Yes, a 5:30am start time is early, but in our experience, you HAVE TO start this early if you want time to make the keynotes. Running people are a weird bunch anyway, so 5:30 is never too early for us!

The run leaders will have high visibility bibs and torches for everyone's safety. If you have lights, bring them along. I've run these routes many times and it's a beautiful trail along the river. There are always tons of runners out and about.

NOTE: You may see a meetup list on the conference website, but it doesn't start until 6:30. If you go to that one, you have very, very little chance of making the keynotes. Plus, most of the runners will be at our run. And we'll be done before they even start!

Tableau has informed us that they will not be supporting us this year. However, keep up with the #RunData16 hashtag on Twitter for all of the latest information. See you in Austin!

Today at the Tableau Conference keynote, Dave Story introduced the crowd to Vizable, the first time Tableau has launched a new product at its conference. I immediately downloaded it and have already built three simple charts that took no more than a few minutes each.

As a use case, let’s look at this viz from The Wall Street Journal.


This is cute, but completely ineffective as a design. Comparisons are nearly impossible. I copied the data from the webpage, saved it into Excel in OneDrive, opened Vizable, connected to the data, and built this simpler bar chart alternative, all in about 2 minutes.



Tableau has yet again gotten me addicted...quickly. I can see many great uses for Vizable already. Go download it and play. It’s completely free.

As I sit in the Virgin lounge at Heathrow airport, I thought I’d quickly share my recommended sessions for the Tableau Conference. If this is your first Tableau Conference, you’re in for quite a treat. It’ll be an amazing experience and it will feel overwhelming. With a little planning you’ll be fine.

My best advice:

• Choose at least 2 sessions per time slot (in case you don’t get in your first choice)
• If a session sucks, get up, walk out and go to another session. Don’t worry about hurting the speaker’s feelings. They’re the reason you’re leaving in the first place. After all, you paid to be there, so you need to get the most out of it.
• All sessions that are led by Tableau employees are recorded, so if there’s a conflict, that could help you decide which one to skip.
• Absolutely DO NOT MISS the IronViz! It’s far and away my favorite session.
• Get to sessions early so you can get a seat, then go out and get a drink and use the facilities.
• Drink lots of water. These will be long, exhausting days (and nights) and the last thing you need is to be dehydrated in the desert.
• Meet as many people as you can. Find the people you follow on Twitter and say hi to them. I love it when I meet new people.

Here are the sessions I plan to attend. Note, the #RunData15 events are early on Tues/Thurs and we’ll leave from the MGM lobby promptly at 5:15am.

Tableau On Tour comes to London next week. This will be my first conference as a partner, so I’m interested to see how the experience is different. You’ll likely be able to find me hanging around The Information Lab booth, which you won’t be able to miss in all of its orangeness.

First, I know I won’t be able to compete in the Information Lab Speed Challenge.


But you can, and you can win a drone. This year’s challenge include a bit of Alteryx as well. If you’re not an Alteryx user yet, ask us for help. Don’t worry, the Alteryx piece will be simple enough for anyone to follow along, even a brand new user.

I’m very excited to be hosting a breakfast Wednesday morning with founder, boss and friend Tom Brown. We’re going to be talking about the Data School and how the experts we’re building will be instrumental in the world of data analytics. If you think you’re company would like to take on one of these consultants for a 6-month engagement after their training is complete or if you’d like to have the School do a 1-week project for free with your company’s data, email me and I’ll get you into the breakfast. Trust me, this isn’t a group of talent you want to miss out on.

The consultants at the School will be very visible throughout the conference. If you see one of them, stop them and ask how things are going. Ask them to show you what they’re working on. Find out how much they’ve learned in only two weeks of training.

Lastly, I thought I’d share my agenda. I’m hoping I get to go to this many sessions, but I’m fairly sure things will change. I’d always rather talk shop in the hallways than go to sessions. These types of conversations are what the Tableau community and Tableau conferences are all about; these are how you get value from them.



See you at The Brewery Monday!