Unboxing Youtube Play Button, Visionary Award & Viz Interview with Sophie Sparkes

0:00Hey, it's Tim here.

0:00Today we have something slightly different.

0:02We've got a special unboxing and we also have an interview at the end of it.

0:06To find out more, as ever, let's get started.

0:08Okay, so uh this requires a bit of an explanation

0:11Um essentially this is the combination in a ton of videos that I haven't got out and the things that I wanted to share, but I just didn't get round to doing them properly.

0:19So

0:20In this video we're gonna unbox the YouTube uh thing that came.

0:24Here it is, it's on the table.

0:26We're gonna unbox it.

0:27I've kind of already opened it so I know what's in it, but I'm

0:29gonna sort of walk you through what's in it and then I'm also gonna take a look at the merch tableau sent for Tableau Visionary 2024.

0:36And then after that, what I've done is I've taken an interview I recorded with Sophie Sparks

0:41Um, she does these amazing data visualizations whilst an event is going on.

0:46So she did one during an interview that she was doing with me.

0:49We did this in November 2023, and yes, I am that bad.

0:52I haven't gotten the video out until now.

0:55So this felt like the most appropriate video because in that interview we talked about

0:59the history of the channel, how we got to where we got to, and essentially how I think of the channel, which I think might take a lot of people by surprise because what you see and actually what I make uh doesn't actually correlate much with the way I plan and strategize the content on the channel

1:12channel and it's kind of had to get to that point now because um a YouTube punishes you if you don't do that stuff and then secondly I'm still trying to balance off this um you know balance you have to strike on YouTube which is to you know give people the content they want

1:25whilst also creating content that really gets out and reaches people.

1:29There's kind of a balance you have to strike.

1:30So that's why you've seen a whole mix of different types of content in the last few months.

1:34Just to try and create that balance and to try and keep that healthy.

1:37Anyway, I go into it way more in the interview to kind of uh give you some background.

1:42But let's first start off with the unboxing of the YouTube plaque.

1:46Now, in order to do this

1:47I have a camera dangling above my head.

1:50And I have to be honest with you, I'm a little bit nervous because if it falls, it's going to fall right into this mic.

1:56Probably take it out entirely and take out the lens that's up there.

2:00But if I if I keep looking up, that's because I'm worried about the camera, what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna make sure that I position this in the way.

2:07And I think in order to get this to work, I have to move the mic out of the way.

2:10So if I just move the mic here

2:13Um we're gonna I'm gonna try and talk loudly so you can kind of hear me.

2:16Or maybe I didn't think this through at all, did I?

2:19Because if I move the mic out of the way

2:22Then you can't hear me.

2:24So we're gonna have to do something different.

2:26What I what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get my um voice memos app.

2:30That's literally what I have to resort to.

2:32So let's get the voice memos app

2:34I really didn't think this through.

2:35I needed my other pal mics, but hey, we don't have that with us.

2:38So I'm gonna leave my phone recording over there so we can get some sort of room audio.

2:43And here it is.

2:44So

2:45This is what you get.

2:46Um, nice package.

2:47Um, as soon as you cross 100,000 subscribers, what they do is they send you a little notification, they actually verify that you've done it legitimately.

2:54There's a little verification process that takes about a week

2:57Once you get verified, you get a form, you fill in the form, and off it goes to a company.

3:02This company is called Society Awards, and they make the plaques for YouTube.

3:07There's two types of plaques, the silver plaque and the gold plaque.

3:09the gold plaque is for a million the silver plaque is for a hundred thousand that's the goal I reached so here it is um it's a pretty normal package comes in a nice little box um

3:20When you open it, you get a letter from uh Neil Mohan, the YouTube CEO.

3:24It's kind of interesting because I don't think he really signed this.

3:27I mean if I if I put this um if I put this right on the camera, is it gonna focus?

3:32And I might be too close to it

3:33So there you go.

3:34If you can kind of see that just looking at the um just looking at the just looking at the text and if you just kind of hold the paper at an angle you take a look at it.

3:45think it's been printed on.

3:46Uh but anyway, doesn't matter.

3:48Um really nice touch.

3:49Um I'll take a picture of the letter and put it on screen um so you can s sort of see what it says.

3:54But again it's just nice to have that and it's a good reminder of

3:57Kind of where you started there, your first hundred, and now your thousandth, and now your hundred thousandths.

4:02Pretty nice touch actually, and it's nice to have something like that

4:04This I guess so hey if Neil has actually signed that then I've just jumped on that and I feel so really bad, but hey um doesn't matter anyway.

4:11You take some little padding off, uh you put this up here

4:14We've got unusual stuff.

4:16Now there is something nice and cool about these.

4:18Once you get one of these plaques, um, because some YouTube channels work in Teams, uh, there's more than one person working behind the channel, um, you can actually uh

4:27Keep this and get in touch with the company and as long as you've got the credentials that you use to get this back in the first place, you can pay to order more.

