Wednesday morning. My lawyer dragged me down to the conference center despite my protests. The keynote of which there would be two that day did not disappoint. They called this man Daniel Pink and he was supposed to be a motivational speaker. Anthony Robbins pops into my mind. I’m not a usual subscriber to motivational talks but this Pink character was about to change my mind.
Mr. Pink, not a Reservoir Dog, used monkeys hucking cucumbers at lab technicians to explain how certain companies are using incorrect motivational techniques to inspire creativity. His points were salient, his presentation was inspiring and, dare I say, motivational.
Feeling fully motivated, there were rumors that some Brit was to present more than three hundred slides on visualization and color (not colour). The session was cheekily called 50 shades of data and presented by Matt Francis the Tableau Podcaster. The rumor was true, he blazed through three hundred (or more, I couldn’t keep track) slides in under an hour. Great examples of color in visualization and a couple new interesting ways to highlight data with color. Looking forward to see what Matt has in store for next year.
Artilyzing. It’s not in the dictionary, yet, but Bethany Lyons intends to put it there. This Tableau employee knows her product. Using what I can only assume was sorcery, Bethany flew through Table Calcs that would make any junior analysts’ eyes bleed only to prove them unnecessary by selecting a different type of visualization that better showcased that data. Her mastery of the tool was quite amazing and I again thought to myself that this, too, might be the Jedi I am looking for.
Wednesday nights Keynote was none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson. I couldn’t help my mind wandering back to the last time a Tyson performed at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, it was in the 90’s and someone lost an ear. Could this Tyson out perform the last? It would take some dark magic, and that is exactly what Neil Tyson brought. That and booze, I was starting to see a theme.
After grabbing a drink my lawyer and I settled in to watch this astrophysicist debate movies for their inaccurate representation of science. Fascinating, hilarious, insightful, and another more or less popular song remixed to compete with what was already playing on repeat in my head (It’s All About The Data vs. Watch Me Viz). To quickly paraphrase Dr. Tyson: if historical inaccuracies cause issues with, say, clothing in films then why are scientific inaccuracies swept under the rug?
Gave some money back to the casino. Was the green glow getting brighter each night?
Thursday morning, time to continue this data filled adventure. Dr. Hannah Fry, a mathematician, walked her captive audience through her reservations about data. An interesting perspective considering this was a data conference. We have our own damned data hashtag. Dr. Tyson less than twelve hours ago told us it was “All About the Data.” WE ARE DATA! Before the revolt of these data geeks, her conclusion is there is a place for data but it can be distorted and we should keep the possible subjectivity in mind. Pitchforks were put away, torches extinguished.
Gladiators. Three brave analysts stuffed into chef attire and put up on the same stage each of our key notes had shared under bright and presumably hot lights. Warriors. Twenty minutes to build a stunning visualization. This was of course the Iron Viz Championship. Each of these competitors knowingly entered and won a seed competition and now were to face off in front of this blood thirsty crowd, winner take all. Brave. Shine Pulikathara, Matt Chambers, and Skyler Johnson all built amazing visualizations and ultimately Shine was the victor with an absolutely stunning dashboard. And no one lost an ear.
Tableau Conference 2016 is to be in Austin, luckily in November so the heat might not break into triple digits. My blood is too thick for that climate in the dead of summer..
Sir Ken Robinson closed out the conference. He reminded me of Alfred of the Christian Bale Batman movies. Ideas just sound better with a queen's english accent. Sir Robinson was able to provide that last bump of enlightenment in ideas of fostering creativity in schools, something I believe everyone can agree on.
And with that Tableau Conference 2015 was over. Unlike this blog post, the conference flew by. I met some old friends and made some new ones. I didn’t lose the house to the casino despite not landing a single seven through my entire stay. And most important, I was inspired. I’m inspired to bring my newly found knowledge back to work, I’m excited to experiment with javascript. I’m excited to spread the gospel of data and never stop learning.
