Prep, so many Tableau sorry, so many PowerBut BI content creators get this wrong.

15:21It like burns me.

15:22I actually started replying to some of their comments.

15:24And saying actually that's not right.

15:26Tableau desktop comes with uh creator, desktop, and access to an online instance if you so request it just that you add

15:34Admin doesn't know that that's probably the case, um, and a bunch of other uh capabilities.

15:38And yes, there is an additional price for add-ons and all that metadata goodness.

15:42I don't know why that exists.

15:44In fact, there's even a new pricing thing.

15:47Yeah, that has a pricing issue.

15:49Yeah, tablet plus.

15:51I've made a video about a tablet

15:53plus.

15:53We don't need to uh double down on that one.

15:56But nonetheless, yeah, that to like there are different pricing things that actually do need discussion.

16:03It's not the one that people come to about tablet desktop.

16:07So is Tableau dying?

16:09Is it a bad price?

16:11Yes, there are probably reasons why Power BI is cheaper.

16:14Yes, there are probably economies of scale that Microsoft get by putting power BI in the ecosystem.

16:19But at the same time, Tableau do realize additional value.

16:22And so I don't think it's as clean cut as just about price.

16:26Um pricing tactics.

16:27I'm here for all of that.

16:29But yeah, it's complicated.

16:31Definitely something to watch, especially with the fourth wave, which we'll come to come to later on.

16:35All right.

16:36Cool.

16:36Um can we close that discussion or have we left something on the table?

16:40I don't think so.

16:41I I think yeah, I think it's clear, like it's yeah, I think it's clear.

16:45Let's let's move on.

16:46Core capability.

16:47Good.

16:49Core capability.

16:51What the product was.

16:53To the core, as they like to say, at a tablet conference.

16:56Ravi, what are your thoughts on this?

16:57I led the previous one, so I'll give you some I'll give you the floor.

17:01Yeah.

17:02So what what was tablet?

17:03I think the good place to start is almost like what tablet, where to tablet.

17:06Again, history history man Ravi a bit.

17:08Yeah.

17:08You know, you can talk about Renderman and um the the the the Stanford guys coming up with an idea to almost

17:18Disruptive.

17:18Solaris.

17:19Solaris.

17:20Solaris as is as it was called.

17:23Yeah.

17:23Fast forwarding in the all the stories of well actually by the end of the 2000s it was this really hot product weight

17:30I'm able to analyze business data really slickly and easily, gets reskinned, grows.

17:37Um, you then get the second iteration of it, which is this holistic view again, a new data data.

17:44around the the experience when creator explorer viewer but really what what is the the mission of helping people see and understand data

17:55Almost grew right.

17:56So it's seeing and understanding data, great.

17:58Then it was really focused on seeing and understanding data.

18:01So if you think about TC11, no 12, 13, 14 with Christian Chabot on stage giving those.

18:09Stories that just held you uh for the full hour, for the full 40 minutes that he was talking about why they do what they do and what their

18:18uh what their real core values are that that was the seeing and understanding.

18:23We we really understand that we need to move this forward.

18:26Then they did it, right?

18:27It it did move forward.

18:28It then created all these conversations about, well, is it just the market leader right now?

18:33Um from there it it then expanded.

18:36Then you have the the growth pains of being a fairly large company in a big field.

18:40Um having to then step in as in if you want continual growth, doubling year on year of your staff.

18:48Then you need to start to innovate and make sure you fall in line a little bit, make sure you tick a few boxes.

18:53Yeah.

18:53Make sure you're getting in that kind of conversation.

18:55Please the security buffs, bring in the enterprise features.

18:59All the enterprise features making sure that you've got the cloud product.

19:02Yeah.

19:03Build out sales team, sales org, get acquired.

19:08And then you get acquired.

19:09Exactly.

19:09Then you get acquired and and

19:11And then you get become part of a big machine where you you your feature development is saved because you're not no longer thinking as a product manager or a developer, hey, actually.

19:21Yeah.

19:21We have a bad set we have a bad sales two quarters in a row.

19:24This project isn't going anywhere because it's going to take us a full 12 months to even get off the ground.

19:28Yeah.

19:28We're going to lose our budget and I'm going to lose resource to even fund this.

19:32We're going to stop doing it.

19:34Um, but really now you've got a big behemoth behind you.

19:37Great, that means some of these incubator projects you can actually dig into, you know, things like

19:43the next iteration of Tableau.

19:45What what is the future of analytics?

19:47Really investing in you know the the cutting edge technology.

19:51And you might say AI is that, but you've also got

19:54augmented reality, you've also got the ability for speech, speech to text and speech analysis.

20:01So you know the core capabilities changed, I think, with the times.

20:04Like when it started, cubes was still a thing.

20:07And now we're in 2024 and cubes are coming back.

20:11And they're faster than ever.

20:13They've got fancy names.

20:14Metric.

20:15Yeah, exactly.

20:17Um but I think that I think that what what's really exciting for me is the fact it has grown and evolved over time as the as the as the world has changed.

20:24I don't think analysis is what it was in the 2000s.

20:27Or the 2010s, I think even when I f well started my career in 2015, like analysis isn't the same anymore.

20:35Like the questions have just gotten better.

20:37And that is thanks to tools like Tableau, thanks to tools like Power BI, thanks to data being at the heart of so many conversations we have.

20:45But in reality

20:47In reality, has the analysis analyst community that then are fans of products such as Tableau, such as Power BI, have they kept up with what analysis is, taking that step back and thinking.

21:02What's the Simpsons quote from Principal Skinner?

21:05Am I so out of touch?

21:06No, it's the kids who are wrong.

21:11You you touched on something there about retro because, you know, I in my head I was like, uh a phrase I I heard I can't even

21:19even remember where, but I heard a phrase that the spreadsheets are coming and and by that I'm talking about like the tools that have just almost given up trying to

21:31It's maybe maybe this is an unfair statement given up.

21:35It feels like we started in a world where people realized how spreadsheets weren't enabling people.

21:41We went to visual analysis.

21:43In the late 2000s.

21:44Yeah.

21:45We went to visual analysis so you could, dare I quote it, to see and understand our data.

21:50Right.

21:51And we've we've ended back in the world where spreadsheets are king again.

21:57And I'm like

21:59It it it does boggle my brain because I I'm I'm looking at these products and don't get me wrong, I know why they're successful because people just won't let go of their spreadsheets and they're saying, right, if people won't let go of their spreadsheets, how can we use spreadsheets as an in

22:13interface to the analytics product.