4:35So this is the first one you get, you get that free, but you can then subsequently request

4:41and more plaques in the future as well.

4:43So that's that's kind of really nice.

4:44I'm gonna put my phone in front of me so that it's a little bit easier to record audio.

4:49So yeah here we go.

4:50We're gonna take this up

4:54And uh this is it.

4:57There we go.

4:59And uh yeah, sort of it's very shiny.

5:02Um I haven't actually polished this I

5:04just took it off my wall and put it back in the box to show it to you.

5:06But uh yeah I'll put it up on this camera as well so it's just easy to see.

5:10It's a very shiny award.

5:12It's

5:12uh kind of put your name uh plaque on there you actually can't change that that's the name of your channel that gets printed on there and you kind of have to make sure that you change the name of your channel

5:22like shortly before you get this if you want something else to be on there.

5:26That's literally the only thing you can put on there.

5:28There are some people who try and make funny YouTube videos with really long names.

5:32And there is a character limit actually that stops you uh getting that.

5:35So there's a youtuber who's done this famously to try and get the longest character on the plaque.

5:40Uh and they've you know gotten multiple ones because they have a pretty big following.

5:43So yeah, that's pretty much it.

5:44That's the back.

5:45Uh not much more to it.

5:46Um but you know this is probably made out of like uh wood uh and it's got a metal sort of aluminum

5:51casing just to give it that sort of premium feel but it's pretty light it's not like a solid chunk of metal um but yeah um so this is pretty cool and you've probably seen it in the background so it actually lives over here if I sort of uh take my phone with me so you can still hear me um

6:06Kind of lives over here, so let's see if we can put this on right.

6:11Nope, I can't do that right.

6:13There we go, that's it.

6:15There we go.

6:16That's where it lives.

6:18So um yeah, that's pretty much it.

6:20That's uh that's a YouTube award.

6:22It's pretty nice.

6:23Um I'm gonna keep this other stuff.

6:24I think it's uh

6:25It's good to have I'll just keep the box.

6:27You know, if you're gonna move house or something, this is a good way of doing it.

6:30And uh keeping it in something that's important.

6:33And so yeah, uh that's what that's what that is.

6:36Now the other thing I'm gonna unbox, I'll put this to one side

6:39is some merch from Tableau.

6:41Now Tableau sent across the 2024 Visionary Merch.

6:45Let's see if that's on screen.

6:47Yeah it is.

6:47I'll put this over here.

6:49Let's just put that over

6:51There.

6:51I've got to be careful where I put it because I don't want it.

6:54It's just going to catch sounds from the table.

6:56So um this is the I'll put this to this camera.

7:00This

7:01is the uh visionary uh stone.

7:03It's uh pretty pretty cool, right?

7:05Like it's nice little nice little color.

7:07The previous ones are just behind me over here.

7:09You can just see them over there.

7:10So we had a green one last time, 2024.

7:12This one's a bit got a bit of a purple

7:14hue.

7:14It's essentially a slice out of a rock and the shipping label is kind of funny.

7:18The shipping label came at the prices of all of these so I can reliably tell you that these are about five dollars.

7:23So it's kind of a funny little thing.

7:27But it means a lot to people who have it.

7:29That's the most important thing.

7:30It's not what it's worth.

7:31It's what it means to the people that have it, right?

7:33So um that is uh the YouTube um no, sorry, the tableau visionary uh slab.

7:40It did used to be a rock.

7:42There there used to be something called a Zenmaster.

7:44We don't use that term anymore.

7:45So we use the Tableau Visionary moniker as it is.

7:48So that's that's it.

7:49And then the logo

7:51Pretty much gets ported onto pretty much everything else.

7:53So this is the uh this is a can cooler.

7:56I thought it was a coffee cup.

7:57So basically you take out this top thing, you put your can in there, and then you start drinking and that's pretty much it.

8:03Um

8:03You put the can thing back and then it calls your can of coke or whatever it is.

8:08I don't drink, so that's going to be mostly what it is.

8:10This is a little holder for your plaque, so

8:12You can uh put that in there like that and then put it behind you as the ones behind me have put.

8:18And then the very last thing is uh towel.

8:20I've got a nice little towel, very nice towel actually.

8:22I'll hold this up to screen.

8:24Now you can see very nice, nicely printed.

8:26I I'm just gonna use this as depot really in the background, so I think you might have seen um I put it on my shelf uh in a previous video, so that's

8:34That's what I'm going to use it for.

8:35Very, very nice.

8:36I've actually got a few of these kind of towels and scarf and tablets.

8:39It's building quite a collection.

8:41And then I've got this massive beach bag

8:43Um if you're wondering why boost bag and everything to do with surf well, um Tableau Conferences in San Diego.

8:50Um you probably can't hear me now.

8:51Uh Tableau conferences in San Diego.

8:54So um

8:55That's what this is for essentially.

