Vlog #8: Journey Home, roundup and reflections (Tableau conference 2016) #data16

0:00Come on.

0:04Gonna do a vlog with Dad.

0:06Come on. Yeah?

0:08Yeah? Come on then.

0:10I'll carry you.

0:12Oh my god.

0:14Let's do this.

0:16Yeah?

0:18How are we gonna do this?

0:20Huh?

0:22How should we do this?

0:24Oh, not like that.

0:28So, I'm all packed.

0:30Pretty much good to go.

0:32I've got my stuff

0:34just over there

0:36all ready to go.

0:38It's kind of sad.

0:40I don't wanna go.

0:42I've done a scour of the room.

0:44Everything is packed.

0:48This is an Airbnb place actually.

0:50I chose an Airbnb place over a hotel.

0:53It was slightly cheaper and

0:55I just prefer staying in a place

0:58rather than in a hotel.

1:00Hotels are right next to the convention

1:01centre

1:02but I like to get away a bit from the town.

1:04So, yeah. I think it worked out pretty well

1:06.

1:07They announced yesterday

1:09that the next conference is gonna be in

1:10Vegas

1:11so I'm actually looking forward to that.

1:13It was in Vegas last year.

1:15I preferred the layout of Vegas to this

1:17year.

1:17Everything was in one place.

1:19Because of that there's a critical mass of

1:20people

1:21and you really feel the scale of the event

1:24which is what I sort of lost this year.

1:26I felt there were lots more people here

1:28this year

1:29but it felt like it was half the number.

1:32So, yeah.

1:34But now starts the long journey home.

1:36I'm flying to Dallas

1:38then I'm flying to London Heathrow

1:40then when I get to London

1:42I've got a train journey home.

1:44And then we're gonna have Toby

1:46at the end of this vlog.

1:48He's gonna make a return.

1:50[Music]

1:52Hiya. How you doing?

2:00How are you?

2:02Absolutely.

2:04Yeah, absolutely.

2:06Cheers.

2:18So this long queue is because

2:20essentially the American Airlines system

2:24has soon to have gone down

2:26so you can only check your bags in at the

2:28desk.

2:28So everyone's here.

2:30We've all got boarding passes

2:32but we have to check our bags in

2:34so no candy.

2:36[Music]

2:46[Music]

2:52Our flying time today is over 8 hours and 4

2:54minutes.

2:54We take a plan through altitude of 29,000

2:57feet.

2:58[Music]

3:02Okay. I'm gonna try and do this in one take

3:29. Okay?

3:29If you behave with me,

3:31this will be good. I promise.

3:33Okay? I'll give you a nice big fat bone.

3:36He's bored already.

3:38Jesus.

3:40Okay? This bodes well.

3:42So I'm back in Colchester.

3:44I promised I'd do a vlog with Toby

3:46and here he is.

3:48Now it's roughly a week and a half

3:51since I came back from conference.

3:53It's been really really interesting.

3:58So when you come back from conference,

4:00one of the things you have to do is sort of

4:02reflect.

4:03And there's been a ton of people doing

4:05reflections.

4:06It's been really good to read the different

4:08perspectives.

4:09I think different people had different

4:10experiences

4:11so it's absolutely worth reading all of

4:13them

4:13because people will see things that maybe

4:15you don't

4:16and it also increases your perspective of

4:19how the event works.

4:21Toby.

4:28You don't want to do the vlog anymore?

4:30Okay. Fine.

4:33So the main event wasn't feeling it

4:37so I've been demoted to doing the vlog

4:39upstairs.

4:41So where was I?

4:43There are lots of different perspectives

4:45from conference

4:46and it's really important to read all of

4:47them.

4:48You'll notice things that you didn't notice

4:49whilst you were there

4:51and it's also good to just talk to people

4:52after the conference

4:54because when you're there you can get

4:55caught up in the moment

4:57and it's often better just to step back,

4:59let people think about it

5:00and then have the same discussion again

5:03because different things come out.

5:05I think the other thing that's been really

5:06valuable

5:07that I've spent the last week and a half

5:08doing

5:09is going through some of the stuff I didn't

5:11see.

5:12So if you go to tclive.tablo.com

5:16you can see all the sessions that were

5:18recorded there

5:19as well as the hands-on content in the form

5:23of downloadable folders

5:25that you can go through, work through and

5:27have a look at.

5:28So I've enjoyed watching a couple of the

5:29sessions I didn't go to

5:30that were in my plan

5:32and it's been really interesting because I

5:34felt like

5:34I've got the experience of conference

5:36but I haven't missed out on the information

5:38that I wanted to see.