22:16So Hex, Sigma, uh, Google Sheets, uh, Monday.

22:20com, Notion for goodness

22:22Sakes.

22:22All of these companies are instantiations of a spreadsheet in some way or form to serve a specific vertical or need or something like that, right?

22:32Yeah.

22:33And it's super interesting, going back to the beginning.

22:36Um meanwhile, you know, going back to your point about what is the core product, what should the core of an analytics product should be, that definition has changed.

22:47And I do feel like it's swung away from building data visualizations.

22:54It's swung away from building reports.

22:58And it's swung towards

23:01uh not not sharily building but um synthesizing like data synthesizing knowledge curating oh I talk about this service right like yes yes it's it's it's it's it's it's my it's my old like

23:16Just a little thing.

23:17Yeah.

23:18A knowledge curator is someone that like I think an an analyst used to be someone who reports, a describer, right?

23:24Right.

23:24Person who's describing what's happening.

23:26Then you've got someone who's trying to predict and like prescribe what happens.

23:30Yeah.

23:30I I think all of those things will just slowly, slowly disappear.

23:33Absolutely don't have their place for a long, long, long, long time.

23:36Yeah.

23:36But I think the the people who then will push this forward will be people who are able to

23:41be the librarians of data, start to cherry pick different parts of you know insight and say actually this this together will send like this is the melting pot we need right now to solve this problem.

23:53Yeah.

23:54And I think that's what you mean by synthesizing, right?

23:57Yeah, and here's a critical point.

24:00That creative element that Tableau pushed so far into, unfortunately, that's no longer valued by the industry.

24:07People don't really care about you know being able to value fit No, but it's not because if you look at the features and you look at the things that people beat Tableau with

24:20No one beats Tableau and visualization.

24:22But the the best way I can put this to you is in UX and in product design, there is this statement called Stated Beliefs.

24:34And revealed preferences.

24:37Right.

24:37Stated belief is visualization is incredibly powerful.

24:41I want to be able to customize my charts to the nth degree.

24:45Yeah.

24:47Uh what was I for I forgot my own statement.

24:52State beliefs and what did I what was it?

24:54Reveal benefits.

24:55Reveal benef reveal uh beliefs.

24:57Reveal belief, I just need to build this quickly.

25:01Can you just build it for me?

25:02Can I just type it in a keyboard and have it done?

25:05Right?

25:06Like you can you can you can be in both of those opinions.

25:11But products have realized the second element, right?

25:16So for a long, long time everyone was building to the stated beliefs.

25:21And now here we are in the everyday work.

25:23You've talked about dashboards being dead.

25:25We're now in the era of revealed um you know beliefs.

25:30So so I I I st I still maintain dashboard that like the the world of dashboards is dying and and in in and to an extent uh

25:38It won't die among like hobbyists.

25:41It won't die among people that use them.

25:43It won't die among the people that want to do it.

25:46Like it's not your job is dis disappearing.

25:48However,

25:49Data visualization designers as a as the hot job of the most sexy job of 2017, 18, 19, that's slowly that is slowly disappearing.

26:00Because

26:03Tableau is fantastic still at visual discovery.

26:06It's fantastic at iterative analysis.

26:08It allows you to fail fast, right?

26:10There isn't anything on the project product in the world.

26:14that comes close.

26:15It doesn't touch it because it's so easy to pick up and play.

26:17Yeah.

26:18What it's bad at is that learning curve to get you to being a really nice effective dashboard design thinking.

26:24Fair

26:25If if at i if at Kovacs, I'm thinking, Judith Becker, I'm thinking, Samuel.

26:30Yeah, we're talking about this exact thing.

26:32Yeah.

26:32But she was talking fighting with it.

26:36Yeah.

26:36And I think what's what's what you end up is with is it's now just we're in this process of decoupling.

26:43You're good at this, go do that.

26:45You're good at this, go do that.

26:46UX designers, go build me a platform.

26:48Web designers go do that thing.

26:50Data people go translate this for me and wrangle it and then help me synthesize something together.

26:56And that's really what an anal an a really good analyst is becoming.

27:01It's the person who's actually saying

27:03I see this business problem, I see this analytical question.

27:07I'm now going to help to bring this all together, mobilize the right people.

27:12and help them build the product.

27:15I'm no longer the person that has to do that, which is so liberating.

27:18And the people that then hold on to the core cabinet is what Tableau used to be, which is quick iterative dashboard design that you can customize to the integrated.

27:28TC 2018, 2017 maybe, 1817, 18, maybe even 60, you had the person who said you can finally do pixel perfect dashboarding.

27:39It was the um text header where you could bring in images, something like that.

27:44I don't know if you remember on devs on stage.

27:46And I remember speaking to you and and you you said to me, but no one you shouldn't want to do pixel perfect design.

27:52And I remember being like

27:53What are you on about?

27:54Of course you want to do pixel perfect design.

27:56Today I'm like, no, you shouldn't want to do pixel perfect design in Tableau

28:01Yes.

28:01Right.

28:02Correct.

28:02Is not the tool you should be trying to do pixel perpetu design in.

28:06It's the tool that you should be trying to enable people to ask and answer their questions.

28:10It's not good in the moment.

28:12And all they can and that this is why this is why dashboards are losing to AI generated answers.

28:18Yes, you might have to check them.

28:20But it's a it's a lot easier to check with an AI tool than it is to check with a data engineer being like Does Nova look alright?

28:30Is my data being doubled here?

28:34To sort of really drive the point home.

28:35Tableau pulse.

28:37How quickly can one developer build?

28:41I I did the calculation on one chart that I had.

28:44It had four filters.

28:46Each filter had like a certain number of options, and I came to some silly number.

28:51Like there were two and a half thousand possible line charts that could have come out of this four filters.

28:58depending on what the user chose.

29:01How long would it take one developer to build all of those?

29:04Like literally way too long.

29:06And Tableau Pulse does it in literally

29:09a second and it gives people the interface to go and do that themselves, right?

29:13And this is it.

29:13Like I I've I've I've been lucky enough to be in meetings where you've

29:17basically been like right screw this presentation let me just fire up Tableau and I'm gonna build in front of you as you're talking.

29:22And it's magical and you're able to like it doesn't scale.

29:26Yeah.

29:28And it's great if you can and you know you you get comments like oh it's just so great when you have someone who just knows the product building in for it.

29:34It's why it's why ironvis has such a strong appeal, right?