8:57This is to kind of get all of that um stuff.

9:00You can turn up to you know San Diego with Novely Merch and this arrived before heading out.

9:06So uh I think that was the idea.

9:08Take this with you, enjoy.

9:09Some enjoy the break.

9:10Anyway, that's pretty much it.

9:12So um, all that said, that's all the stuff I wanted to show you.

9:15Nothing uh incredible there.

9:16Um, just just some just some stuff I really should have showed you ages ago and some stuff that arrived seen uh

9:22Next up, we've got the interview with Sophie now.

9:24Sophie also made an amazing data visualization that was sort of uh handcrafted as it were.

9:30So I'll I'll I've put that as a thumbnail of this video so you've already seen it

9:34And um yeah, in this interview, it's about thirty minutes long.

9:36She just talks through the history of the channel and uh yeah, we we go on to talk a bit about um what's next.

9:42Some of the challenges and it's dated in November 23, but a lot of it's still relevant.

9:46So go ahead, check it out, and I'll catch you in the next one.

9:49Hi Tim.

9:49Thank you so much for letting me interview you today.

9:52All right

9:53So I can see your uh I'm sure everybody this knows you already, Tableau Tim.

9:59Um I know you because I've also worked with you, so I I knew you as Tim before knowing you as Tableau Tim

10:05And in the background I see your amazing gold jacket there.

10:09Yes.

10:10So this has been quite quite a year for you with uh Tableau Visionary official name for gold jacket

10:18Exactly that gold jacket, golden hoodie, goldie whatever the people want to call it, but yeah.

10:27Great to catch up, have a chat with you and learn a little bit more about Tableau the history of Tableau Tim.

10:35what you're doing now and what you want to focus on in the future.

10:39And while I'm asking you these questions, I'm going to try and draw all of this.

10:42So by the end you'll have a visual representation of everything we talk about

10:48Amazing.

10:48Does that sound cool?

10:50Sounds perfect.

10:52To get started.

10:54Um Tablet most people

10:59who know you probably have only started watching in the last few years, can you take me through a history?

11:06'Cause I did a sneaky oldest video first on your YouTube channel.

11:09Yeah.

11:10Um can you tell me a little bit about the history of Tableau Tim?

11:13Absolutely.

11:14It's crazy.

11:15What you just said there is actually not correct.

11:18Most people who know me only know me from this year.

11:24That's that's sort of like how how

11:27skewed the the YouTube analytics are if that makes sense.

11:31So um I started back in

11:35Well, my very first video was ages ago.

11:37It was not even tableau related.

11:39Um I can't even remember the exact year.

11:41Twenty eleven, twenty, you know, some really, really long time.

11:45Um and

11:47My first Tableau videos were probably five years ago, six years ago.

11:53And um

11:55The majority of my videos or the majority of the videos that people have watched are probably from the last two years, maybe three years, depending on some of them.

12:05And the majority of my followers and subscribers and the people who watch my channel now daily are from the last year to eight months.

12:17So most of my followership is recent, more recent than probably the length of time that the channel suggests.

12:25It's kind of like a really weird um

12:28It's a really weird uh thing.

12:30I I think YouTube has this sort of compounding effect.

12:33So the videos I made four years ago, if I got them right, they're still performing well today and people watch them today as if they've discovered them and I've made them today.

12:41So

12:42that's sort of a the strange dynamic that kind of YouTube plays.

12:45So um yeah we're we're four hundred and fifty videos in now.

12:49So um

12:50Some of those are probably out of date, but the majority of them are hopefully still helping people and that's um that's sort of the uh

12:58That's sort of the fun thing about it.

12:59I can go back and reflect on stuff and the hard thing now is actually making videos today that perform as well as the old ones because um the old ones have had time to

13:09gain a big followership so YouTube recommends them again and again and again.

13:13Whereas I think I make better videos today, but YouTube doesn't recommend them as much because of course they are still growing in in in in in usage.

13:21So

13:22There's only one video I made this year that made it into my top ten of all videos um for context.

13:28So that's that's super hard to do.

13:31That's I mean, I mean that's how algorithms work, but it also I I guess you're putting things in the bank for a few years in the future, then these videos gotta have time.

13:42You know, should be the algorithm keeps on working the same way.

13:45Um that's uh so and you said you started the first few ones you did um weren't about tableau.

13:54So how did you start the the channel if it wasn't

13:58You know, it wasn't uh I guess 2010 was Tableau run in 2010?

14:03It was.

14:03That would have been like it was, it was.

14:05Tableau's 20 years old.

14:06But it it just I I wasn't anywhere near uh analytics or even Tableau

14:11The first the first videos I made, um, the first one was actually about how to do a drop caps in print design.

14:17Do you know what they are?

14:18They're they're kind of the um

14:20You know, in in a book, the very first word is sometimes larger than the rest of the paragraph.

14:24Yeah, yeah.

14:25That is essentially a drop cap.