5:39In terms of what I'd like to see more of

5:41I think this year was interesting

5:44because Tableau obviously gave their three-

5:45year vision

5:46and that's sort of good and bad in certain

5:49ways.

5:50So firstly it's good because you see the

5:52long-term plan

5:53and some of that was really rewarding,

5:55really exciting

5:56but not so good stuff is not seeing the

5:58things you want to see.

6:00Okay, so what didn't I see that I wanted to

6:02see more of?

6:04The first thing is an onboarding experience

6:06.

6:07An onboarding experience is the kind of

6:09experience you get

6:10when you open an app for the first time

6:12and it sort of shows you how to use the

6:14tool

6:15how to make something and it makes you do

6:16it

6:17before you can even go to the rest of the

6:19software.

6:20And I think this is something that Tableau

6:21is missing

6:22because for users who are already using

6:24Tableau

6:25it's just intuitive, you just open it and

6:26you start doing stuff straight away.

6:28For people who are using it the first time

6:30it's really difficult to actually

6:31understand the philosophy

6:33that Tableau has in the way it's sort of

6:35built the product

6:36especially if you're coming from something

6:38like Excel.

6:39A lot of the time you hear people talk

6:41about

6:41as Tableau is being excelled on drugs

6:43and that's really not the case at all, it's

6:45a completely different paradigm.

6:46And so you need to sort of onboard users

6:49onto that new philosophy

6:50and new way of thinking.

6:51And I think an onboarding experience for

6:53Tableau would be a really useful thing.

6:55And I think it will help the kind of users

6:58that Tableau needs to get onboard

7:00for the next few years onto the tool

7:04because I think Tableau is on that sort of

7:06verge

7:07where it needs to become more of a

7:08mainstream product

7:09and the kind of users they have now, well

7:11we're the low hanging fruit

7:12we're the ones who wanted this stuff in the

7:14first place.

7:15Now you've got the hard task of convincing

7:17people who love other tools

7:18to start using it.

7:19So I think an onboarding experience would

7:21be a really useful thing.

7:23The second one is a bit of a strange one

7:24and bear with me on this.

7:27I'd actually like Tableau to break down its

7:29product into lots of smaller chunks.

7:32By that I don't mean start selling me seven

7:34things instead of just one.

7:36I'm talking about making a bunch of

7:38software development kits.

7:40Basically that's an SDK for developers.

7:43And that allows you to use different parts

7:46of Tableau when you need to use them

7:48but still have the core product unchanged

7:50and untouched.

7:52Let me give you an example.

7:54In Tableau Server you have various

7:56different processes.

7:58One of them is visQL. This is Geek Talk so

8:00bear with me.

8:01One of them is visQL and it renders visual

8:03izations.

8:04Another one for example renders the web

8:07interface and creates it.

8:09Another one manages users, another one

8:11manages data and so on and so forth.

8:13What if I only want to use parts of that?

8:16So you can already do this in some way or

8:18form.

8:19For example in the most recent update to

8:21the JavaScript API

8:23they allowed you to do something which

8:25means you can call data from a data

8:27visualization

8:28and have it load up in something else like

8:30D3.

8:31That's great.

8:33In the web data connectors they allowed you

8:35to connect Tableau to different data

8:37sources

8:38on the fly. That's great.

8:40But what if for example I wanted to use the

8:43visQL part of Tableau Server

8:45to render me a visualization but I fed it

8:48the data and I told it where on the web

8:50page I wanted it.

8:51That's the kind of functionality I'd like.

8:55And the reason that's really useful is

8:56because often you get instances

8:59where you only want to use a certain part

9:01of Tableau because you know it does it

9:03really really well

9:04and you want to have it integrate with

9:05something else for interoperability

9:08or maybe you're in an enterprise context

9:10where you have to use a certain system for

9:12doing certain things.

9:13And I think this would really help

9:15especially in advanced use cases and

9:17developers.

9:18Now this isn't a mainstream feature so it's

9:20probably not high up the priority list

9:22but this is something I'd love to see more

9:23of because I think it will allow creativity

9:26to happen

9:27in lots of places it hasn't happened before

9:29especially the web, especially on mobile

9:31devices

9:32and I think as we move forward Tableau's

9:35got to give the community more power

9:38to take the product in different directions

9:40that maybe Tableau's not going to focus on

9:42and I think software development kits would

9:43be a great way of doing that.

9:45The last thing I'd love to see Tableau

9:47focus on is the finish.

9:49The finish that they put on some of the

9:50features they're all at.

9:53Let me give you an example. When I first

9:54heard the ability to format text

9:58or format everything across a workbook I

10:01was so excited, I was so pumped

10:04and then when I started using it I was like

10:06wait a minute this isn't what I was

10:08expecting at all.

