This past week the Tessellation team took to the desert of Las Vegas for Tableau Conference 2019. The team left Vegas with some great connections, industry knowledge, and fun team memories. Here is a recap of our team’s biggest take aways from this year’s conference!
Shaun Davis
Getting to sit super close to the stage with Alicia for IronViz was awesome! We were so close I could almost hear the fervent clicks of the Vizzers.
I Had the opportunity to meet and spend time with a lot of the Tableau Product managers. If you’ve never participated in one of their user research panels, I highly recommend it. You’ll leave with a whole new perspective on the challenges they face in continually improving the product.
As a trainer it was interesting to see different approaches to teaching the tool and makes me super excited for everyone to check out the offerings through Data Coach.
Alicia Bembenek
Some of us on the team work remotely and I appreciated having the chance for so many of us to meet in Vegas and hang out. It was fun to chat and relax for a bit!
I attended some sessions and Brain Dates about training people in Tableau. I had some really good conversations about that. It became really clear to me that there is a huge need out there to train new people–not only in a corporate settings, but also to train college students. This made me even more excited that we created Data Coach to fill that need!
I always enjoy attending Iron Viz and Devs on Stage. It’s just so much fun and so silly to geek out over a software tool! 🙂
Luke Stanke
Professionally, one of my jobs is to become more fact-driven through the use of data. Getting tens/hundreds/thousands to use data correctly for informed decision-making is not a simple task. Every organization is trying to do it. Tableau saw an opportunity to host a summit for data leaders who have the responsibility of enabling their organizations to do exactly this. The day was action-packed and included high-level, but dense enablement discussion from Mark Jewett, round-table like discussions on topics that included governance, strategy, community building, and center-of-excellence building. It also included Julie Foudy getting us to face our fears and ended with me singing an “opera-like” version of Eminem on stage.
Hey #WorkoutWednesday2019 lovers out there, @AnnUJackson killed it on the stage today at the Data Leadership Summit #data19 👏 @JulieFoudy @lukestanke pic.twitter.com/vG7fJdKisZ
— Fred Najjar (@FredrickNajjar) November 12, 2019
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t get a lot from extensive sessions (even though I was presenting in more than one). I enjoy conversations with a small group of people who are tackling similar problems. The BrainDates format was perfect for this. I attended four BrainDates and zero sessions this year. During the BrainDates I discussed topics around integrating Tableau and Salesforce, sales analytics in general, and novel approaches to data science with Tableau.
I enjoyed co-presenting Workout Wednesday with Curtis Harris and doing a tips session with Zen Master Jeffery Shaffer.
In the Workout Wednesday session, it was great to see the size of the room more-than-double from last year. Even more exciting was seeing people get to a solution in the 30 minute time span.
In the tips session, Jeff and I presented in the very last slot, and it was great to see that people stuck around for the very last session and wanted to come and see our tips! We had about 800 registered, and I joked that we’d be lucky to see half of that. It turns out we were over the registered number!
Finally, our team is located all across the United States (and Europe). So we don’t see each other every day. It’s always energizing to see the team and the energy they bring to work every day. It’s a reminder of how lucky we are to have all of them on the team.
Ashley Erickson
As a first timer at TC, I quickly realized the Tableau community is made up of some amazing people that wanted to learn and share the triumphs and tribulations they have faced within their own organizations.
When you set away from the corporate setting and take the time to get to know people in a different setting on a personal level, it is incredible to see the commonalities and uniqueness in people
Beauty and Essex might be the best restaurant in Vegas!
Spencer Baucke
Although this was my third Tableau Conference, it was the first that I fully utilized Brain Dates appropriately. Brain Dates are the hidden gem of TC. Learning from industry leaders and peers is so valuable that I would go just to attend Brain Dates alone!
It was so cool to see the vision that Tableau and Salesforce had for the platform together. When the news of the sales first happened I admit I was nervous, but seeing the roadmap for integrating, I am very excited about Tableau’s future.
Being able to present at my third conference was really special. It just confirmed to me how cool the power of the Tableau community can be. I think time and time again the Tableau community sets this platform apart.
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