14:26Yeah.

14:27And I made a tutorial on how to do that in Adobe InDesign.

14:31Um

14:32Adobe InDesign had a course on something which was at the time called lynda.

14:37com.

14:37And I found it really powerful that I was able to go online, watch a watch a course.

14:43as an not as a professional and get professional skills that I then used later to do magazine design.

14:48And so I actually took a subscription to Lynda.

14:51com like that summer and made a ton of

14:54ton of different pe pieces of content.

14:56Um and that video got eighty thousand

15:03views over over four or five years.

15:05That was crazy at the time because back then YouTube wasn't even you couldn't make a living off YouTube.

15:10But if I was

15:11If I'd kept on doing that those kind of view counts, I could have had a very different uh life, but I stopped at one video and I never picked it up again.

15:20So that's a shame.

15:22Um

15:23And then I made another video about a web CMS system called a Django.

15:28It's used on lots of big websites.

15:31Tableau used it once at least, I think.

15:33That was pretty pretty pretty interesting.

15:35How to install it and set it up.

15:37And then I made a video about Tableau, largely through work, you know, where we were working together.

15:43I started doing videos on content uh layout containers, sorry.

15:47And then I stopped and started a couple of times, um, went to Accenture, made a few more videos there, and stopped again.

15:55Time commitment was always difficult and the production was always the hard thing.

15:59And then eventually

16:01In 2019, I think uh a few things aligned.

16:05I finally had the equipment to edit the videos fast and easily and sort of express myself creatively.

16:12Um I had a vision for what I could make videos about in a consistent way that wouldn't sort of get too demanding.

16:19And then um yeah, I managed to put it all together.

16:23So

16:23I kind of listed out 20 videos that I was gonna make, mostly about new new features in Tableau, so I didn't have to think too hard.

16:30And then after that

16:32I decided to tackle an explainer on what Tableau is, because those first videos were kind of me just getting comfortable with

16:40with with the process and then I finally decided right I'm gonna make this video I wanted to make explaining what Tableau is so that I can send it to my mum and hopefully she'll understand what I do for a living.

16:50Um really good video.

16:51Yeah, that was that was that was a that was a pivotal that was a pivotal video because I had a vision.

16:57I had it for a long time.

16:58I didn't have the skills.

16:59Um I've written a blog post about how I made it and I kind of took a week out of work.

17:04And I learned the skills.

17:07I made the video.

17:08I edited the video, narrated the video, did a storyboard

17:12Um did it all on Procreate.

17:14I think you're using Procreate right now.

17:16So yep, I did it in the same app and um uh time-lapsed it and then exported it to Premiere Pro and then we made a video.

17:22So what year was that in?

17:24Uh 2019.

17:27So that that video was in 2020, but this was 2019 when I planned it all.

17:33So twenty nineteen was like the would you say it's like the pivotal year that when things went from being like bubbling along to being like full on

17:43Yeah.

17:43Um there's actually a reason which you might know not know, but there's a reason which is I was supposed to go to a certain city in another country uh as part of uh

17:52the organization we both worked at.

17:53I can't really reveal too much.

17:55But you'll know exactly what I mean.

17:56And um we found out I was gonna have my son

17:59So I decided not to go.

18:02Pretty good reason not to go.

18:04And then uh uh I was kinda like, Well, this is what I was gonna do.

18:08This d like

18:09I needed something new, something I I was kind of hoping to really make an impact and in helping people learn Tableau.

18:16And I was like, okay, let's do this instead.

18:18Um yeah, that that was it.

18:21That's pretty cool.

18:22And that's a good idea, like oh that's really cool.

18:25Um And you said you were yeah that a little while ago when you're talking about the uh you know Adobe Premiere uh

18:35And you saying Linda, I also people know you as Tableau Tim, but Linda turned into LinkedIn learning, I believe.

18:42100%, 100%, full circle.

18:44So

18:45I learned I got the idea of making videos from a platform called Lynda.

18:50com.

18:50Lynda.

18:51com was the first online learning platform doing videos.

18:55Um, it had like three instructors.

18:58doing stuff on Adobe.

19:00There's a guy called Terry White who is still, you know, f famous for Adobe tutorials today.

19:07Another guy called Geek McClelland who did Photoshop and Adobe InDesign tutorials.

19:12Um and so I watched their courses on Adobe basically.

19:15I just I just went through them all.

19:17Um obviously got them legally and then got the subscription afterwards because I realized they were hugely valuable.

19:23So um

19:25And then the the crazy thing was that now, just two years ago, kind of went full circle because LinkedIn acquired Lynda.

19:34com

19:34Then Microsoft acquired LinkedIn as a separate tangent.

19:38And then as part of the acquisition by Microsoft, LinkedIn got this huge remit to completely

19:45pivot LinkedIn Learning or Lynda.

19:48com to be a professional skill-based platform.