10:09It was like the start of the journey. So

10:11what I expected with the workbook

10:14formatting

10:14was exactly that. The ability to format the

10:16entire workbook in one place

10:19to maybe set something called a style sheet

10:20. A style sheet is a term that's used in

10:23design

10:24where basically you prescribe a font, some

10:27colours, some rules for every single bit of

10:30content

10:30and then Tableau just looks at that every

10:31time you start to create a visualisation.

10:34So maybe you have a colour palette, maybe

10:35you have a preferred font, maybe you have a

10:38preferred

10:38set of settings that you use for certain

10:40chart types. I'd love that too.

10:43It will be preserved in the form of a style

10:44sheet. This isn't a new idea, this isn't

10:47something that

10:48I've just created now or thought of. This

10:49is something that's already out there in

10:51the community.

10:52So Tableau chose to obviously just release

10:54the text formatting capabilities and I know

10:57that they're going to be releasing

10:58more formatting capabilities in the future.

11:01Why not just focus on it and really go

11:03through it,

11:03really be ambitious and just double down on

11:05that one feature and just do the whole

11:08thing.

11:08That's my opinion. If you'd rather see

11:11features come out in bits rather than

11:14having to wait for them

11:15then fair enough because on the same hand

11:17there are other features that we have seen

11:20that haven't come out

11:21that look pretty complete. I'm going to

11:23refer to it again. Charts and tooltips,

11:26dashboards and tooltips,

11:28that was amazing and they showed that

11:30almost a year and a half ago now. But it's

11:33still not turned up

11:34and they're not releasing that in bits. So

11:37yeah, I don't know what's going on.

11:39Obviously maybe these things

11:41are hard to phase in, maybe these features

11:42are there but they're timing them to come

11:44inside with other features.

11:46Who knows? But yeah, I'd just love to see

11:48some of that actually come through as more

11:51finished products.

11:53Okay, last but not least, this vlog. I've

11:57really enjoyed making this vlog for the

12:00last three weeks now.

12:02I'm recording this quite late on. So three

12:04weeks I've been really devoted to this vlog

12:06. I've done about eight

12:08or nine videos. I have tons of footage. I

12:10filled up about 120 gigs worth of space on

12:13my phone

12:14just recording videos and taking photos and

12:17it's been really, really enjoyable. Now

12:20earlier on I said

12:21that I would think about what I'd do at the

12:24end of the vlog, with the vlog in total.

12:29And I sort of didn't know

12:31what content I'd be talking about in the v

12:33log. But I've had a little bit of a thought

12:36about it and in a way

12:38I think there is an avenue for a vlog in

12:40the Tableau space. Largely because the

12:44whole Tableau community is exactly that.

12:48And the community is made of people and I

12:50think it's been really valuable, at least

12:53for me, to do this vlog

12:55and have to go and meet those people. So

12:57purely from a selfish perspective it's been

12:59really valuable for me

13:01because it's made me really reflect and

13:03look at what's going on and talk about

13:06those things. In other terms

13:08I've had lots of great feedback during

13:09conference and after conference from people

13:12watching and enjoying the content

13:14and that's always welcoming and I really

13:16appreciate that because it means I'm not

13:18just wasting my time.

13:20But also I think there's a bit of a story

13:22to tell around Tableau. I think, you know,

13:26compared to other software tools

13:27I really do get the sense that Tableau is a

13:29really lively product and in a way I think

13:33a vlog is a nice way to show that

13:35liveliness because often written form doesn

13:39't do it justice and you really need to see

13:43some of this stuff.

13:43Tableau is all about seeing and

13:44understanding your data so wouldn't it be

13:46great if you could see and understand

13:49the experiences for yourself. And that's

13:51what I really want to do with the vlog. So

13:53I'm not making any commitment

13:55to how often or when or when the next one

13:57will be but I have been thinking about

14:00things that I'm going to vlog about

14:04and I've already got a couple of people on

14:05the case with a couple of topics which is

14:07great, I love that.

14:09If you've got some ideas drop them in the

14:10comments, get in touch, I'd love to talk to

14:12you or collaborate on an episode

14:16and more to the point I'm really excited to

14:20see what we can make.

14:22That doesn't mean I'm going to stop on

14:23tutorials, I'm still going to try and do as

14:25much of that.

14:26I've had great feedback on that too so I

14:28want to try and do more of that as well and

14:31I want to try and do stuff that's useful

14:33not just doing a tutorial for tutorial sake

14:35but stuff that's useful and valuable to

14:37people.

14:38So yeah, let's see where this goes.

14:45[Music]

14:55I hope so.