29:37Yeah.

29:37Um I think what we're saying.

29:39It's not what his core is anymore.

29:41The core what I was getting to this, what we're saying is a core product has to change to keep up.

29:46with the industry.

29:47Not necessarily and the users have to and the old users have to change with it.

29:51They have to really understand this.

29:54I and this is I'm not sure I fully agree with that.

29:58You remember my old, old ramblings about how like Tableau should just let Tableau Public be what it needs to be.

30:06Let Tableau Public become that finesse design, you know, artistic visualization tool.

30:12Yeah.

30:13And keep and and let Tableau Desktop become the serious desktop, whatever.

30:19And if you want to go down that, you know, experience of curated design

30:25You go down that route.

30:26You've made it free anyway.

30:27So just just let people do the stuff in there, right?

30:31And for the business stuff that needs to scale, that needs to be connected to a data source that needs to be able to programmatically generate stuff.

30:37The needs to be able to control pulse and all these wonderful new things.

30:40You keep that in desktop work.

30:42And you you splinter.

30:43Yeah, exactly.

30:44You splinter the experience.

30:45Maybe this is what the sixth wave is.

30:47The best

30:48I've heard someone describe it as the best of CRM analytics.

30:50I was like, well, and uh the best of Tableau desktop.

30:55I was like.

30:56There was no part of Sierra Analytics that made me excited.

31:00So when you say the best of Sierra Analytics mixed with the best of Tableau

31:06Like, yeah, that's that's that's gonna be an original transition.

31:09But anyway, the core product needs to change.

31:12That's very clear.

31:13As much as

31:15I think in our hearts we still want to tinker and finesse.

31:20And let's be honest, this this is our legacy as old users, right?

31:25Like

31:25For the new analysts being brought up today, they they don't have a clue.

31:29They just need to get their job done.

31:30They're they're not trying to be a visionary, they're not trying to be an ambassador.

31:33Not trying to be the Tableau Public Viz of the Day.

31:36That is like a creative endeavor that just stumbled into and they found a community and they loved it and they got involved and and let them be that and let Tableau Public be that thing.

31:45You keep building on that.

31:47You have the competition.

31:48You have devs on stage, you l let that just be there.

31:51But the enterprise element, the stuff that is becoming more and more important.

31:57That needs to take on a new a new world.

32:00Yeah, what the last thing I wanted to say on this um was actually that

32:05The on the most recent conference, um Ryan Ate, most recent CEO, did this thing.

32:14Like elevating the folks doing the recognition program is fantastic.

32:17And then doing the flip to say whose first conference is this?

32:21And it's over half the room.

32:23Or maybe it is about half the room.

32:24Yeah.

32:25That was a message.

32:27And I and it's it's a reminder for everyone who is in the first ten rows of conferences, I like to say.

32:34um that the user base is changing already.

32:37Like while while the product is changing or is requires some level of change and is is adjusting and developing and it might not be that thing it used to be

32:47The user base is changing and those users might be actually very happy with the product experience they're getting.

32:52Yeah.

32:53Um as the product changes, the people change, the thing they

32:57You may change with it is the way that you learn Tableau and the way that you're exposed to Tableau.

33:01And what you're using it for, where it fits in your workflow.

33:05And that comes from

33:06Analysis has just changed and new people within the analysis world need this tool to do something different than it did five years ago.

33:15Like twenty nineteen was five years ago.

33:18And even in that short time frame, you've got this you've got a lot of things happening.

33:23And and I think data data analysts are being asked to do more, you know, data modeling, DBT.

33:30uh data science and so if you think about the world around tableau that's having to encompass more things and the current only interface for that is tableau desktop

33:40I think maybe the argument is that that is that is such a high hurdle when all people want to do is connect that data to something.

33:50Yeah, exactly.

33:51So maybe then the the

33:52decoupling.

33:53It's funny how um this phrase was used like two years ago and I've just found myself reusing it, reusing it, reusing it, and almost coming back to convince myself, almost preaching to myself.

34:04That is actually a very necessary thing.

34:06But anyway, we digress.

34:08I I could've I could I could go on and on and on about um core capability.

34:12It brings us nicely to innovation.

34:14What is happening today, right?

34:17And it's super interesting.

34:19We we just 24.

34:202 just came out.

34:21We just had uh I can upgrade my server.

34:24I can't wait.

34:26Yeah, yeah, your only release of server this year.

34:29record um but anyway which is fine because I only want to upgrade once yeah yeah it's great as a server advantage.

34:34Mate I get complaints on my channel going where is the upgrade for server this year and I was like

34:39Do you really want to update every six months, every four months even?

34:42No, probably not.

34:43Downtime user trying to find the right menu.

34:47But 242 has come out.

34:50242 has come out.

34:52Huge features.

34:54We've had a big release, and Fortune's got some bugs, but on reflection

34:58You know, that the feature list has improved.

35:01Yes, there are more features in Tableau Prep.

35:04Yes, there are more features spread across Tableau Pulse.

35:06Yes, there are more features in the browser, across AI, but those features are getting used.

35:12Now

35:13I can't say to you what's the percentage of adoption across all the features the Tableau rolls out?

35:22Because that is the critical number, right?

35:24If they're rolling out features

35:26And across the percentage of people who've upgraded, there is good uptake in those features, then you can argue

35:34They're doing well, right?

35:35Because we we might not like it as a core user, but actually if someone using it and getting value from it, or they're listening.

35:41Who are we to argue?

35:42Yeah, exactly.

35:43Like just because you know mapping didn't get an update this year doesn't mean

35:47You know, um they've stopped caring about mapping.

35:50It's just it just wasn't on the table this year.

35:52So And and also I'm still getting my head around map players.

35:55Like

35:57Man, I think they're still mostly used to create like uh layouts that shouldn't be possible.

36:04I had a I had a thought this week, I was I was talking to this is a digression, sorry, a practitioner, and I literally thought

36:11Someone would probably do this with map players and some maths.

36:15Yeah.

36:15I don't want to build and maintain at scale.

36:18So I'm not going to do that.

36:20Don't do that, please.

36:21If that ever happens to me, I'll just just

36:23Just remove everything.

36:24Pull out like uh floating containers just for kicks and recreate it all.

36:32You're a sick.

36:34I hate floating containers, so if I'm suggesting that, um, you know it's bad.

36:38But anyway, um But who tell me who will have feature

36:43Telemetry, Tableau.

36:45Right.

36:45They will know what allows.

36:47Tableau Public.

