I started using Tableau in 2007. I've learned a lot since then. In this video, I go back to the beginning and tell you how I got started. My journey won't be dissimilar to many of you. Plus, I provide some simple steps to learn faster.

I had a great time speaking yesterday at the Data Viz Summit in SF.  This was the first time I used Prezi and it worked out really well.  What fun would it be without taking some risks, including the two live demos I gave.  I would highly encourage you to give Prezi a try.  I don’t think I’ll use PowerPoint again.

I want to give a special shout out to Martin McGinn, Namit Raisurana, Heather Torres and George Lee for the great feedback during rehearsal.  It’s great to have such a supportive team and a culture that promotes openness and honest feedback.  It made a big difference.

There was a great speaker lineup.  The videos of the talks should be available shortly after the conference and I will post my talk, plus the others then.  And I will be writing a brief summary of my favorite talks. 

In the meantime, enjoy my Prezi.

If you haven’t read Drive by Daniel Pink, you should, now.  Buy it here or read a short overview of each chapter here.  Daniel has identified three components that Drive us:

1. Autonomy - The desire to be self-directed
2. Mastery - Our urge to get better at stuff
3. Purpose - The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

This led me to ponder…what motivates me?  Why do I love what I do?  I thought about how I’m driven.

1. Autonomy – I’m given task/projects and given the FREEDOM to figure them out and present them back in the most effective way.  I get to focus, concentrate and above all produce work on my terms.  I’m allowed to figure things out on my own, to solve puzzle in the way I see fit.  Best of all, I get to FAIL so that I learn.
2. Mastery – I want to be an expert at what I do.  This requires practice and opportunity, both of which I get from my boss. I get to play with data and with Tableau for hours on end each and every day. I’m driven by words from my boss like “Try out that new tool for this analysis.  I know you can make it sing like no one else has.”  In the end, I want to LEARN everyday.
3. Purpose – I want to make a difference at Coke that no one has ever made before and I’m on that path.  I’ve been told that the promotion optimization work that I’ve been doing is groundbreaking at Coke worldwide.  I’m not motivated by pay or incentives. I’m motivated by the SMILES I see and the eyes that open from the teams I support and the customers I serve.

Here’s a great video that’ll make you want to go out and take on the world.  This book truly is a game changer.

The next ATUG meeting will be November 17 @ 1PM ET

Who - All ATUG members and guests
What – The November in person hands on meeting
Where – Coca-Cola - 2 Coca Cola Plaza, Atlanta, GA 30313, USA-G

Important – You must check-in with security and tell them you are there for the Atlanta Tableau User Group meeting. They will then call me to come get you. I will have people in the lobby to help usher you to the room.

Plan to arrive at least 15 minutes early

RSVP – http://www.tableausoftware.com/usergroups/atlanta-nov17-11

Agenda:

1. Tableau Customer Conference Presentation – The Holy Grail of Strategic Decision Making (Andy Kriebel, Coca-Cola)

2. Training – Iron Viz Challenge: Create a beautiful viz with unfamiliar data in less than 30 minutes (David Newman, CSE Inc.)

3. Open forum –

• Tableau Customer Conference feedback, highlights, etc.
• December meeting – location, time, agenda

-- This will be a hands on session - Bring your laptop and Tableau with you --

Wednesday I received the feedback from my session/presentation at the 4th Tableau Customer Conference.  I had a blast presenting my case studies (The Holy Grail of Strategic Decision Making) and the interaction from the audience made it a wonderful experience.  I presented three case studies:

1. Collaborating for Value – An era of winning (this was an interactive analysis of retail prices by store by price point)
2. Customer Segmentation – Planning for growth and identifying opportunities
3. Penetration & Voids – Growing the business by finding the gaps

As has been my experience with presenting this same material both internally to our customer teams and externally to our buyers, the audience was able to gleam insights by “seeing” the data.  It’s a pretty cool experience when the data and the tool tell the story without you having to say a word.  Tableau makes it oh so easy.

