Tuesday morning was the pinnacle of, “but wait, there’s more,” for this data thirsty crowd.
The Tableau developers took the stage to unveil all the new features they had been, well, developing. New features like union for csv and Excel sheets along with the ability to join disparate data sources had the audience excited. The addition of search highlights and improved map data gave the audience an apparent wide eyed excitement only seen in a child's eyes on her birthday. But wait, there’s more. Advanced analytical capabilities will identify outliers automatically in a data set! There were honestly so many new exciting features I’ve passed over several because I can’t remember them all! Tableau 10 can’t come soon enough.
But wait, there’s more! A demonstrated iPad application for data analytics called Vizable. Bringing analytics to the tablet is groundbreaking, I’d looked before and never seen anything like this. Truly Tableau is changing the way we do data, remind me to buy more stock.
But wait there’s more! It’s free!
But wai.. you get it. The iPad app is available today, right at this very second, in the app store. This had been a secret product launch, Steve Jobs eat your heart out. I don’t remember any turtlenecks though. I was waiting for it and then it happened: the thud of jaws hitting the floor simultaneously. I think I saw a couple seizures from the excitement.
Reeling from excitement, the conference goers dispersed to various lectures and breakout sessions.
An unfortunate aspect of the conference is the conflicting sessions. With something like ten per timeslot an analyst has a difficult time selecting sessions. After conferring with my lawyer and handy DATA15 app, our game plan was set.
One favorite session from the first day included a play featuring two Tableau software employees in a ruse. Charles and Dustin act out an all too familiar situation in which a Excel guru is introduced to Tableau. This hilarious session is worth the time, providing light hearted and unexpected entertainment along with insight to help others embrace the amazing tool.
After composing myself from the chuckle fest. I went to see what Anya Ahern, Allen Walker, and Charles Schafer had been tweeting about for the last few months, the creation of a “Minority Report” user experience. I had to see what the fuss was all about so I would finally be able to get a good night's rest. Folks were definitely geeking out on and off stage about what was about to be shown as I waited in anticipation ready to be let in on the secret.
The presentation began with the integration of javascript and Tableau, which was quite neat. I scribbled a few ideas down to take back to my day job. The presentation advanced to “Skyfall” like maps (built in Mapbox) for law enforcement and fire departments with live police scanner audio.
This was very cool, but then it got weird. Theses wizards started using their hands and voice to control data visualizations. Perhaps these were the Jedi’s I was looking for. After a facial recognition demonstration and a bit of showing off with dragging and dropping visualizations there was something I really didn’t expect.
These voodoo practitioners had created an operating system using Tableau and were using machine learning to predict crimes in San Francisco! Though the predictions have yet to be confirmed, this group had taken the concept to an incredible level. I’d like to see this as a keynote next year in Austin, incredible.
“Data Night Out,” as it was called, was not memorable... for some reason.
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