36:48Absolutely.

36:49But they also have now Tableau Cloud where people may may or may not be building Web Author.

36:56I would love I would love to can I challenge that perception?

37:01They have telemetry, but there is is this one of those things where too much data is also a bad thing because you don't know where to look?

37:07Right.

37:08If you have so much telemetry, but you don't understand the product well enough, how do you sift through the telemetry?

37:14A good example is F1.

37:16They can they collect millions of data point per minute, right?

37:19But the biggest thing they talk about in in F1 is correlation.

37:23Does the data correlate with what we're actually seeing on track?

37:26So I'd say there's ob there there might be that issue with Tableau.

37:29Yes, they've got tons of telemetry.

37:30And yes, the product managers are having tons of features.

37:33But is there correlation?

37:35I mean in football you cut you you you it's the same in football, you you recapture data at every twenty-fifth of a second, right?

37:42And it's

37:4311 players the ball in the referee.

37:45That's that's sorry, 22 players the ball in the referee for every 23th of the second.

37:49Yeah, sure, absolutely.

37:51But the themes you capture from that level of data.

37:53Still accurate, right?

37:54Like if someone wanted to say, I don't need to know what, how, but I just want to know as a proportion of

38:03Things that are in a tableau workbook.

38:05Since we what is the rate of uptake in set actions from

38:10A baseline of zero to set action being used in a dashboard.

38:15So is there a set action yes or no?

38:17Binary.

38:18But or in in a sheet.

38:19That I think is the problem because what are you doing with a set action?

38:23Are you building I think it does.

38:26No on the first level it does not matter what you do with that information

38:31What matters is the second level.

38:32Okay, cool.

38:33Now I know we're being used.

38:34How are they being used?

38:35Let me go find the people that are using them the most to understand.

38:38And that's where like specific targeted use research studies are really important here.

38:43Right.

38:43But if you take that approach, isn't that how you then start to celebrate that sess actions solve filtering problems when actually you should just go build the user interface?

38:52For better filters, right?

38:53But you don't know that until it's done.

38:55Until someone breaks your feature trying to do your thing.

38:58Like remember your hacks and tableau that I shouldn't have to do video.

39:02Yeah, yeah, yeah.

39:03Right?

39:03Like

39:04Yeah.

39:04The the amount of update you got across the community and then also across internally a Tableau for that.

39:10It gets referenced all the time, but no one watches it as a matter of fact.

39:13fact.

39:14So funny.

39:15I've watched it twice.

39:17Exactly.

39:18And once with someone else to prove that that well like I think when it was one of the hacks it'd been like

39:23I haven't got it on me, I can't build it now, but let me just go get Tim's video and scrub to that piece.

39:27Yeah, exactly.

39:28Yeah.

39:28It's it's those hacks and like the fact that

39:31After set actions, parameter actions solved what you wanted set actions to solve.

39:35Yeah, yeah, true.

39:36Therefore no one uses set actions for the things they used to anymore because parameter actions is a lot more of an elegant set.

39:42thing.

39:43And that's probably because of oh people write blogs.

39:46P no one writes a blog anymore.

39:47You don't see people writing blogs about hacks and tablets.

39:51Everyone's doing video content now because you get paid for it.

39:55I wish.

39:56I wish.

39:57Ravi's hot take.

39:58Um so innovation.

39:59Is Tableau dying?

40:01Yes or no?

40:05As above, right?

40:07I think it's I don't think it's dying, it's just it's just evolving and like we're in the we're in the chrysalis stage.

40:13Interesting.

40:13Of of something where it's it's people are either gonna hate it or love the next one.

40:19To be confirmed.

40:20Yeah, I I think so.

40:22Because it's like I feel like you're you're almost re- you're re-gearing a product

40:27That was created to serve one purpose.

40:29And then you're looking at the world and being like, I'm not sure the world needs this thing to do what it's doing.

40:37It probably does in a lot of places.

40:39But the world that will be in the next three, five, ten years doesn't need this anymore.

40:44Yeah, yeah.

40:45And the way and if we're not careful, if we look around and we pop over our heads that there are friends at Holtericks.

40:50If we don't evolve the core piece of this product, the VizQL engine, the data engine, the way that

40:58It's engineered.

41:07What that allows for is

41:09for example, a multilanguard model to start understanding and saying if you if the question is related to this, go get this from this area.

41:19If the question is related to this, go get this from this area.

41:22And this is how we bring everything together and synthesize in the back with AI.

41:27So Tableau becomes akin to Jarvis in

41:31The flow of analysis is now controlled by you, but you don't need to be a specific product expert, but it's allowing you to think as you go along.

41:41Surfing the rivers of flow in tablets.

41:44In that fourth wave of analytics, there we go.

41:49You knew I was lining you up for a segue and you took it.

41:52You ran with it.

41:52I love it.

41:53You hit it?

41:54I'll dunk.

41:57So that does bring us nicely to the fourth wave, and I kind of call this Salesforce influence.

42:02So let's let's do this in the first place.

42:06Amazing.

42:07Genuinely not rehearsal.

42:10Salesforce inference.

42:12Good or bad?

42:13Short response.

42:19Size are not included.

42:21Yeah.

42:22We're three years into the purchase.

42:24Just over three years actually.

42:27I still hold my um exceedingly positive outlook on everything in life, which is probably not bad if it's not failed, right?

42:35Yeah.

42:36Like it's not really gone tits up.

42:38So and that that's an incredibly British way of looking at it, right?

42:41Like, ah, it's all right.

42:43Other than too many animals and uh, you know.

42:47But even though it's not a good thing.

42:49Even the animals have been chucked into a zoo in the corner at the tableau conference.

42:53You don't see a single shrub anywhere.

42:55It's ain't coming from me.

42:56It's not coming from me.

42:57It's all good.

42:57It's all good.

42:59But yeah, no, uh my my my my feeling is it's it's been a net positive and it's getting better.

43:04We're getting there.

43:04Yeah, but I I think this is what I shared with a fellow Tableau community member after the keynote.

43:09I was like

43:10Yeah, I yeah I look at yeah I look at the uptick in features, I look at the roadmap and I see more on the table than ever before.

43:16I see a new

43:18products might not like it, but Tableau Puls is there, Tableau keeping up with AI.

43:22We see the we see the innovation, we see the features and

43:27The thing the thing when people get frustrated is those aren't the things they wanted.

43:30But that doesn't take away from the fact that those are still coming.

43:33I talked to product managers.