19:52And so with that, with that sort of big push, LinkedIn reached out to me having made

19:57Now videos for a year and a half.

19:59So at that time I think I only had 15,000 subscribers when they reached out to me.

20:03So I kind of think it was a huge vote of confidence as well.

20:05Because 15,000 isn't that much.

20:07that they normally work with creators that are much larger, especially in the professional context.

20:11So um yeah, we made a course about Tableau, but I didn't want to become typecasted as a Tableau.

20:19uh uh educator.

20:21And so we made a series called Everybody's Introduction to Tableau.

20:25And that's been live now for a year.

20:2735,000 people have sat that course on LinkedIn, which is pretty cool.

20:31Um about

20:331500 sit it every month, which is nice because it's kind of timeless.

20:37It shouldn't go out of date easily.

20:39And I've got I'm gonna do updates probably once every two years to it as the tablet platform changes.

20:44And I managed to repeat that with the Snowflake course.

20:47And the crazy thing about the Snowflake course is it's growing faster than my Tableau course.

20:51So you'd think Tableau has a bigger following, but actually it turns out.

20:56that because Snowflake is maybe agnostic from an analytics perspective, anyone who uses a database might be interested in it

21:04then um it actually has a bigger audience in terms of day travel.

21:07So really enjoying to see the feedback I'm getting from that.

21:10And uh yeah, and I I've slowly started making obviously snowflake content on my YouTube channel as well to kind of

21:17Mirror that um trajectory.

21:19But it's been a little bit tough this year.

21:20I think for a lot of personal um reasons, I've just really struggled to kind of find the time to do what I wanted to do with other top other topics.

21:29So

21:30Um I've actually brought on board a um a contractor, as it were.

21:35Um I can't really reveal who they are just yet, but someone who's going to be helping me with content production.

21:41So they have experience with Tableau, they're very familiar with Tableau, which is super important, but they're also quite opinionated about content and how that should go.

21:49So

21:50Um together we've got a really sort of ambitious uh plan about where we're gonna take the content and when the time is right, I'll obviously share that with more people.

21:58But uh

21:59That's gonna potentially three or four X my output in terms of just being able to get through content.

22:04Because the biggest hurdle is planning.

22:07The second biggest hurdle is editing

22:09And actually making it is the easy part.

22:12I can get in front of a camera with my setup and do it.

22:14The hard bit is all of the stuff that comes before and after.

22:17So

22:18Um in February, maybe we'll get an editor and then I think people will notice uh the pace of the channel and the content we're putting out.

22:28Um

22:29maybe get to a point where we can put out three videos a week consistently every every every week of the year.

22:33So that would be amazing.

22:35That would be very cool.

22:36And that's a big that's a yeah big push, especially

22:40If you said you're uh you know twenty nineteen was when you decided to give this a go because you found out you guys were pregnant, so you've got a small kid.

22:48Um so Yeah, it's true, it's true.

22:50There is like there are times where you have to balance life and

22:53That's kind of why the um the output's inconsistent.

22:56Like sometimes I go a month without putting anything and it's just because of things like that.

23:00You know, um I'm still got a job, I'm still working full time as well as doing this.

23:04So uh unfortunately

23:06It's funny, I kind of figured out how big would the channel have to be for me for me to be able to do this full time and the number is something crazy like 800,000 subscribers

23:17in order for the YouTube and all the non-Youtube benefits of how this all works to actually make economic sense to be able to do it fill full time.

23:28But Tableau never Tableau will never get that.

23:30Like like if Tableau ever if anyone ever makes a million person

23:36YouTube channel with just Tableau, that's incredible.

23:40But I'm not sure it's possible.

23:41So you have to broaden that to other other technologies.

23:44Um there are so many more interesting things on YouTube, let's put it that way.

23:48Oh very cool.

23:49And a big push there for anyone who wants to share this afterwards helped him get from a million subscribers.

23:58It's a bit unrealistic.

24:01It's uh we can get there, small steps, yeah.

24:04And so what uh talking about the

24:10Sort of following on from saying like moving on, there's so much more than just Tableau.

24:14Um, out of those D-ish videos you have on your channel right now

24:19Um and this has been recorded on and the twentieth of November 2023, so these will go up numbers.

24:28Um how many

24:32Would you so you're sort of doing tableau and would you define like tableau, desktop, prep, server as three different things?

24:41Interesting.

24:42So um Would it all just be one big tableau?

24:45It's one big tableau.

24:47And the reason it's that is because um

24:50There's there's probably one piece of context, which is my channel has a niche, and that niche is bringing people into the topic.

24:57It's not showing people how to do advanced things.

25:00So I don't do tips and tricks.

25:02I don't do

25:03Let me show you four level tableau drill downs.

25:07I don't show you, you know, 25 minute classes on LODs.

25:11I do a crash course on the topic in general, Tableau

25:14But I don't do in I don't do deep dives into these these things that often because um what I'm trying to do is make sure that everyone can go from zero to sixty very easily.