What surprised me most about many of the customer presentations I attended was the lack of using Tableau live to show off their work.  Maybe my material lends itself more to that type of interactivity, but I would highly encourage anyone presenting findings from Tableau to use the tool live; you’ll get immediate feedback and you’ll be able to answer questions on the fly.

So how’d I do?  First up is a chart from Tableau that ranks all of the presentations, not only the customer presentations.  I’m the circle that the red line points to.  According to Tableau, this placed me in the top 3 of the customer presentations.

But how about the feedback on my presentation?  The response was overwhelmingly positive. I always get anxious waiting for the feedback!

I asked someone that was drinking a Pepsi to leave, jokingly of course, but I wonder if he gave me the “poor” ranking.  I tend to be a bit too directly and sarcastic and sometimes it’s taken the wrong way.  Or maybe it was someone that didn’t win the t-shirt I gave away.

Anyway, thanks to all of you that attended my session.  It was an awesome dialogue with the 75+ of you.  Hopefully we’ll catch up again in Europe.

Gratefully,

Andy

Please take a second to click this link to give me a quick show of support: http://bit.ly/lo58QV

The Tableau Interactive “Viz” contest closed Friday.  The winner chosen will take away a free roundtrip ticket to attend the 2011 Tableau Customer Conference. This includes 3 night’s accommodations at the Encore and a chance to compete in the Iron Viz championship with the winners of two other contests. The winner of Iron Viz will take away a new iPad2, and $2,000.

My time was limited to work on the contest (I’m busy blowing people away with Tableau in my real job) so I updated a viz I created back in December.  The key difference now is that Diet Coke has overtaken Pepsi as the #2 preferred soft drink brand in the world.  You read that right, Coke & Diet Coke are now #1 and #2.  I think we know who’s winning the cola wars now!

The viz below is a cleaned up, simplified version of my December viz.  The purpose is simple, how is Coke performing compared to Pepsi.  Compare historical price trends and shares traded over time.  Using the “Choose a time frame” selector, you can view the data by Year, Quarter, Month or Day…you pick the level of detail you want to see. You can also drill down to specific years (the data starts in 1977 since that’s when Pepsi went public).

Vote here (and vote for Coke!): http://bit.ly/f24E61

There’s been a buzz around town about the increase in Coke’s (NYSE: KO) stock price over the past several months.  Coke is THE symbol of Atlanta, so naturally there’s a huge interest in their success and the demise of the main competitor.

If I may digress, you can pinpoint the turnaround on March 5, 2009 with Muhtar Kent’s inspiring letter to shareholders.  Mr. Kent’s first job with Coke was in 1978 as a driver and he has risen steadily through the system to CEO and is deservedly compensated quite handsomely ($19.6M in 2008, $14.8M in 2009).  According to the AJC, this could buy you 1.5 personal jets, 109.5 houses and 192.25 luxury SUVs.

When measuring Coke’s performance there’s only one large competitor (yes, I’m intentionally NOT mentioning their name).  I created the dashboard below to do some basic analysis, plus I wanted to get some practice with parameters in Tableau.


Some basic things I see:

1. The New Coke disaster in 1986 didn’t hurt as much as you would be led to believe by the media (it tasted terrible!)
   
2. Coke’s stock is up 85% from a two-year low point in March 2009
   
3. Strictly based on price, Coke has been getting killed by its main competitor since 2003, but has effectively closed the gap
   
4. When I looked at closing price and shares traded vs. the main competitor, it looks like there is an inverse relationship.  I created the dual axis chart as another way to make this comparison

With Muhtar’s passion and the resurgence of the Coke brand, Coke is poised to stomp the competition!  Don’t be like Richard Branson; he learned the hard way that you don’t take on Coke (anyone remember Virgin Cola?).

Finally, I was given a 6-pack of glass bottles to share over the holidays.  There is a photo contest for the best holiday celebration including these Cokes.  Any ideas?

Shake Up Christmas!