43:35I think on the outside, if you look at the uptick in certain capabilities, there's definitely a lot of potential restructure and re-emphasis going on, right?

43:45And lots of listening.

43:47Yeah, lots of listening.

43:48I think lots of listening because the next step, the fourth wave, which you're about to come to, needs to land correctly.

43:54And so um that is that is sort of one of the big um

44:01Open elements.

44:02And I think earlier on you talked about, you know, w the jury's out a little bit on whether the South Forks thing has been a success or not.

44:10We are now about to find out, I think.

44:12how that lands right and and how the fourth wave is essentially Salesforce's vision of how innovation looks like for Tableau and going really bold hell for leather.

44:24Um

44:25If that makes sense, right.

44:27I I don't know.

44:28Completely.

44:29The the big concern I see with the fourth wave

44:34Is I still think the core Tableau customer is wedded to the core experience we have today.

44:44And if you're gonna innovate and build a new innovation I can't believe I'm saying this, I don't think you can depend on

44:57the community as it is right now because for feedback to teach the new product

45:08So here's here's my because touch in the face to Tableau.

45:12But is it the community's responsibility responsibility?

45:16No, it's not.

45:17Is it the community's responsibility?

45:19It's not, but that's all Tableau knows.

45:22That is that is the thing that Salesforce talk about when they acquired Tableau, the community.

45:26That's what Trailblazer and being all that jazz is.

45:29There is that sort of communal effort.

45:31And yes, I see a big uptick in uh the Trailblazer platform on on Tableau content.

45:38It's very much sort of the legacy Tableau, right?

45:41I'd be interested to see if they can land the fourth wave with a whole bunch of trailblazer content at the same time to teach people.

45:49Because if if they do that, then yes, I think they're speaking to your point.

45:52They're taking ownership of that education piece.

45:54If they're relying on people like me and other people's blogs, other people's make content and do all that.

46:02That's a big ask because what you're saying to those people is yeah, you know this thing you've been teaching for years and being recognized for.

46:09Yeah, we're we're resetting all of that.

46:11We'd love you to help us teach this new thing and

46:15It's a bit like, hey, bring my cars back.

46:17If you've been driving a Porsche all your life, sorry, if you've been driving a BMW all your life and you suddenly get into Porsche, it's still gonna feel wrong, even though it's a better car, right?

46:28Manual to automatic is probably the the actual swap, right?

46:33No, no, no, because I do think the fourth wave is a different experience compared to the core product.

46:38So he's driving a manual versus an automatic.

46:41But manual versus automatic, you you're suggesting you could stay in the same car.

46:45Same same same sort of

46:49Same it it's just taking one step.

46:51The the best way to to I think automatic would be like, I don't know, we've re enhanced the whole data modeling capability.

46:57i.

46:58e.

46:58, uh brought AI to multi-fact analysis and all that stuff.

47:02For me, this is like, it doesn't matter what's under the gut, it's just a completely different car, right?

47:06Like just a completely different way.

47:08those core components come together to give you like contact with rubber on the road and like

47:17Optimistic Ravi's really excited and Cynic Ravi's ready to sit on the sidelines with Popcorn watching things unravel.

47:25Come on, Ravi.

47:26You've got to get involved.

47:28Oh yeah, but um I think I'm I think I'm already I'm I'm already involved with with so many of these conversations and it's I think the exciting thing is we're too far in it

47:37Yeah.

47:37This is what I've come to do.

47:38It's not for us.

47:39It's not for us.

47:41I realize that like at least with my YouTube channel

47:45And you've maybe noticed I've started doing more sort of um content talking to other people, is that I don't think going into the new wave that my voice

47:56Can talk about that experience in an authentic way because it took me the best part of a decade.

48:06Well, most of the way through a decade to get to the point where I could talk about like the things I talk about with experience.

48:13If I'm learning something new than just flipping it back, I've literally become the thing I hate, which is

48:18Like an influencer, right?

48:19Like I'm just flipping knowledge.

48:25I'm just I'm just flipping knowledge.

48:26I'm not actually sharing anything.

48:28Um like the minute the fourth wave comes out

48:32Uh I am on the same level playing field as every analyst, and I I haven't got the benefit of experience to be able to share something of value.

48:41Like the way we do tutorials, the way you write blogs, all of that comes from a lived experience of using the product for some time and finding the way to articulate that.

48:51That takes time.

48:52So I mean that I'm just talking from a personal perspective.

48:55I'm not sure that's the case for everyone.

48:56Some people relish that opportunity.

48:58I know I know people will go ahead and learn the thing inside out, ask the questions, and then boom, come out with content within a week.

49:05I'm not sure I can do that.

49:07I I think that's gonna be really tough.

49:09I I think and I think I think it's one thing that I've constantly encouraged Tableau today.

49:14One of the reasons like

49:16You know, being being part of recognition programs, I almost like re-evaluate my worth to them as an ambassador, as a as a person who's a part of that.

49:27Because it's like.

49:28I'm just adding and I'm I'm being a contrarian sometimes, but I'm adding to the voice and the direction and giving you affirmation when you really should speak to

49:38Um the dudes who are the dudes and dudettes, the folks in the companies who are actually using the product and are brand new, and you almost follow their journey.

49:50Imagine if what what if

49:53At TC, they gave a golden ticket way to five random people who's it who was either first or second TC.

50:01And they'd said on the use the SUSE they'd use Tableau for less than a year, less than 18 months.

50:07Yeah.

50:07And you said to them, I'm gonna give you $25 each time you talk to me, but like what I want to do in the next year

50:15is check in with you and really spend time just trying to what have you done this month talk to like record five sessions of what you're doing

50:25We're both under a mutual NDA.

50:27Um, let's talk through what you're doing with this product.

50:31Yeah, yeah.

50:31And let me give you a product and let me educate you and do it.

50:35Like, it's it's it's

50:38This data level of deep user research I think is required at this stage, especially when you're about to reimagine

50:46what the future of analytics for your product looks like.

50:49Now, look, what I don't think what we're either of us saying is the core product line isn't going to change.

50:55But there I think there the my feeling is there will be a significant

51:01Rhythm shift in the way we will start to analyze our data, start to interact with our data.

51:08And first of all, that starts with

51:12Acknowledging that we're all going to start from a baseline of zero and we won't have all the answers.

51:18And a lot of us, a lot of us won't be inspired to do anything about it.

51:22Yeah.

51:23I mean, uh we all have phases, right?

51:25Um I think I think though the term legacy will become used.