25:25And also from like um

25:27Uh from a scale perspective, that's the kind of audience that I think justifies the time that I put into the quality and the um push of content that I make.

25:39So um

25:41you know, covering new features in Tableau, covering what Tableau is, covering the high level um, you know, feature set

25:50But only ever doing enough to bring people into the topic is kind of what I do.

25:53So for that reason, I treat Tableau as one big bucket.

25:56Yeah, if you're just interested in Tableau

25:58You shouldn't need to be super advanced or super technical to understand it.

26:03Like if you don't have a clue what Tableau is and you you Google Tableau, I hope one of my videos comes up for you.

26:09And I hope one of them is an explainer of Tableau.

26:11And I hope if you watch that.

26:12You maybe go, oh, maybe I want to learn a bit more.

26:15And if you decide to do that, then there's maybe a four-hour crash course you can do for desktop.

26:21There's maybe a playlist for Tableau Prep.

26:23There's maybe a video me explaining what Tableau Server is or Tableau Cloud.

26:27But you won't ever see me doing it's not true.

26:30I've actually done a Tableau Server installation.

26:32But

26:33The point here is I'm just always trying to bring people into the topic.

26:36So that install for Tableau Server is like the beginner piece of content for people who do Tableau Server, right?

26:42So there's always something for everyone to start at zero to 60.

26:47And that's um that's sort of how I think of it.

26:50So the majority of the content is Tableau.

26:52I'd say probably 30 to 50 videos are not Tableau.

26:56There are other technologies that I've covered.

26:59So Snowflake, Altrix

27:01um particular DBT in the future um as well.

27:05So those are the four I'm gonna do just because those are the ones I use for work today and they're the ones I know about.

27:10And I think I I like to teach from a place of authority and experience.

27:14So

27:14Um once I've once I've felt like I've done something for long enough and I can give something back, then yeah, absolutely.

27:20Um we'll make videos about it.

27:23And okay, that makes sense.

27:25So it's like nearly all tableau and then some snowflake and uh

27:32I might just pull out a separate one because you have a like a a LinkedIn course.

27:38So that's kind of like a seems like a pretty strong

27:41And then like some other stuff, including like AI.

27:45Yeah.

27:45Exactly.

27:46Yeah.

27:46So the the the AI stuff is super frustrating because it's the most watched content on my channel.

27:52Um if you compare it

27:56If you do a comparison of all my videos since they've been published and you map them out over a the number of days since published

28:03My videos on ChatGPT and AI per like output outperform Tableau by 3 or 4 4X.

28:10So what that means is just my my my Tableau audience is just so much more interested in AI than they are interested in Tableau.

28:16Which then actually justifies why Tableau needs to put AI in their product, right?

28:21Because it's such a it's it's one of those things where I think you you you hear people say, ah

28:26that this AI stuff is it gonna work, is it not?

28:28But then I look at my metrics from a viewer perspective and people are super curious about it and keep keep watching the videos about it.

28:35So

28:35There is some something there that people are interested in.

28:38Maybe they're just curious to see if it works well or not.

28:40And maybe I'm a good communicator of that.

28:43Um, but hey, um

28:45I've kind of tried to avoid to make too many videos about AI because then the YouTube algorithm will sort of say, okay Tim, this seems to be what your audience actually enjoys.

28:54Can you make more videos about that?

28:55And I nearly did fall into that trap by making a separate channel about AI that I decided not to carry on with.

29:02And I started to focus on just Tableau and Chat GPT and how it sort of dovetails with Tableau

29:08specifically my content and the product itself.

29:10So yeah.

29:11Makes uh makes a lot of sense.

29:13Trying to I'm going, I'm like, oh shall I do two bars?

29:16I was gonna do I'm thinking about dr how how I'm

29:19can show this and I'll just do bars for each of them, but because Tableau is one whole thing, it's actually like two two chunks.

29:25So mostly Tableau and then like hardly anything else of anything else.

29:30Um

29:31It's weird because I think in the future um what I'm really trying to do is make them all equal, right?

29:40Yeah.

29:41Um

29:42So, you know, the content you make versus what people know you for, the the the statistics don't always correlate.

29:50I have one video about Tableau that has uh nearly a million views.

29:55That represents a third of the people who've watched a third of the views on my entire channel.

30:02So

30:03If I just took that one video and then all the other videos were about not Tableau, Tableau would still be the biggest chunk on my channel, just by virtue of that one video.

30:13So if you take that one video out

30:15and you just look at the watch time in general, actually you find that the watch time is actually more consistent across them.

30:21Even though I've made less content about Snowflake and

30:23all tricks and stuff like that.

30:25Um and they're actually quite hard to find on the channel.

30:27Um people you have to literally type and look for them.

30:30They are there.

30:31Um

30:32It's quite hard.

30:33There is also a huge body of content that I've recorded that I've not released that's sitting on the channel waiting to be published.