51:29There'll be a legacy tablet experience, not with the new tablet.

51:32Experience.

51:33Um that will be the dividing line.

51:35Web altering is where that line is drawn in my opinion.

51:38Um it is it is

51:41Currently, where that line is being drawn with Einstein Copilot, there is very much a like come to the browser vibe in in all of that.

51:50And it will at some point come in the future.

51:52I don't believe Tableau when they say that.

51:54I just don't.

51:55If you were building it to come to desktop, you'd have built it from desktop from ground one.

52:00It's it's you know what I mean?

52:02Like And that's that's that shit has been there for a long long time.

52:05I know, I know, I know, but what I what I what I don't believe in is like

52:10Just just just come and say you're never gonna build it for desktop.

52:14You know what I mean?

52:15Like We've all got our big boy pants now on and and now Tableau can say it's a bit more.

52:21It's not even that.

52:21It's not even that.

52:22If it's not there on day one

52:24To the desktop customer, why talking to them about it?

52:32Right?

52:33Now Einstein Copilot was at conference, big feature.

52:36I think if I did a straw poll of everyone in that room, they thought what they saw was Tableau Desktop.

52:42Like in all honesty, right?

52:45I don't think anyone clocked that they were in web authoring during that demo.

52:49Come on now.

52:52Do you think I'm in that room?

52:53I was in that room.

52:55That's one person.

52:56That's one person, okay.

52:58If I went to those 80% of people who is their first conference and I asked them.

53:03What are you seeing on screen there?

53:05Is it Tableau Desktop?

53:0790% of them would have said yes.

53:09But what is that blue thing at the top?

53:11You know?

53:11I haven't seen that in my version of product.

53:13That's something new.

53:14I was like, no, it's in the browser.

53:16Oh.

53:17Yeah.

53:17Oh, what does that mean?

53:19Oh, everything in Tableau in the browser?

53:21Yeah.

53:22Oh, great.

53:22Uh has it got all the features?

53:24Not quite.

53:26You know.

53:27Is my organization gonna move?

53:29Not quite.

53:31At least with that.

53:32At least with that where Boltering is not one of those th

53:34things where you're locked behind a price, right?

53:36You can you can kind of go pilot you have.

53:39Yeah, yes, correct.

53:40Yeah.

53:40Einstein copilot, absolutely.

53:43So you wanna as phrased in Malcolm in the Middle, the future is now, old man.

53:50It's happening, it's coming for you.

53:52Yeah, it's very appropriate for me.

53:54I'm an old man indeed.

53:56Um, so let's let's let's close this off then.

53:58Salesforce uh is Tableau dying uh yes or no?

54:04No, Tableau's evolving.

54:05Tableau's evolving.

54:07I don't think it's dying.

54:07I don't I I don't think we'll know if it's dead until it's evolved

54:12Right.

54:13And the stock price starts to tank.

54:15This time next year, very interesting.

54:17We'll have seen the fourth wave.

54:18We'll have had a conference

54:20We'll have had a conference.

54:21We'll have had a Dreamforce and a TC.

54:24Yeah, we'll be going to another data.

54:26And a tan and a datafam Europe.

54:30We'll have had enough opportunity for them to essentially workshop the hell out of this.

54:34But I'll make this call now.

54:36The fourth wave will have not been released.

54:42If you're only showing it at Dream Force and we've not got our hands on it now, and there are only three releases a year, Ravi, it's not in twenty four three.

54:52So then

54:54If you're gonna be as bold to say it's it's not in twenty five one if you're launching a conference it's not in twenty five one then.

55:02No, correctly.

55:03So then in 25 2, which just literally happened two weeks ago, this time next year.

55:08Like that's that that that is like a bowl.

55:11Yeah, but 24-2 was late.

55:1324 2 is late-ish.

55:14You can argue.

55:15It's not late.

55:18It was on time given a new schedule.

55:21Because remember, this is the first year they had the proper spacing

55:26to do three spread out rather than bop bop oh wait we're gonna wait wait wait is it December yeah yeah it's December okay out now right like this is this is the first time we've had okay February wait

55:39Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

55:41Boom, 2014.

55:42So I think 2042 came out when it was supposed to.

55:45Fine.

55:45What I will say, just to close out this point, is

55:48If you're watching this or listening to this and thinking, hey, that innovation and tableau stuff, the Salesforce instruments, the core capability stuff.

55:56But the product I am now using is half baked, not ready.

56:01It's it's it's live without being properly tested, and we're in this.

56:06Elon Musk, you know, chip it and then fix it.

56:09Ship it and fix it later.

56:10Yeah, like I

56:14Say go join the beaters.

56:18It's bowls term.

56:19Go try the product.

56:20Go go join the pre-release cycle and I'm sure and I know for a fact.

56:26that your feedback will be treasured, appreciated, and valued.

56:31And I think that that's the place to go.

56:36But they were expecting it to be

56:38fix it's just one of those things where I don't think they can tell you when they're gonna fix it because it's an evolving problem.

56:45Yeah like we're literally on the bleeding edge of the capability like they're shipping it right hot out of the oven

56:51and they came across something that just is physics.

56:56Like it's just gonna take longer to fix it than the time they had.

56:59But do you not ni not feature the feature?

57:01Well if you don't ship this feature then there's features in the next release you can't talk about.

57:05And everything starts to slip and then it gets into the way of um the fourth wave.

57:10I genuinely think they're rushing to get things out before the fourth wave because these are core components of the fourth wave.

57:16I I think I think I you know again sorry actually closing this out.

57:21Final final thoughts.

57:23Yeah.

57:23V V one.

57:24Actual final draft.

57:26Um

57:27I remember being grumpy old man Ravi who like when you know a new release came out and people were like, oh I'm really excited about this.

57:35They'd announced it at a conference a year ago.

57:37It's been in beta for about three months, four months now.

57:40And you're now excited by it and thinking, oh yeah, this is going to change everything?

57:43Come on.

57:44And now I'm like, well, everyone should find features at their own pace and the product should be ready at that point.

57:50However, if you feel strongly about giving feedback,

57:54I know there's a place for you in that beta testing pre-release hub.

57:59Yeah, and there's a better place than um

58:02The social feed where it kind of just dies in the eth and you you get the you get the um shelter cloud.

58:09How do you how do you constructively turn that into sort of positive change?

58:13And I think if you've got the opportunity, yeah, definitely

58:16take that that route.

58:18Right.

58:19Final before we we talk about well we're not done.

58:22There's one more.

58:23Job market.

58:24This is brief.

58:24This isn't brief.

58:26Um, job mark is a difficult one.

58:28I think it's hard to evaluate because I'm a consultant, you're a professional, um, neither of us are really battling for jobs in this market.

58:37And I think who this really speaks to is the young analyst.

58:40who's breaking into the data data field and is picking a tool.

58:44It's very common as an analyst to pick a tool to which you use to break into the industry with and you ride that wave.

58:52For many people that was Tableau

58:54It's given them long and hell healthy careers.

58:57Those people have then gone and said to more people, Tableau is a great tool to do this with.

59:02We've seen the people come through, Ionvis, w makeover money, all of those things have culminated in this big critical mass of people picking Tableau up as a tool to break into the industry.

59:14But there is an ecosystem of

59:16of of jobs, there's an ecosystem of technologies that now suggest the industry is moving away from Tableau, although I don't think that's sort of really really fair assessment.

59:25And so people are saying, oh should I bother learning this

59:28I I think there's a short there's a there's a short and long answer, which is don't use job data as

59:36the barometer for which skills to learn.

59:40Um there's a YouTuber called Luke Barous and I'll go and find his analysis that he did

59:46Now a year ago, but he did an analysis on analytics and data tools and he scraped, I think, thousands and thousands of jobs off LinkedIn over the course of a year.

59:58Um and what what transpired is that Tableau was right up there with Power BI.

60:02Like just scraping jobs on LinkedIn.

60:05Tableau was right up there.

60:07Where there's a bias is the market you're in, potentially if you're in certain international markets, there are more

60:15uh developers being requested for Power BI than Tableau in certain markets.

60:19If you're in uh maybe more Western market, there are more uh skills being required for let's

60:24let's say data engineering or data modeling capabilities.

60:27Data engineering I think data engineering is the biggest dry spot within within the world right now, isn't it?

60:34As everyone moves towards true automation.

60:37Yeah, yeah, yeah.

60:39Um and then the very final thing about this is that um

60:45There is also there's also an imbalance in um just because there are jobs available in this industry, it doesn't actually reflect what's actually going on with the tool.

60:56So you've got to be very careful that you just don't draw a line with there are not many Tableau jobs, therefore Tableau sucks, therefore it's not something to go and learn.

61:04Because as I keep saying, Tableau is a platform and most Tableau jobs are looking for Tableau developers.

61:13But you can work in the Tableau ecosystem without ever being a Tableau developer.

61:18You could go and run Tableau Server Infrastructure.

61:21You could go and run Tableau Cloud Administration.

61:23You don't need to know anything about desktop or visualization in order to do that.

61:27You could go and learn data modeling.

61:29Go pick up Kirk Monroe's book, get really good at Tableau Prep and Tableau Desktop, start modeling data sets, go become a bit of a data engineer, go understand warehouses work, turn up to an organization.

61:40become the in-house data modeling expert for Tableau Solutions.

61:45Like you can be a developer, web developer and go build

61:49embedded solution.

61:50You could be Tristan uh and and um Merlin and build products on top of Tableau using nothing but web development skills that you've picked up

61:58up from years and years of fumbling around or Chat GPT or anything like that.

62:02I'm not saying they have, it's just more general.

62:04Like there is a path to being intimate with Tableau that isn't just Tableau desktop.

62:09And so if we talk about that.

62:11If you talk about what are those opportunities like, they are not called Tableau Developer.

62:16They're not called data analyst.

62:17They're not called

62:19Um the things that you're typically searching for as a data analyst.

62:22They're called many other things.

62:24Project manager, infrastructure manager, governance stakeholder, all of these terms.

62:29Product design, ecosystems, product design, UX designer.

62:33We we've have people in the field, right?

62:35Um all of these things.

62:37All related to Tableau, not with Tableau in the title.

62:41So I'll I'll try and find Luke Barus's um visualization.

62:45I'll put it on screen and then I'll link to it as well so you can

62:48go check it out.

62:48But his analysis is really, really good.

62:50And I think he refreshes it over and over again.

62:53And you get a more real sense for jobs linked to Tableau, but just bear in mind what I've said, which is

62:59Just because there's no tableau in the title doesn't mean it isn't for Tableau.

63:02Yeah, I mean the um I think McKinsey were the ones who, you know, they they had a data visualization lab led by the

63:11Jason Forrest.

63:12Yeah.

63:12And that that the entire team got let go in earlier on this year.

63:17And I think it speaks to like, well

63:20D do you need a s like center of excellence per se in in a world that's innovating quickly and the the questions are changing, the the the

63:30the the people are getting smarter and you're almost creating this if you really truly want to self-serve you don't really want a sense of excellence yeah what you want is uh people that can educate people other people within the organization right yeah

63:45Yeah, exactly.

63:46Yeah.

63:47It's uh super interesting.

63:49Like I um Oh yeah.

63:52Even even myself just just from like a skills perspective, one of the things I'm constantly asking myself is

63:59Like where do I take my career now?

64:01Right.

64:01Like um I'm a consultant.

64:03I can't be consultant forever.

64:05Like where where does someone with my skill set go?

64:09And I know a hundred people be like, oh, crying.

64:11Well

64:12Come on, you've got a YouTube channel, you're visionary, all this other stuff.

64:15I was like, yes, but does mean that's where I want to go.

64:17Like, um, it's very easy to just

64:21From the outside, look and assume art these skills equals this career.

64:24It's like that's not how careers work at all, in in my experience.

64:29You typically tend to find people with the best careers stumbled into their career because they didn't realize they were going to have so much fun.

64:35But anyway.

64:37Um

64:38Very final.

64:40Yes, exactly.

64:42We were both really disappointed with the Gartner Report, and this is more of a segue than it is like a dig at Gartner, but while we're here, the Gartner Report was crap.

64:51Um I think I can say that without getting sued by Guttner.

64:56What I can do is show you their chart because they have like, you know, im impeccable ability to

65:01Shoot that down, even though every data visualization partner in the report shares it for free.

65:07I just don't get that.

65:08Like anyway.

65:10The really interesting thing about Gartner is two dynamics.

65:13Number one, every company in it pays to be in it in a way.

65:18And it's sort of interestingly told that

65:21For I don't know however long I've known about this report, every year Tabla will say, leader in this.

65:26It's almost like a marketing talking point.

65:29When you go to the report and actually look at the

65:33detail that exists about the product.

65:36It's very little.

65:38Very little.