30:39So this is like a dynamic that people maybe um

30:43don't get a sense of because in the videos you don't ever see the date that I'm recording really in the in the window.

30:49And it's yeah the only stuff that's date specific is when there's a new release.

30:53But every other video where there's no new release

30:55Some of those have been sitting in the back end of YouTube for like a month or two.

30:59I just I just haven't got around to kind of finding a window in which I can put it into or a time where I'm happy with it or there's an editing issue and I've put it up and I've watched it back and I'm not happy with it.

31:10So I don't publish it.

31:11And you know, that that's sort of a dynamic that happens all the time behind the scenes.

31:15But um I also make mistakes.

31:17I also publish videos with mistakes and then I wish I didn't put them out and then I take them down and put them back up again.

31:22But yeah.

31:22Um

31:23There's always like a a change of dynamics there.

31:28No, that um makes a lot of sense.

31:33And so where would you where are you thinking of going in the future with all of this?

31:39Huge plans.

31:40So um

31:43There is a chasm between where I am and where I want to be.

31:46And by chasm I mean there's a huge gap, right?

31:50Um and to cross that gap, there's two approaches.

31:54Uh you take the YouTube channel down the sponsorship route.

31:58Um sponsorship opens up a ton of opportunities.

32:02But it also ties you down to commitments and timings that, you know, quite hard to do given I've got other commitments, especially my job

32:10Um or you go down another route where you take um you take your channel and you use it as a sort of springboard to do something that actually has the impact that you want to have.

32:22So one of the projects I'm working on at the moment is essentially a place where I can give people something that a lot of people have been asking for, which is a tailored course experience.

32:35And people might think, oh, of course our Tim's going to monetize his audience.

32:39Not quite actually.

32:41It's just about giving people the opportunity to experience the content in a linear way.

32:45And I do this already on tabletim.

32:47com

32:48But something that people ask for all the time is, okay, I've watched your video, it's great about this topic, but now that I've found your style and I've found your teaching and instruction style.

32:58Can you give me somewhere where I can go and watch something that's got a high level of polish and it's tidy?

33:03My response to that has always been, well YouTube is that like

33:07I actually think my videos are as tidy if not tidier than most people's course content.

33:12So what they really mean by that is can you make it easy for me to

33:17Consume this in bits over time in a way that I can show someone a certificate to say that I've done this course

33:24And so that's kind of why I approached LinkedIn and I worked with them because I thought that could give people that sort of um that sort of hit.

33:31But the problem with LinkedIn is that the turnaround to make courses

33:34Um it's actually quite long.

33:36So, you know, to make a course, I launched one in November.

33:40We started it in April.

33:41So

33:42Um although the courses are an hour because they have a really tight production system.

33:47Um yeah, we we have to start in April for a course that comes out in um October, if that makes sense.

33:54So

33:55You know, compare that to like my YouTube schedule where if I want to make a video next week, I start it today.

34:01And and with courses, I think you need a lot more planning.

34:05So that's what I'm doing at the moment, setting up the infrastructure to

34:09Um, you know, I'm working with someone to set up the infrastructure to build a place, a website that's gonna allow you to do that.

34:16Um and you know, we're going at it as um joint partners, as it were, because

34:21They're good at the technical stuff and I'm good at the design and content production side of it.

34:27Um and as part of that, I'm I'm also helping other companies start their online courses um as a way of sort of learning that.

34:33So

34:35What I'm hoping to bring is a tried and tested approach to making online courses that are good, that actually work, but also I am using it myself to make an impact.

34:46Well Tim, that was um a really interesting conversation.

34:50So just saying it's like 9 30 and I know you we've both got small kids, so we probably both have like

34:56Things we need to do, like chores and never ending laundry.

35:00Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

35:02Um but

35:04There sounds like there's a lot happening in the future.

35:07So the last sort of question I'd like to ask you is what do you

35:15think is going to like what are you looking out for in twenty twenty-four?

35:21Do you reckon you're going to be focusing so you said before you know you

35:25Next year, um might be bringing on some more people to help you with content production and editing, but you didn't say much about what you're going to focus on in those videos.

35:35Um and where if for people who do watch your co videos, maybe what you think would be the best bang for the buck for them.

35:44So it's uh I'm thinking about this a lot because I need to make a decision by um

35:50By January, because although we're planning lots of things, I need to kind of decide where we start and what the approach is.

35:58Um I have 400 and something videos about Tableau.

36:04I've never had to up until now think about how many of those are now out of date.

36:10And if they're out of date, then surely I need to make newer versions of them.

36:15And if I need to make newer versions of them, I therefore need to prioritize them while still covering everything that's new and everything that's changing.

36:23which it sounds like for the next three years it's going to be a lot about Tableau.

36:28Okay.

36:29So in a weird way

36:31I think my channel is just getting started when it comes to Tableau as a topic.