65:38And I know this is just because this is the summary.

65:41This is not the underlying data and the underlying stories they have.

65:44Their analysts have that.

65:45And if you get in touch with Gartner, you pay them good money.

65:47That's the real gold mine stuff that they start telling you, they start giving you.

65:51I hope.

65:52If not, tell me.

65:52If you've ever actually in fact, if you've ever if you've ever bought and paid for Gottener Data, please dear God.

65:57Come into my DMs.

65:58Let's chat.

65:59I've got all the time in the world.

66:01Let's chat about that because I'd be really intrigued to see what you get for that value.

66:05But

66:06The problem it does is it leaves you in a bit of an odd place as a user of the product because I think these things are designed for um buyers, purchasers, people who aren't so finely tuned into each and every product.

66:17product.

66:17And so you read them and they leave you feeling like they don't understand how you use the product and they don't understand what people really want from the product.

66:25So

66:25In an effort to kind of change this, we're going to do something I think pretty interesting for the first time.

66:31Um, we're gonna do something called a tableau scorecard.

66:34And this is an attempt

66:36to build a data point that we can now track over multiple years to allow us to understand the areas in which Tableau can improve the product.

66:47The places where customers would like Tableau to focus on and track that in relation to the things that Tableau actually do.

66:54Because of course

66:55Customers don't always say everything they want, but sometimes it is incumbent on the you know developer of a product to build things people haven't asked for because that actually answers a broader set of questions.

67:07Uh classic example we would have is Apple and you know iPhone, whatever.

67:11No one was asking for a a phone with no uh buttons, but everyone was asking for phone with more buttons.

67:17So what did Blackberry do?

67:18Gave us like a full QA keyboard.

67:20What did the Apple do?

67:21They got rid of it and everything.

67:24Yeah.

67:24LODs, right?

67:25In tablet at a level of detail coefficient solved a problem that everyone else

67:31was having, but they didn't know a level of detail cards was the thing that was going to solve it.

67:36Exactly.

67:37And so the format for the scorecard, I have no clue.

67:40Uh but as we record this, we haven't even got the website.

67:43We haven't even set up the form.

67:44But by the time you hear this

67:45That will have been set up.

67:47And what we'll do is we'll probably do a separate video just announcing just where you can go to find out about what this will be and how you can get involved.

67:55Yeah.

67:55It's gonna be annual, so it's not gonna happen anytime just yet, but we'll start sort of setting ourselves up to hopefully do it starting next year.

68:04And start to build that narrative.

68:05Exactly, exactly.

68:06And what we want to do is have this year run through so we can actually do the first reflection on how has 24

68:13bin.

68:14So 24, 1, 2, and 3.

68:16Take the whole year's release as like a context.

68:19Do that the beginning of January.

68:20So then when we go into the next year's release, you've got the whole of next year to see how Tableau responds to each other

68:26of those questions and we can then start to use this as a sort of a talking point and a data point.

68:30So there's a couple of ways we're going to do it.

68:32I'm borrowing this idea from

68:34uh something called the uh Apple scorecard, which is a a scorecard done by um a podcaster I listen to, um Jason Snell and Dan Morris, uh do Dan Moran even do this on the Six Colors uh website

68:46And they do a pretty good job of this.

68:48So if you want a flavor of what that looks like, go check it out.

68:50And I think it's a it's a super interesting format.

68:53It's unofficial, it's not endorsed or supported by anyone.

68:55We're not going to be doing sponsorship.

68:57But um yeah, we think we can just add some sort of new context.

69:00And I think I think with our perspective on Tableau, it's going to be a really good way of monitoring the fourth wave and

69:06d coming to this discussion with perspectives that are broader than our own and actually have richer context from real life use cases and businesses that

69:15are tackling um the way these tools work.

69:18Yeah, absolutely.

69:19And I think what's what's really exciting is it's making sure that all the voices that we're talking about and like that have just hammered on

69:26Oh yeah.

69:27We we can find some people that can help answer ask and answer those questions.

69:31Exactly.

69:31And we're not we're not almost getting too sucked into

69:36People like us.

69:37Like m me me and well, me people like me and you, right?

69:40Like who've just used lived and learned the product and have such a vested interest in it.

69:50Yeah, exactly.

69:51And we'll find them.

69:52Like, and if you are that person and you're watching this, like let us know.

69:56We'll we'll find a mechanism

69:58Yeah.

69:58A s a survey, something like that on the on the website to just try and build a pool of people we can reach out to as a sample set.

70:05And I'll call this that now.

70:06This this won't work if uh people are shy

70:10Like we are asking you to help us do this.

70:12Let me be clear about that.

70:13Like we do need to build what I think is a good body of experiences to be able to call upon

70:20Multiple years at a time.

70:22And if you end up halfway through that transition going to another product, we can add that narrative, that perspective into this context.

70:30If you come from another product into Tableau, and you'd like to

70:32to be part of it, we can add that narrative to this context.

70:35So we can really build a bigger picture of like what's happening at both ends of the spectrum.

70:40People coming to Tableau, people leaving Tableau, and everything in between.

70:44Yeah.

70:44Yeah.

70:45Absolutely.

70:46Exciting times.

70:48Big one.

70:49Big one.

70:49I think it's gonna be fun.

70:52Ah, good.

70:53Right.

70:53We'll call it that.

70:54It's been a long one.

70:55Um my clock says an hour and twenty-five.

70:58I think twenty minutes of that was pre-chat, so we'll see.

71:01Maybe we kept to maybe maybe we kept strictly to the time.

71:03For everyone's context, we started recording the episode

71:07Like right the minute we we start the call, we're gonna keep these and hopefully edit them into something at the end of the year.

71:14There's there's lots of wonderful chat in these uh for everyone.

71:17If you want to lobby me for an uncut uh edition where we don't edit anything, then yeah, I'll send you one of those.

71:24But you'll have to have some sort of various interruptions, the

71:29The bott yeah, the bottles of water, the coughs, the calls about McDonald's, all of that involved.

71:35Good.

71:36All right.

71:37Super.

71:37We'll chat soon, Ravi.

71:39Take care.

71:39See you now.

71:40See ya.

71:42Good.

71:43Alright.

71:45Fucking hell.

71:46That was good for one, isn't it?

71:48Yeah.

71:48Deep.

71:49I feel like we got it all off our chats.

71:51Oh.

71:52100%.

71:55Uh yeah, it's good.

71:59I need to write on I need to start writing again.

72:01Two blocks