36:36And I know that sounds ridiculous, but I think in the next five years, Tableau will change as much as it has changed over the last 20 years.

36:44Right.

36:44I think that's almost inevitable just because of the moves Salesforce are making.

36:49And so if there's ever a time that someone needs to help explain that journey to people, now's the time.

36:54And I think

36:56Unlike a lot of other channels, I'm always focused on what's new and where Tableau's heading, and I'm in a unique position to capitalize on that and really show people what's going on.

37:05So

37:06It sounds weird, but I'm actually going to double down on Tableau.

37:10But the difference next year is going to be that I'm going to double down on Tableau and make my content more agnostic to other concepts in analytics.

37:18So whilst doubling down on Tableau, I'm also going to bring databases into that discussion.

37:23I'm also going to bring um infrastructure into that discussion.

37:26And I'm also going to bring um, you know

37:29scripting languages like Python and R in the right places in the right context, but I'm also going to explain general concepts that aren't unique to Tableau.

37:39So

37:40working with data, transforming data, data visualization best practice.

37:45I'm really going to sort of try and approach all of those, always from the perspective of bringing people into the topic.

37:50and letting them go find the experts once they know enough about it to be able to search and help themselves.

37:55So it's a bit of a complicated sort of thing to explain, but um

38:01Yeah, yeah, the future for me has more tableau mixed in with more things rather than just being about tableau, if that makes sense.

38:11That does make a lot of sense.

38:13Yeah.

38:14Um and I'm really looking forward, I I to be honest, like haven't really thought about where Tableau's going and what's happening next.

38:22So um I'm really looking forward to

38:24to seeing what's what will come up then.

38:26If you there's like you you're the the guru for the if you want a Tableau update.

38:32Um, you know, I I don't I

38:34I shouldn't say this, but I'm totally gonna say is I don't even read definitely like what's coming next.

38:38I'm just like I wait till Tim till I'm like I just wait till Tim reviews it because that makes a lot more sense.

38:44Five.

38:44Five

38:45Yeah, it's an interesting it's an interesting pa it's an interesting um it's an interesting paradigm because I

38:55That there is I've only just realized this.

38:57What you've just said, um my wife actually told me the other day.

39:01She said to me, um, you do know that for some people

39:05You're the only source of information when it comes to Tableau.

39:09And I was like, nah, that's not true, because you know, I make the content and they go off and find their own stuff.

39:14And she was like, Yeah, but

39:16You know, she can she can see the analytics, she can see the stuff, but she she she highlights to me that you know 50% of my people that watching the videos are returning viewers.

39:26So they come back to watch something new.

39:29They come back to watch the next thing or they they started something, they're coming back to finish.

39:33And I don't do anything for that audience.

39:36Does that make sense?

39:37Like, I don't do anything for someone who's been using Tableau for three years.

39:41To the point I made at the very beginning, I'm about bringing people into the community and letting them find their own stuff.

39:48And by definition, I don't do anything for that returning audience other than keep them updated with Tableau.

39:54And I think there's a lot more I can do.

39:57Um, and I think I can do it

39:59In a way that Tableau can't, because Tableau are Tableau.

40:02They have a marketing message, they have a uh uh a a message they have to hit and they've got people to please, investors and owners and stuff like that, and Salesforce to please as well, no doubt.

40:14Um

40:14Whereas I can actually be neutral, I can be sort of passionate about the product, but critical about it at the same time and highlight the issues, highlight the strengths, and highlight the weaknesses.

40:26And I think I've sort of hidden behind this wall just saying, I'm just gonna tell you what's new and

40:33You know, I've been using Tableau long enough to I think have an opinion and just be brave to share it.

40:38And sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong.

40:41And I'm open to people sort of critiquing that.

40:43And I think that's something that I'm going to start to try and challenge.

40:47You know, there's certain features, there's certain ideas, there's certain concepts that would be great if we talked more about in the community.

40:56And um I'm gonna take sort of a bolder move and start talking more about them.

41:00And if I'm wrong, I'd love I'd love a sea of people to tell me I'm wrong and let's have that discussion out in public.

41:05That's that's sort of what I'd love to see more of.

41:07So I'm gonna try and bring it to the community myself and see where it goes.

41:13Wow, thank you.

41:14This has been fantastic.

41:16And we have a finished image which I want to send over to you.

41:22Um looking at the uh

41:26Where where things have happened along the way.

41:28Um and getting up to the last three years of four years.

41:32Yeah.

41:32Three years plus this year.

41:34Um where you've with a pivotal year in 2019 and the red line.

41:39Mostly lots of Tableau, some other stuff, and a few bits of AI.

41:44And uh we're focusing on Tableau with your lapel pin

41:47Because I'd locked it up on the other side of your image there.

41:49Yeah, nice.

41:50But hopefully this will be a nice reminder of everything you talked about.

41:54And um it's been an absolute pleasure, Tim.

41:57Amazing.

41:57Thank you very much.

41:58Thanks